TYLER CUSICK
Tyler Cusick is a Staff Writer for the World section of the Harvard Political Review. He is originally from Westfield, NJ. Tyler is a sophomore Social Studies concentrator at the College. He is also a member of the Harvard Track and Cross Country teams. Tyler's online column focuses on international humanitarianism. His other interests include foreign culture, professional tennis, and music.



David Brooks Gets Young Idealists Wrong

World April 16, 2012 2:24 pm

The future Brooks is looking for.

From “Sam Spade at Starbucks”:

It’s hard not to feel inspired by all these idealists, but their service religion does have some shortcomings. In the first place, many of these social entrepreneurs think they can evade politics. They have little faith in the political process and believe that real change happens on the ground beneath it. That’s a delusion. You can cram all the nongovernmental organizations you want into a country, but if there is no rule of law and if the ruling class is predatory then your achievements won’t add up to much.

Yesterday the NY Times ran a David Brooks op-ed on the limited worldview of “wonderful young” idealists. Brooks praises these optimistic people for the “uplifting” good they do in the world but proceeds to lay out the limitations of their “hip” service religion, namely that NGOs and microfinance can only go so far in helping people. For Brooks, these idealists do not care enough about politics, the process whereby corruption, venality, and disorder in the government and civil society are confronted and solved. He proposes rough and tumble noir hero Sam Spade from The Maltese Falcon as a new paradigm for these well-intentioned but misguided philanthropists who are only able to do so much good in the current format of social entrepreneurship and apolitical involvement. Spade is reticent, allergic to self-righteousness and appears unfeeling, but he is motivated by a disillusioned sense of honor. He stands for a basic sense of good order, the idea that crime should be punished, and that bad behavior shouldn’t go uncorrected.

Brooks points out that these traits are not only lacking in idealist culture but sorely needed if the good intentioned young men and women of today are going to solve the world’s problems tomorrow. On behalf of said good intentioned idealists, I feel that Mr. Brooks’s piece deserves a response.

Brooks makes a great point. You cannot avoid politics. Microloans only help so long as a stable economy exists for entrepreneurs to enter into. Predation of aid funds by the government and elite in developing nations sees billions of dollars diverted from needy people to Swiss bank accounts. These are issues that, as Brooks points out, must be dealt with if genuine societal change is going to come to those in need.

Yet, the article’s criticism is in my opinion misplaced. It does not give enough credit to the egalitarianism of the NGO. In a world where increasing expertization demands years of experience and expensive degrees, the nonprofit sector offers millions of people the chance to go out into the world and do something. Qualifications pale in importance next to a commitment to alleviating human suffering.

Herein lies the purpose of this massive coterie of NGOs: the alleviation of human suffering. Brooks is correct to point out that the government is the only way to bring about long term solutions, but misses the fact that many NGOs are not looking at the long term. They see millions of people suffering from disease, poverty, or abuse, and attempt to treat on an individual or local level. Their mission, perhaps best incapsulated by Doctor’s Without Borders, is to help people in need, seeing all people as people rather than just statistics. These idealists read articles about 400,000 children dying of famine in the Horn of Africa, and see them as 400,000 distinct individuals instead of some amorphous mass of suffering. Conversely, within the bureaucratized system of governance, computability often trumps humanity.

Example from Rwanda 1994:

Ahead of their arrival, Dallaire says he got a phone call. A U.S. officer was wondering precisely how many Rwandans had died. Dallier was puzzled and asked why he wanted to know. ‘We are doing our calculations back here,’ the U.S. Officer said, ‘and one American casualty is worth about 85,000 Rwandan dead.” - Samantha Power

Brooks mistakes the apolitical nature of NGOs as apathy without taking into account the importance of neutrality in their mission. Politicized organizations often lose access to the people they are trying to help along ideological grounds, especially in warzones. NGOs are apolitical because it allows them to operate wherever people are suffering. You cannot criticize idealists in these organizations for avoiding politics without acknowledging how essential (and pragmatic0 this is to their line of work.

That said, Brooks is correct in pointing out the limitations of apolitical action. People defer to the international bodies in place too much. The UN, World Bank, and IMF (among others) have been left to deal with the political fallout of struggling nations while the majority of manpower has gone into short term fixes.

Perhaps the solution is for hybrid NGO-lobbyist-consultant organizations to emerge, potentially following the model of Amnesty International, that push international actors to take firmer stances on structural flaws in the world system (i.e. the international arms trade). This is the work I see policy students doing, mainly because they have the educational clout to be taken seriously as “experts.”  This work is not something that should be confused with what aid organizations do.

Politics is the ultimate solution to the big problems out there, but operating on a regional or national level cannot solve all of the world’s problems. Laws are only effective if people follow them, and as the continued plight of women in Pakistan has shown, political solutions can only extend as far as local enforcement is willing to take them. Thus NGOs and governments need to work in tandem to tackle major problems. Brooks brings up a great point but misses the existence of this dichotomy in how the world deals with problems. NGOs look to help suffering people on an individual level. Governments look to create the structures whereby these changes become norms.

We should encourage more promising students to take the necessary next steps to make policy changes, perhaps highlighting the steps needed to work as a civil or international servant. We need both young idealists and young realists working together to solve the world’s problems.

Photocredit: Council on Foreign Relations

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The Changing Shape of Aid

World April 9, 2012 12:10 am

Corporate aid is redefining humanitarianism in the state capitalism age.

Back in January the Economist ran a cover feature on the rise of state capitalism in developing economies, detailing the popularity of state-owned nationals in rising economic powers. China has long adopted this model, dating back to the Great Opening of the 1970s, but recent government-brokered deals in Brazil and rumblings in South Africa imply that the emerging world elite economies are increasingly seeing this hybridized capitalist model as a viable system. This development has fascinating implications for international aid, as the merging of government and business sectors offers the potentiality for a newer, more corporatized humanitarian assistance model more akin to that of the colonial era.

