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Posts tagged Africa

500 Massacred in Nigeria are Victims of Religious Violence

From ABC News:

The killers showed no mercy: They didn’t spare women and children, or even a 4-day-old baby, from their machetes. On Monday, Nigerian women wailed in the streets as a dump truck carried dozens of bodies past burned-out homes toward a mass grave.

Rubber-gloved workers pulled ever-smaller bodies from the dump truck and tossed them into the mass grave. A crowd began singing a hymn with the refrain, “Jesus said I am the way to heaven.” As the grave filled, the grieving crowd sang: “Jesus, show me the way.”

At least 200 people, most of them Christians, were slaughtered on Sunday, according to residents, aid groups and journalists. The local government gave a figure more than twice that amount, but offered no casualty list or other information to substantiate it.

An Associated Press reporter counted 61 corpses, 32 of them children, being buried in the mass grave in the village of Dogo Nahawa on Monday. Other victims would be buried elsewhere. At a local morgue the bodies of children, including a diaper-clad toddler, were tangled together. One appeared to have been scalped. Others had severed hands and feet.

Religious violence is not a new thing. Some of the most enduring images I have from my Jewish education are descriptions of the violence that has been perpetrated for centuries against Jews by Romans, Greeks, Christians and, though perhaps less often, Muslims. One subtext of those lessons was that the Jews, because we were so steadfast in our religious beliefs, because we refused to assimilate, have been made to suffer religious persecution more than any other group; and, indeed, when I was younger, I often experienced real cognitive dissonance when I heard about religious violence that did not involve Jews. Over time, as my vision of the world and my place in it widened, that dissonance disappeared. I came to understand as well that religion was sometimes merely the justifying veneer that one group would place over the violence they wanted to do to another, a way of hiding their more political and material motivation.

The more I heard and read about religious violence, the more familiar the scripting of it became–and it is remarkable how similar the scripts are; how carefully scripted the incitements to violence are, if not the violence itself, regardless of the religious denominations involved–and, eventually, the stories I would hear left me feeling more numb than anything else. Yes, it was horrible that people were killed, but, I would think, as long as religion contained within it the possibility for someone to decide that he or she is following the one true path and that all those not on that path are morally and spiritually inferior and therefore suspect, then the potential for religious violence inhered in religion, and there was no escaping it.

I continue to believe that, I suppose, which is why I tend not to write about religious violence as such: I just don’t think there is all that much to say, or, rather, that I have much to say that would be useful. Still, this story, which has also been reported on Yahoo! News and other news outlets–the New York Times puts the death toll at 500–brought me up short. In part, this is because I have a very close friend from Nigeria, and she has talked often about the tension between Muslims and Christians in her country. Indeed, this massacre is said to have been retaliation for a similar slaughter of Muslims perpetrated by Christians some time ago, and I can even imagine, from the way in which she talks about it, that my friend might have been among those Muslim-killing Christians had she been in the country and the circumstances been “right.” I feel, in other words, a personal connection to this story that I have rarely felt, not least because my friend might have been among those killed whether or not she had participated in the prior massacre.

I did not know about how deeply my friend’s fear, mistrust, and hatred of the Muslims in Nigeria ran until after our friendship was well-established. She says she feels this way only about Nigerian Muslims, not about people who follow Islam in general, and I believe her, and she tells stories about her own experiences in Nigeria and the experiences of the people she knows to justify herself. The fact that she makes this distinction, of course, suggests that the issues at stake are not really religious, but the fact that they are expressed religiously–in terms of spirituality and morality and the one true path to God–makes it hard, even just between the two of us, to get at what those stakes really are; and then I think about the way our invasion of Iraq and ousting of Saddam Hussein made space for the Sunni and Shia to go at each other’s throats–check out this NPR interview with Deborah Amos about her new book, Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East–and even the Israeli-Palestinian struggle over the status of Jerusalem, which is so often played out in religious terms. And when I think about how may more examples I could list, I cannot help but feel that maybe it’s all, always, political; maybe the god or gods all these people fight over is just a way of not having to take responsibility for their own politics, their own desire for power, their own inability to share, their own fear of everything that makes them vulnerable; maybe the need to make your religion the only true one is nothing more than fear and cowardice, and we all know how thin the line is between the coward who cowers and the coward who becomes a bully.

It has been a very long time, since I was an undergraduate in fact, that I have known personally someone who could place her or himself so easily, so firmly, so absolutely, on one side of this kind of divide and so thoroughly forget that the other side is also inhabited by people; and yet even as I write that, it would be dishonest of me not to own up to the fact that I too once stood with Israel, as a Jew, in strictly religious terms, in a way that denied the humanity of the other side.