Chinese expansion into African aid has been going on for the greater part of the last two decades. Beginning with construction of a highway connecting copper mines in Zambia to the port city Dar es Salaam in Tanzania in the 1970s, the Chinese have pursued relentless infrastructural aid in much of resource-rich Africa. Continually seeking new ways to ensure cheap natural resources, China has constructed over thousands of miles of roads, hospitals, and other infrastructure projects to accommodate its large corporate interests in the region. Chinese settlers have flocked to the region as construction and administrative workers as well as managers of these new holdings. The holdings of Eximbank, ZTE, and the Chinese Railway Construction Corp already stand as three of the largest in East Africa.

This development aid model is in stark contrast to the more charitable method of Western nations, who for the most part just pour money into African states and communities with the hope that it will filter through the layers of corruption down to the people who need it most. The European nations, the United States, and Canada have sent an average $50 billion to Sub-Saharan Africa every year for the last half decade and yet every country in the region remains mired in infrastructural, governmental, and economic malaise. Shining stars have recently hit snags with endemic corruption in South Africa and a coup and secession movement undermining a functional democracy in Mali and more than half of Foreign Policy’s top ten in its Failed States Index are African ones.

Zambian academic Dambisa Moyo wrote a scathing critique of Western blind aid in her 2009 book Dead Aid, going so far as to claim that the massive influx of money into African nations retarded their development by making “failed” a profitable model for state elite. She called for the West to withdraw its patronage and force African nations to confront their multitude of internal problems, a potentially helpful, but far more likely calamitous prospect. Short of going cold turkey on aid, she provides an alternative in the Chinese model described above. Foreign firms come into Africa, set up the powerful economic actors that the African nations are too weak to establish, build roads and hospitals providing positive externalities to everyone, and at least churn some money into the system through taxes and the creation of new jobs. She points out the massive highway project in Ethiopia as an example of foreign business interests providing the poor with a necessary infrastructural good.

Yet there are serious colonial underpinnings to this humanitarianism for profit scheme that is increasingly coming into vogue. England went into India and Spain went into Latin America, built roads, and extracted natural resources under national corporations hundreds of years ago. The East India Trading company is the most famous example of the state capitalistic model. Building roads and hospitals is great, unless they fall down, but foreign multinationals or nationals carving up spheres of interest already happened ironically in China throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is hard to criticize what the Chinese are doing because they are simply coming late to a party that every other major economy joined one hundred years ago (see Dutch Shell or Rio Tinto). Of the fifty largest African companies only 2 lie outside of North Africa or South Africa (Nigeria’s First Bank of Nigeria and Zimbabwe’s Pretoria Portland Co), and as it stands most of the portions of African economies not tied up in aid are largely dependent on the revenue generated by foreign companies within their borders.

Until African nations reform to the point that viable businesses can emerge uninhibited by the cronyism of state politics, corporate colonization will continue and thus corporate aid models will increase. Governmental colonialism may have ended in 1977 with the end of French rule in Djibouti but corporate colonialism seems here to stay for a while, and savvy businesses willing to take the risk of placing capital in volatile regions with massive upsides are increasingly going to go about getting things done without the meddling and bureaucracy of stumbling states. The next twenty years will likely see a host of airports, highways, power stations, and high-speed cables with Chinese, Brazilian, and Indian company’s names on them bringing much needed benefits to millions.

This is not to say that countries will not continue to dump enormous amounts of money into poor countries. The non-profit sector is a massive economic entity in itself and is largely self-sustaining, thus many rich countries have a vested interest in maintaining aid, despite what conservative voters would like to think. But corporate aid is here to stay, and while it may not be perfect, it is at least doing some good in regions that could use the help.

For more coverage of this issue check out Deborah Brautigam’s great blog China in Africa: The Real Story.

Photocredit: China Talking Points

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KONY 2012: Beyond the Critiques

World March 31, 2012 12:16 pm

The impact of KONY 2012 has been inspiring. Released on March 5th, it has already garnered over 100 million views on Youtube and Vimeo. The documentary film looking to make the World’s Most Wanted Criminal one of the most famous men on earth has brought advocacy to the mainstream. While hardly the first viral campaign to turn heads on the internet, the reach and speed with which KONY 2012 spread elevates it to a landmark moment. The world is abuzz about a human rights issue (!!) in Central Africa (!!), and critical mass seems to only be building to the crescendo of April 20th’s “Cover the Night” campaign, which promises to be incredible. Or at least that was the way it all seemed to be going until cynicism from the human rights community, backlash from the Ugandan citizens it looks to help, and a very public mental breakdown allowed us to divert our attention away from the central message of the video and focus instead upon its flaws.

The video is flawed. The criticisms launched by experts on Central Africa and human rights advocacy groups are for the most part true. The video does simplify the situation in Central Africa to appeal to a large audience, it does make it seem as though Uganda continues to suffer from the destabilizing effects of Joseph Kony, and it does preach a message of Western neo-liberalism or the infamous White Man’s Burden. Invisible Children issued an explanatory statement in response to much of the criticism lobbed at it. The fact remains that many of the 100+ million people who watched the film still know almost nothing about the wars and insurgencies in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Sitting at your computer, watching a video, and feeling bad about the LRA may make you feel good about yourself, but it isn’t making a difference for the people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan.

All of these are fair criticisms. But to say only that is to miss the point. A human rights documentary has as many views on the Internet as a Nicki Minaj music video, people care about Central Africa and child soldiers, and Washington and the African Union have responded. I would wager that a fair number of people were introduced to the nation of Uganda by watching this video. KONY 2012 is struggling against ignorance. It is broadcasting its message to an audience in an innovative and effective way and I think it deserves more credit for how it is achieving all of this success, despite its flaws.