That we all have this capacity within us is by now a cliche, but how do you learn to accept that impulse in someone who has become your friend? Because if you cannot accept it–which is not the same thing as approving of it, or allowing it to go unchallenged–then there can no longer be a real friendship. This is the question that I am confronting.

Cross-posted on It’s All Connected.

Categories: 17
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Join Women on the Bridge

(Video transcript below the jump)

Chally recently posted a reminder about International Women’s Day coming up on Monday, March 8th. There are all kinds of events taking place all over the world, but I received an email about one particular set of events that I thought I’d highlight here.

As most blog readers are probably aware, due to war, women in both Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo face incredibly high rates of rape and other violent assault. On March 8th, Congolese and Rwandan women are taking action to demand an end to war and violence against women. Via the email:

On March 8, hundreds of Congolese and Rwandan women will unite on a bridge to demand an end to the violence that has caused 5.4 million deaths and hundreds of thousands of rapes. They will tie together banners of fabric on which they’ve painted their visions for a peaceful future.

To honor and support their resilience, Women for Women International is hosting a global campaign – Join me on the Bridge – which will replicate that meeting at bridges in different cities all around the world in a show of global solidarity. Already supporting the Congolese and Rwandan women in their call for war’s end will be thousands of women from Bosnia, Kosovo, Sudan, the UK and the US.

In New York City, we are rallying people to the Brooklyn Bridge at noon on Monday, March 8. Sponsors such as kate spade new york, Marie Claire and the ONE campaign are also joining us. Project Runway’s Tim Gunn will be in attendance. Self-organized bridge events will also be taking place in other cities, towns and schools nationwide.

Check out the Women For Women International website to see all of the events that will be taking place. The two largest events will take place in New York and London, but there will also be many, many events in other cities. Most are in the U.S. and U.K., but there are also events in countries such as Australia, Canada, India, Mexico, and Nigeria. Almost all of the events will be held on either March 7th (this Sunday) or March 8th (Monday). Please consider attending if there’s one near you.

Video Transcript:

Video shows a collection of images of women from the DRC and Rwanda, including both still photos and video. Images include women smiling, embracing each other, teaching in a classroom, holding their children, and working.

Voiceover: Women across the globe are living amidst violence, yet dreaming of peace. Women for Women International is asking you to join us to honor women survivors of war. March 8th is International Women’s Day. Join me, along with thousands of women and men on bridges around the world. Join us in solidarity with women of both Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who will unite to call for an end to war.

Two women: (speaking into camera, each giving a “thumbs up” sign) Join me on the bridge

Voiceover: Join me. Say yes to peace and hope.

Women for Women International logo

Categories: 116

Eyeglasses + Women Entrepreneurs = International Development WIN

Last week while flipping through Parade magazine, of all places (it’s that Sunday newspaper insert that reads like a Cliffs Notes version of Reader’s Digest), I came across the story of a nonprofit that has a unique model of aiding impoverished communities in developing countries. VisionSpring trains local individuals—many of them women—to perform basic vision exams [...]

Meeting this Wednesday at 7pm

Acts and Consequences

American Evangelicals are apparently shocked that their anti-gay activism in Uganda — which mostly involves telling Ugandans that gay men sodomize boys and that homosexuals have a nefarious plot to destroy society as we know it — has actually been taken seriously by Ugandans, who, in order to stop purported child rape and total social annihilation, have bandied about the idea of executing gay people.

Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about “curing” homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived here in Uganda’s capital to give a series of talks.

The theme of the event, according to Stephen Langa, its Ugandan organizer, was “the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda” — and the threat homosexuals posed to Bible-based values and the traditional African family.

For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

Now the three Americans are finding themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that could lead to what came next: a bill to impose a death sentence for homosexual behavior.

Now how in the world would anti-gay propaganda focusing on how gay people are going to rape your children and destroy your society ever result in severe criminal penalties for being gay? It’s a mystery!

Except, of course, that the Evangelicals who are now crying foul actually helped to draft the bill:

Mr. Lively and Mr. Brundidge have made similar remarks in interviews or statements issued by their organizations. But the Ugandan organizers of the conference admit helping draft the bill, and Mr. Lively has acknowledged meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to discuss it. He even wrote on his blog in March that someone had likened their campaign to “a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.” Later, when confronted with criticism, Mr. Lively said he was very disappointed that the legislation was so harsh.

…because less harsh criminalization of homosexuality would be ok? (Don’t answer that).