The central message of the Kony video is that we can make a difference in the world if we truly care. The human rights community should not write off KONY 2012 as a blip on the radar because it is inspiring; it has shown that people will at least listen if you package your message in a way that appeals to them. While it may not have appealed to Ugandans, who were upset that the film focused on white activists far more than it did Ugandan victims, it was not necessarily meant to. In fact, the film worked so well among the audience it was targeting that the world is abuzz talking about all its flaws.

What is the point of all this cynicism? I understand the frustration surrounding the factual deficiencies of the movie. Human rights activists and Ugandans see the KONY 2012 phenomenon through the perspective of communities that have long struggled to get their voices heard angry that their big chance is not exactly to their liking. Despite this understandable reaction, I don’t see any positive aspect to delegitimizing the campaign. The Prime Minister of Uganda recently posted a countervideo that both praises the video for demonstrating that people do care about other people’s suffering and clarifies some of its deficiencies. The takeaway  is mostly positive, as opposed to much of the Western press. Sitting behind a desk writing books or policy memos is one way of dealing with issues like Joseph Kony, and it is an important way, but 20 years after he took over the LRA he is still in power. Obviously the classic method of human rights advocacy is not the most effective means of alleviating suffering, and I think it is time to accept appeals like KONY 2012 as an example to be built upon and corrected. The movie put Kony and Central Africa in the news, giving activists a chance to publicize the facts not covered in the video’s 30 minute run time. Extending the scope of the video by providing additional information about Kony is helpful. Disparaging the video and making a mockery out of the man who made it are not.

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Follow advocacy groups on Twitter to receive quick information that will keep you up to speed on developments and advocacy opportunities. Here is Invisible Children’s Twitter account.

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A Reality Check for Western Liberalism

Democratization Watch - World February 16, 2012 12:36 am

Despite protests, dictators like Bashar al-Assad remain in power across the globe.


Freedom House, a Washington-based NGO, recently released its annual Freedom in the World Report, reviewing the civil rights and liberties records of political regimes around the world.  In a year that many Westerners would like to remember as a time of increasing liberalism, the data is surprisingly negative.  Despite the Arab Spring, the removal or death of dictators Mubarak, Ben Ali, Gaddafi, and Kim Jong Il, as well as reform in Burma/Myanmar,  few measurable changes were made in terms of global freedom. Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring was one of the few bright spots amongst a sea of oppression, having undergone one of the largest single year jumps, moving 35 points to a score comparable to that of Colombia and the Philippines. Other MENA (Middle East and North Africa) nations like Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia declined in their ratings, as protests have not necessarily translated into an increase in civil liberties. Instead, slides in areas like press freedom, rule of law, and the rights of civil society were rampant across the developing world.

The authoritarian tendencies of the ruling Fidesz Party in Hungary, increased violence against journalists in Russia, the removal of freedoms in Venezuela, and the violent suppression of uprisings in Syria constitute a handful of the 26 declines. A paltry 12 nations registered progress, notably Egypt, Libya, Thailand, Singapore, and, as previously mentioned, Tunisia.

But what does this mean for the future of freedom? Twenty years ago Francis Fukuyama wrote that with the collapse of the Soviet Union we had arrived at the onset of a new liberal democratic world order. Freedom was supposed to steadily increase as the autocratic regimes propped up by the jockeying of the Cold War succumbed to external and internal liberal pressures.  Yet here we are in 2012, and the amount of “Partially Free” and “Not Free” regimes still outnumbers the Free ones, 108 to 87.  We are in the sixth year of decline, as no countries moved into the Free category and the formation of South Sudan placed an additional country in the Not Free category. All in all there remain 18 nations that scored an abysmal 7 in at least one of the two categories.

Global optimism towards the revolutions is not entirely misguided as in some nations freedom did in fact increase, but the true lesson for 2011 is that protests cannot be mistaken for authentic political reform. Tahrir Square will only translate to liberalism something if the elected government avoids the pitfalls of many fledging democracies before them, namely religious-ethnic conflict, populism, and military intervention into politics. Already the reforms in Egypt have hit roadblocks as Mubarak left office 12 months ago and there remains no elected President.

Nonetheless we should not under-appreciate the popular uprisings in 2011  for their capacity to remind the world that motivated people can take the cause of freedom into their hands. The ongoing conflict in Syria demonstrates the strength of this message as the hope of change is pushing an increasing number of people to risk their lives in the fight against governmental injustice. Already we are seeing increased activist activity in Iran, China, and Russia. Despite the data, the life of contemporary dictators is growing increasingly difficult in the age of Twitter, and the pattern of rebellion in unexpected places will likely continue as many of the world’s largest countries undergo elections or political transitions. In other words, there is still reason to expect the unexpected.

Photocredit: Wikimedia Commons

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The Need for Somalian Intervention, Revisited

World August 8, 2011 1:28 pm


As I wrote in last October, America should lead the international community into action in Somalia. This year, Foreign Policy listed Somalia as the World’s Most Failed State for the fourth year in a row, long before the current massive famine broke out. With a child dying every six minutes from malnutrition in the five southern states, Somalia is a humanitarian disaster zone. The Guardian recently published an interactive map that shows the extent of the two-year drought and food crises across the entire Horn of Africa. Nearly 13 million people, already some of the poorest in the world, are at risk as food prices skyrocket and pastures wither. Humanitarian aid has trickled in as the international community (plagued by the American debt-ceiling fiasco, the Eurozone crisis, and the conflict in Libya) has haphazardly responded to a disaster in a country that is best known for being a haven for terrorists and pirates.

The last week has seen a marked increase in coverage from international media sources. Coupled with this attention has come an increased inflow of aid to the affected regions. Humanitarian agencies have stated that $2.48 billion will be needed to control the crisis and thus far only about half of that has been collected, with the largest contributors being the UK ($185 million) and Canada ($72 million). Despite aid efforts, the majority of relief has missed the hardest hit areas of southern Somalia because of the militant Islamist terrorist organization al-Shabaab. In October I wrote about how the international community needed to take action to eliminate this menace, responsible for the 2010 bombing attacks in Uganda as well as the Underwear Bomber who threatened Americans in 2009.  The need has only grown since then.

Al-Shabaab hardliners are denying the existence of famine in the regions that they control (the hardest hit zones) and are actively preventing many humanitarian organizations from entering the disaster zone so as to relieve the civilians. Speaking with NPR, Kristalina Georgieva, the Humanitarian Aid Commissioner of the European Union, described al-Shabaab as being “a dragon with many heads” and said that while some factions allow foreign aid in the regions they control, many do not. This denial of basic aid to millions of dying Somalis should be viewed as a mass atrocity by the international community and as ground for action. A report released on August 4th shows that around 29,000 children under the age of five have already perished from starvation and malnutrition in the last 90 days. Meanwhile, the death toll continues to rise at a rate estimated to be as high as 2,000 people a day.

The United States has promised $63 million in aid to the general region as well as an additional $5 million in aid to Somalia. However, most of this has not reached the Somali people because U.S. law prevents granting aid that supports terrorist organizations. While al-Shabaab has benefited by collecting taxes on foreign aid caravans carrying in American emergency aid, goods have been kept out of the hands of the dying. President Obama has taken action to lift this law so as to bring aid to the Somali people, but the situation demands far greater action. Al-Shabaab has enjoyed a half-hearted international response to their activities for far too long. Currently, only AMISOM, a small African Union peacekeeping contingency deployed in Mogadishu, stands between Al-Shabaab and the overthrow of the hapless Somali government.

The reality of a state controlled by an Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist organization is far closer in Somalia than in Afghanistan or Yemen, and the UN needs to take far more stringent measures to prevent this. The White House announced the creation of new American policy on instances of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, pledging quicker and more decisive action in the prevention of crimes against humanity. Attached to a press release on the new policy was this quote taken from 2010 National Security Strategy:

“The United States is committed to working with our allies, and to strengthening our own internal capabilities, in order to ensure that the United States and the international community are proactively engaged in a strategic effort to prevent mass atrocities and genocide. In the event that prevention fails, the United States will work both multilaterally and bilaterally to mobilize diplomatic, humanitarian, financial, and—in certain instances—military means to prevent and respond to genocide and mass atrocities.”

The situation in Somalia is mass atrocity. Al-Shabaab’s denial of humanitarian aid to starving Somali citizens calls for policy change on the part of the United States to increase international aid organizations’ penetration into the area. There is no doubt that these people need the assistance provided by Oxfam and the Red Cross and that al-Shabaab should not be permitted to deprive the Somali people of this.

This crisis is largely the fault of a broken government; the international community should take a stand and place Somalia back onto a track of development and stability. It all starts with the destruction of the “multi-headed dragon” that is pulling the country into ruin.

Source: humanwarvelous.blogspot.com

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The ICC to the Rescue!

World July 5, 2011 4:05 pm

The announcement of ICC charges against Moammar Gadhafi on Monday comes as yet another sign that the reign of the aged Libyan leader may soon be up. With official warrants for his release now on the table, it is only a matter of time until Gadhafi is safely locked away within the Hague to await an almost certain guilty verdict– or at least that should be the case. Yet “should” and “will be” are very different in such situations, especially considering ICC arrests have, historically, served little purpose. Without any actual means of enforcing its warrants, the ICC is often at the mercy of fickle national governments intent on following its rules only as often as convenient.

Case in point, Omar al-Bashir is not only still in power in Northern Sudan, despite an ICC warrant against him, but continues to turn a blind eye, if not even support the massacre of Sudanese separatists (who are no longer citizens of his nation). Even more, he is still regularly received in China and Russia as a legitimate foreign leader. This for a man who has had an arrest warrant sitting over his head for two years–a warrant with the words of genocide on its pages no less. Like Gadhafi, Bashir is a monster who continues to wreak havoc on the unfortunate people born within the boundaries of his state.

Still, punishments have been relatively meager from the international community and next to nonexistent from the ICC against such troubled dictators. Unable to do much of anything until a foreign government or UN security force drops criminals in its lap (recall the recent arrest of Mladic by the Serbian government), the ICC is largely ineffective. With its propensity for demanding the arrest of enemies of certain western, UN Security Council-holding states (of which it is safe to say Moammar Gadhafi is one), the court has demonstrated itself to be little more than a tool by which said states can justify acts of military aggression ex post facto (remember there’s only a no-fly zone in Libya). Gadhafi supporter and Libyan Justice Minister Mohammed Al Qamod has said (and with some logic) that “this court [ICC] is nothing but a cover to the military operations of NATO,” and “is merely a political tool for exerting pressure and political blackmail against sovereign countries.”

While NATO usually (but not always) has good reason (namely, mass murder of innocents) for its interventions, the bias of the court is an issue that has lead many states to selectively follow its declarations with little to no fear of retribution. Al-Bashir is supported by the African Union, Arab League, Chinese, and Russian governments which routinely involve him in diplomatic relations (indeed cooperating with a wanted criminal). Moreover, a recent Wikileak stating that al-Bashir stole $9 billion from the Sudanese  has given additional firepower to a prosecutor in the Netherlands but has changed little in terms of removing him from power.

Thus, Gadhafi’s new distinction as an international criminal is largely meaningless, and furthermore may even be detrimental in the efforts to end the conflict in Libya. With the declaration in existence there remains no escape for the somewhat unbalanced dictator and therefore it seems only more likely that he will choose to fight out the conflict to the brutal end rather than broker any kind of peace deal. Just when it seemed that peace talks might at last begin, this new declaration now gives the Brother Leader all the more reason to keep fighting. For as CNN Libyan-born analyst Ali Ahmida from the University of New England warns:

“Since last week, things were heating up toward an exit strategy for Gadhafi and his sons, either inside or outside Libya in another African country. Some rebel leaders in the Transitional National Council said they would consider allowing Gadhafi to stay inside Libya, and both sides were starting to indicate a compromise was possible.”

But now, the regime “may circle the wagons a little more,” and Gadhafi will think, “‘I’m a hunted criminal and should pursue civil war to the end,’” Ahmida said.

An alarming perspective, no doubt, considering that the conflict in Libya has already accounted for over 13,000 deaths and is entering its 4th month. Already, the entire affair in Libya has stressed the effectiveness of the ICC and the way the conflict will ultimately pan out could again negatively cloud its credibility. Indeed, there needs to be an international court in which crimes that defy the scope of ordinary law can be tried. Sadly, every new and remaining ICC warrant yet to be carried to fulfillment reminds the world of this.

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Nigeria: The Next African Problem

Democratization Watch - World April 21, 2011 1:46 pm

Good luck is right.

Ethnic tension in Nigeria may become Africa’s next big problem with the results of the 2011 presidential election.

Nigeria made major strides in the presidential election held on April 16th. In comparison to 2007′s disaster election that international pundits claimed was “the worst they had ever seen anywhere in the world,” the 2011 election was actually quite clean. The press claims that last week’s voting process was one of the fairest seen on the African continent for decades– a fantastic step taken by the largest country on the world’s poorest and perhaps most corrupt continent. Yet once again, it appears as though the world may be reminded that elections do not always seem to work out for developing nations.

Current President Goodluck Jonathan was named the winner in what will be an extremely controversial electoral result. Nigeria has a “gentleman’s agreement” of sorts that states that the presidency should rotate between the north (Muslim) and south (Christian) every two terms, a consociationalist system that more or less undermines the extent of Nigerian democracy. After Olusegun Obasanjo (southerner) held the presidency in 1999 and 2003, the office was supposed to switch to northern control. It did, corruptly, in 2007 with the election of Umaru Yar’Adua. However, Yar’Adua’s death in 2010 thrust his northern vice president, Jonathan, into the presidency in a turnover ripe with controversy. Northern politicians were outraged at the perceived violation of the north-south rule, yet no one was willing to amend the “gentleman’s agreement” into the constitution.

Jonathan promptly appointed a southern vice president to appease the criticism from the north, but his announcement of his intention to run for re-election revived some of the north-south tension back in September. His re-election will likely cause further tensions between the divisive regions. After the announcement of the results there were violent protests in the nation’s northern states. Nigeria’s unstable neighbor Cote D’ivoire has already created enough problems in the region and Africa, and the world does not need a nation of 150 million breaking into large scale internal strife over election results. Sadly, I think that Jonathan’s election will provide extremists in the north, particularly those associated with the Hausa region, with a means of further stirring up tension along ethnic lines. The last three months have shown how ugly ethnic tension is and I see the potential for conflict in Nigeria. Read More…

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Australia Takes Aim at Tobacco Behemoth

Public Health - World April 16, 2011 11:36 am

Best way to ward off smokers? Look like this.

In a move that would further expand Australia’s progressive crackdown on tobacco marketing, the Australian legislature is looking to impose even harsher restrictions on the packaging of tobacco products sold in the land down under. Accompanying the recent $2 rise in cigarette costs, the new restrictions would alter the standardization of tobacco product packaging. In requiring tobacco companies not only to print their packs in plain style on olive-green backgrounds, but also to include image warnings “such as black, diseased gums, blinded eyes and children in hospitals cover[ing] 75 percent of the front of a pack and all of the back,” Australia appears to be leaving nothing out of its bold fight against the tobacco companies.

Besides the obvious disgust of such graphic images, scientific research (which, Australia has paid for) has shown that olive is the ugliest color to smokers (and to be honest, nonsmokers too). Minister for Health and Ageing Nicola Roxon is pushing the law, hoping to gain the backing of the Conservatives and Greens to put into effect this landmark piece of legislation.

The aggressive stance comes as statistics released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics find that despite the overall decrease in smokers in the country, there has been an increase in smokers aged 15-17. The legal age at which an individual can buy a pack of cigarettes is 18 in the country and these numbers, along with the announcement that approximately 5% of children aged 12-15 smoke, have provided legislators with ammo against the tobacco industry, which plans on fighting back if the legislation passes. Read More…

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The White Question

HPRgument Blog - United States March 16, 2011 10:08 pm

CNN’s John Blake published a fascinating article on white Americans’ position in society. While I found many of its points, like his use of Glenn Beck’s antics, to be stretches and some of them, like his use of extremists like James Edwards (who runs the white supremist blog thepoliticalcesspool), to be quite offensive, the piece raises some interesting questions. As a disclaimer on the article, I understand trying to cover all sides of the argument but Blake’s writing makes the opinions of the fringe white nationalists he interviewed seem more relevant than I think they actually are. Quite frankly I do not think that the majority of white Americans believe that they’re under attack due to their race, and I differ with John Blake in this regard.

Nonetheless, the article raises an interesting question on whiteness in America. Is America going to accept white ethnic pride (not in the sense of bigotry but in the way other ethnic groups have organized)? Multiculturalism is making huge strides in America, as the Blake article concludes. While minorities have long played an enormous role in shaping American culture from the periphery, they are now, more than ever, at the center. With Barack Obama in office, Sonia Sotomayor on the bench, and the ever-increasing diversity in Hollywood, American minority groups have come a long way since 1968. As the article points out, the face of America can no longer be assumed to be white (if in fact that assumption was ever valid), the diversity of our nation can thankfully no longer be swept aside because of white monopoly over positions of influence in society.

This growth in multiculturalism coupled with the prediction that Latinos will replace whites as the majority ethnic group in the US, leaves white Americans on the verge of being a minority for the first time since colonial days. My big questions in relation to this news are: will white Americans be allowed to mobilize as a race as the other minorities have? Will Caucasian American ethnic groups organize on college campuses and be accepted? Will there be continued growth in “Whiteness Studies?”

Harvard already has an Expos 20 course dedicated to the phenomena of being white in American society, and I would expect classes like this to continue to appear in American academia. Nonetheless, I am not sure if America is ready for Caucasian Americanism. White pride is so intertwined with white supremist movements, that I do not think that Americans (white, black, brown, ect) are ready for any serious and explicit Caucasian-centered organization and activity. Personally I am afraid that if I joined any kind of Caucasian American Organization or voiced white pride (not in terms of being better or against other groups but in terms of being proud of my ethnic heritage as a white American) I would be labeled as racist.

While many may write this issue off as extremists barking up reasons to revive “we speak English here so should you” xenophobia, the growth in academic interest in whiteness suggests that there may be something substantial in the white question. I’d really like to hear what people think about this, comment away!

Photocredit: Wikimedia Commons

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South Sudanese Succession and its Scary Prospects

Democratization Watch February 10, 2011 11:01 am

President Omar al-Bashir - Wanted for Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity by the ICC.

Southern Sudan’s vote of independence sounds great. But in the current climate in North Africa, it could have dire repercussions.

Awesome! A nation of people just voted for their freedom and a horrible, repressive dictator claimed he would honor the vote!

But…

  • al-Bashir (who is wanted by the ICC on genocide charges) is still in power in the now economically defunct North. Oil revenues that had formerly propped up the (now two) nations have halted as oil from the fields in the south fails to make it to northern refineries.
  • The north is still under trade sanctions for supporting terrorism (although Obama may relax these in lieu of the recent good behavior). However, the Darfur conflict, which has been heating up in recent months, remains.
  • Nations straddling religious fault lines tend to have issues, so do not expect the Sudans to be happy places for long (they just had a civil war in 2005). Consider the Balkans, Israel, Nigeria, or India as reference.

And there’s also the entire issue of Northern Africa destabilizing in the midst of an unprecedented push for accountable governance. Northern Sudan is smack dab in the middle of the recent surge for freedom that is taking the Arab world by storm and minor protests have emerged in the streets of Khartoum over the shortcomings of the al-Bashir administration (it just lost half the country and is as ineffectual as the other autocracies in the region). In a nation as unstable as Sudan (recall we are only five years removed from a long, painful, and ethnically-fueled conflict) this could spark some additional trouble. Read More…

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The Internet Age and Revolt

Democratization Watch February 2, 2011 2:53 pm

Probably using the same technology to organize in Cambridge, MA as in Cairo.

Has the Internet modernized regime change?

Times are changing. The days of the Stalinist repressive regime, the prominence of totalitarianism, and unchecked dictatorial brutality, may be approaching their end. The recent events in North Africa, the Middle East, and even historically autocratic Russia confirm that the interconnected world we live in is becoming an increasingly hostile place for autocracies.

As a result of the ongoing protests in Tunisia that began in December and culminated in the flight of longtime political strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on January 15th, the world’s repressive regimes have come under internal attack in the last two weeks. The dissolution of dictatorships has been a natural part of global geopolitics since the French Revolution in the 1780s, yet the recent spree of protests across the world speaks to new developments in regime collapse. Of which, the biggest force bringing hope to those yearning for freedom is, not surprisingly, the Internet.

Days after the revolution in Tunisia, emotions spread to neighboring North African states as mass protests against abject unemployment, restrictions on freedom of speech, and high inflation emerged in unfree Egypt and the newly created nation of Northern Sudan. In the case of both nations, dictators have held power since the 80s (Egypt’s Mubarak took power in 1981 and North Sudan’s al Bashir assumed the presidency in 1989) while their citizens have withstood widespread poverty and restrictions on liberty. Yet until recent years, the unrest created by these problems was of ancillary concern to the world’s despots as brutality and fear remained strong mechanisms of curbing the majority of dissenters. Though as recently as 2008, reports counted up to 20 Egyptians as the fatal victims of state-sponsored torture, prior to Egypt’s last two weeks weeks of rioting, there had been few instances of mass protest against the regime.

Nonetheless, as has been continually documented in China over the last decade, the Internet age is raising the stakes for oppressors worldwide. An anonymous web page can reiterate itself faster than censors can close it down, and regimes have struggled to maintain the information shields that formerly kept people ignorant and docile (think Soviet Union and modern day Myanmar). In my opinion, the recent events in the Middle East, and it appears Russia, are byproducts of this increased fluidity of information.

Rioters in Egypt, Northern Sudan, Yemen, Jordan, Russia, Albania, Algeria, as well as minor protestors in Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Morocco have taken the path of the Tunisians and have called for increased freedom in their nations. News reporters are calling the events in the Middle East (and spreading) unprecedented since the collapse of Communism in the 1980s–and rightfully so. However, while the collapse of the Soviet system was the catalyst of the “red flight” of 1989, the current revolutions are not unified by some overarching collapsed structure but rather by grassroots protests in countries where dissent has been repressed for decades. Read More…

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Updating Guinea and Why it Matters

Democratization Watch November 27, 2010 5:33 am

Guinea is home to the majority of the world's bauxite

Earlier this month I wrote a blog documenting three elections in Africa, and I wrote it with the idea that I would continue to update the struggles for democracy in Tanzania, Guinea, and Cote d’Ivoire. While it’s cool to actually follow through on my idea and follow the political climates in these three nations, recent developments in Guinea quickly reminded me of the heartbreaking instability inherent in African politics.

Guinea attempted to return to civilian rule for the first time since the military took control of the state in late 2008 through legitimate (by Western standards) elections. Voting took place and a winner was declared on Monday. Yet instead of celebrating the successful return of democracy to the volatile nation, ethnic fighting erupted in the streets. The winner, ethnic Malinke Alpha Conde, had only garnered 52% of the vote to beat opposition candidate, and ethnic Peul, former Prime Minister Cellou Diallo’s 47%. Rioting erupted in the streets of the capital Conakry as Diallo claimed that the election was fraudulent and named himself the winner.

Thus Guinea’s first attempt at a truly democratic initiative ended in ethnic violence as Peul and Malinke citizens soon began fighting and shooting in the streets. It’s reported that a special task force deployed by the Malinke called the Fossepel is instigating violence in the Peul neighborhoods of the capital and has partaken in attacks upon peaceful Peul citizens. As a result the military-government has declared a state of emergency and suspended many civil rights including the right to organize. Once again ethnic conflict has ruined the possibility for democracy in Africa.

Now for the why this matters part, since the importance of Western Africa doesn’t necessarily come up explicitly that often and people tend to ask me why African political news matters to Americans. There is something of note in the fact that nearly every article on Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, ect mentions the presence of oil, minerals, or other natural resources. Western Africa, as is most of the continent, is home to tons of valuable and untapped natural resources. These resources from the Third World are the lifeblood of the consumer products inherent in the First World. From the bauxite necessary for aluminum foil and all other aluminum products to the diamonds in engagement rings, Africa, specifically the Western nations, holds the world’s largest reserves.

Read More…

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The Hope of a Nation

Democratization Watch November 16, 2010 3:55 pm

Aung San Suu Kyi greeting supporters as she is released from her latest imprisonment in Myanmar.

“At the root of human responsibility is the concept of perfection, the urge to achieve it, the intelligence to find a path towards it, and the will to follow that path if not to the end at least the distance needed to rise above individual limitations and environmental impediments. It is man’s vision of a world fit for rational, civilized humanity which leads him to dare and to suffer to build societies free from want and fear. Concepts such as truth, justice and compassion cannot be dismissed as trite when these are often the only bulwarks which stand against ruthless power.”

- From “Freedom from Fear” by Aung San Suu Kyi

Thus spoke Burma’s Lady of Peace in her famed “Freedom from Fear” speech, a full two decades ago. Placed under house arrest for 15 of the last 21 years, Aung San Suu Kyi remains devoted to the creation of democracy and freedom in her homeland. Finally released from her latest 7 year internment in her collapsing Rangoon home, this post is in dedication to a modern heroine.

Since founding the National League for Democracy in 1988, Suu Kyi has held steadfast to her belief that nonviolence is the path by which her country will achieve liberty. She has worked tirelessly to bring Myanmar (formerly called Burma) out of military authoritarianism and into democracy. With a family abroad, Suu Kyi has remained in her homeland for the last twenty years for fear of not being allowed re-entry should she ever try to leave and then return. Her continual imprisonment in the nation and frequent incarceration on false charges or without trial have forced her to miss her husband’s battle and ultimate succumbing to terminal prostate cancer and much of the lives of her two children. Despite the heavy weight of these sacrifices Suu Kyi has remained in Myanmar, unwavering in her devotion to bring democracy to her countrymen.

The recipient of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her commitment to a pacific revolution and the advancing of human rights in Burma, Suu Kyi has braved harassment and the violation of the Burmese constitution in order to keep her behind bars. Finally released from her latest house arrest on November 12th, Suu Kyi is presented with the opportunity to promote change in her struggling nation under the newly and fraudulently elected Union Solidarity and Development Party. A symbol of hope to a long oppressed people, Ms. Suu Kyi has already vowed to continue her peaceful fight against injustice and repression.

Voicing no animosity towards her captors and merely looking to meet with the new government and discuss issues of Burmese freedom, Suu Kyi, speaking before a thronging crowd of thousands of loyal supporters, encouraged the nation to remain hopeful that one day liberty will reach its borders. Hoping for conciliation and cooperation from the USDP government despite its legitimacy issues, Suu Kyi in her 72 hours of freedom has worked at a breakneck pace to mobilize Myanmar towards democracy.

With the unpredictable nature of her arrests, Suu Kyi’s freedom may be a matter of days, weeks, months, or years. Living in the present though, the sight of Burma’s most beloved lady mounting the gates of her home and prison and greeting her distraught nation with a smile of hope reveals the glimmer of a new dawn in Myanmar.

Video of the Release of Suu Kyi courtesy of Russia Today

Photocredit: AP

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A Few Glimmers of Hope out of Africa

Democratization Watch - HPRgument Blog November 11, 2010 12:05 am

Finally starting to look official.

The last month has seen a surge in “democratic” elections around the world. Headliners like the recent election of Dilma Rousseff in emerging Brazil, the massive midterm elections of the US, and the corrupt and violent polls in Myanmar have taken center stage, but voting in Tanzania, Cote d’Iviore, and Guinea has also taken place. Coverage of the later three elections has been relatively scarce in Western media, yet milestones achieved in each bear hope for a reversal of the erosion of freedom that the Freedom House Index has reported upon for the majority of the last decade and a few glimmers of hope for democracy in Africa.

Tanzania saw its first competitive election since the establishment of democracy in the country almost 50 years ago. The incumbent President Jakaya Kikwete won another five-year term in office despite experiencing a decline of almost 20% in votes since the 2005 election. This marks the first time that the nation’s Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party has faced serious opposition, and despite its continued dominance of parliament with around 70% of seats, it implies that the nation will move away from single-party politics and move towards a multiparty model in the future. More importantly, the election places increased pressure on Kikwete to combat the nation’s rampant corruption. This election marks another tentative step along the way of achieving true freedom in the formerly competitive authoritarian nation.

Elections in Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) took a much larger leap in the transition to freedom. With nearly 80% of the population turning out to cast their vote in the country’s first election since civil war broke out in 2002. Delayed since 2005, the success of the preliminary Presidential polls on October 31st provides a glimmer of hope for the once prosperous African nation. Peaceful yet indecisive, the prompt scheduling of a run-off election along the lines of the nation’s constitution shows that Cote d’Ivoire is committed to democracy. For a nation that was only last year rated as being Not Free by the FH, this presidential election between incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, challenger Alassane Ouattara, and former president Henri Konan Bedie appears to be fair and headed for a pacific end; a relief for the strife ridden nation.

Finally, elections in Guinea’s run-off for the Presidency went smoothly, despite a month of unrest between supporters of the two candidates, Cellou Diallo and Alpha Conde. Polling stations reported no instances of violence and the nation now awaits the announcement of the next head of state. Under military rule since a coup in 2008, the election marks the nation’s return to civilian rule. The site of violent repression and mass rape, the end of the militaristic regime will hopefully usher in a new epoch of peace for the region. The election had been delayed for months because of fears of voter fraud and the success of last weeks voting shows that inroads have been made in terms of achieving fairness in Guinea. While the winner has yet to be announced, this peaceful transition from authoritarianism back to democracy marks a new, optimistically freer, beginning for the Guinean people.

African democracy appears to be on the rise, a refreshing sign in light of the continued failures of governments in Somalia and Congo. The continent, while ravaged by poverty, disease, and insufficient growth may finally be moving towards a brighter future. While corruption remains a central issue across the continent, the perpetuation of fair elections will place increased accountability on the elected governments and hopefully begin to redirect the region. The strong turnouts in each nation, especially Cote d’Ivoire, demonstrate the desire of many Africans for a voice in the future of their nations. While time alone can tell if these late fall elections truly impact the directions of Tanzania, Cote d’Ivoire, and Guinea, moving them towards paths of greater prosperity, they provide a lot of hope. The erosion of freedom worldwide remains a problem, yet recent developments in Africa seem to mark a return to progress.

Photocredit: AP

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Are there any ladies in the house tonight? Or Washington for that matter.

HPRgument Blog November 4, 2010 3:59 pm

“‘Yes, a woman can!’ she said from a hotel stage in Brasília. ‘Equal opportunity for men and women is an essential principal of democracy,’ she said, pledging to make her achievement a ‘natural event’ in Brazil.”

-      The Wall Street Journal quoting Dilma Rousseff

In her first speech as President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff congratulates her nation for electing its first female leader. Brazil, a nation that was mired in an oppressive military dictatorship that optimized the machismo politics of Latin America less than three decades ago, now becomes the 18th democratic nation with a woman in power. The number of nations who have elected a woman to their presidency or as prime minister seems to grow with each passing year, but noticeably absent from the list is the United States.

The world’s oldest continuous democracy continues to be a man’s playground. And while the rest of the world seems to have figured out that empowering women is, as Rousseff claims, “an essential principal of democracy,” America seems to be stubbornly old-fashioned. America took an enormous step in nearly placing Hillary Clinton on the ballot in 2008, but the fact that the question of whether America was ready for a female President shows that our country has a long way to go.

With the midterms this week the country’s focus is pretty squarely on Congress. Heading into Election Day there are 17 women in the Senate, or 17% of the total seats. That’s a joke. And the House doesn’t look much better with 73 women holding seats and a staggering majority of 362 men. Although 2010 census data has not been released yet, estimates indicate that the women make up a slightly larger percentage of the US population. How is it that 50.7% of the United States is female and 16.8% of the seats in Congress are filled by women (this is below the global representational average of 18.6%)?

As a country that is supposed to be one of the world’s most progressive, America is falling short in terms of equality. With a nation largely jaded by the shortcomings of the Obama Administration and its Democratic majority in Congress, early predictions for female incumbents looks stark. 76.6% of women serving in Congress are Democrats and of those 69 politicians, 10 appear to be on the verge of losing their seats to male challengers and the chances of 10 new women claiming seats looking grim. For the first time since 1972 it appears as though the number of women serving in Congress will decrease, and even if it doesn’t the growth in numbers isn’t going to even bring the US up to the global average.

What does this mean for America? As Nicholas Kristof and Cheryl Wudunn state in their book Half the Sky that “[o]ne rationale for seeking more female politicians is that women supposedly excel in empathy and forging consensus” and point out that the government has responded to women gaining a voice in politics by “allocating more funds to public health programs, particularly for child health” because this was an issue associated more with females. As has been said before in the media, women bring a different view to Washington (as in they’re the ones actually having abortions and dealing with cervical cancer), and female politicians often have different (and equally important) political agendas then the majority of their male counterparts. Women in government have placed increased focus on issues like health, education, and the global sex trade, topics that often seem to recede in the face of security, health care, and the economy.

While prominent female politicians like Sarah Palin and Hilary Clinton have attempted to galvanize female voters into making a greater effort to equal the gender gap in American politics, results have been less than stellar. America still has never had a female President or Vice President and is not even remotely close to having population-proportional representation in Congress, or on any level of government. If women are truly equal in American society, then why has America’s readiness for a female president still come under fire and the chance of a female majority Congress nonexistent? It is time for Americans, especially American women, to start taking a greater role in the leadership of our nation. It happened in Brazil, and India, and Liberia, and the United Kingdom, ect…

The words of Dilma Rousseff at her moment of greatest triumph ring true. It is time for female Americans to start believing that women can run the country, for if women don’t believe it than is there really any chance of its realization? America needs to start accounting for its massive gender gap in Washington, and while this election is shaping to be a step backwards, it is up to the American public to make sure that 2010 is an outlier in women’s ascension to equality in office.  As Dilma said, “Yes! A woman can!”

Photocredit: Wikimedia

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