This is a tried-and-true pattern among religious radicals. They set a fire, fan the flames and then feign shock when something burns down. They do the same thing when it comes to the murder of abortion providers: They select their targets, accuse them of cold-blooded baby-killing and perpetuating a Holocaust, compare them to Hitler, put them on “Wanted Dead or Alive” lists, hand out their home and business addresses, post their pictures online, and then act just shocked when someone shoots them.

I’m not buying it. Do I think that all (or even most) Evangelical Christians want gay people executed? Of course not. But the movement leaders know exactly what they are doing. And if their intent wasn’t to have gay people executed by the state, it certainly was at least to have them socially marginalized, hated or perhaps jailed — all of which, we well know, does end up with gay people on the receiving end of violence and vigilantism that too often ends lives.

So perhaps the goal wasn’t for the state to kill or harm gay people. But the goal was certainly for someone to do it.

Video: President Dr. E. Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia – Gender Speech


“I am excited by the potential of what I represent…”


From BBC News:

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has been sworn in as Liberia’s president, making her Africa’s first elected female leader.

Loud cheers greeted her inauguration, with US First Lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice among those at the ceremony.

Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf says her top challenge is to maintain peace, law and order after 14 years of civil war.

UN peacekeepers and Liberian police have maintained tight security around the capital, Monrovia.

About 500 UN troops have been redeployed to the area, with more police officers on the capital’s streets.

Public vehicles have been banned from Monrovia’s streets for the day.

Two US Navy warships are stationed off Liberia’s coast, in a show of support for Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf’s presidency.

The BBC’s Elizabeth Blunt in Monrovia says that after all the years of war, there was no public building in a good enough state to host the ceremony.

The guests gathered in the grounds of the Capital Building and sat on white plastic chairs with coconut matting to protect them from the sun and the rain. They then walked over the road to the stained and gloomy Executive Mansion for a reception, our correspondent says.

She says Ms Rice got an especially warm welcome in a country founded in 1847 by freed American slaves.

Other guests include Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo.

Thousands of volunteers have been repainting buildings, bridges and road signs and clearing rubbish from Monrovia’s streets in readiness for the ceremony.

Huge challenges

In an hour-long speech after the ceremony, she called for a moment of silent prayer to remember the thousands of people who died during the war.

“We know that your vote was a vote for change, a vote for peace, security… and we have heard you loudly,” she said.

Her vow to wage a war on Liberia’s “major public enemy” – corruption was also applauded by the large crowd.

She said that leading civil servants and ministers would have to declare their assets.

“I will lead by example – I will be the first to comply.”

Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf becomes Liberia’s first elected head of state since the end of the war in 2003.

The 67-year-old grandmother won 59% of the vote in November’s run-off election, beating Liberian football star George Weah.

A former World Bank economist and veteran politician, Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf is nicknamed the Iron Lady but has promised to show a new, softer side as president.

The challenges which lie ahead as she begins her six-year term are great.

After a quarter of a century of war and misrule, Liberia’s road network is in ruins, there is no national telephone network, no national electricity grid and no piped water.

A further challenge is to reintegrate the 100,000 ex-combatants, including many former child soldiers, into civilian life.

January’s pick: ‘THIS CHILD WILL BE GREAT: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa’s First Woman President’ by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf


From Indiebound.org:

“In January 2006, after the Republic of Liberia had been racked by fourteen years of brutal civil conflict, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf—Africa’s “Iron Lady”—was sworn in as president, an event that marked a tremendous turning point in the history of the West African nation.

In this stirring memoir, Sirleaf shares the inside story of her rise to power, including her early childhood; her experiences with abuse, imprisonment, and exile; and her fight for democracy and social justice. This compelling tale of survival reveals Sirleaf’s determination to succeed in multiple worlds: from her studies in the United States to her work as an international bank executive to her election campaigning in some of Liberia’s most desperate and war-torn villages and neighborhoods. It is also the story of an outspoken political and social reformer who, despite danger, fought the oppression of dictators and championed change. By sharing her story, Sirleaf encourages women everywhere to pursue leadership roles at the highest levels of power, and gives us all hope that, with perseverance, we can change the world.”

From The Washington Post,

“The first thing to be said about Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s “This Child Will be Great” is that it is exceptionally well written, a true story that seems as much a thriller as it does the remembrances of an ambitious and brave woman. The narrative begins in the late 1930s and early 1940s, in the ramshackle town of Monrovia, Liberia, with young Ellen and her family living in a “two-story concrete structure with cocoanut trees growing in the yard.” It ends with Johnson Sirleaf’s inauguration on Jan. 16, 2006, as Africa’s first elected woman president in that same city, now, “the bruised and battered capital of a bruised and battered land.”

Get it at Porter Square Books (we will receive a discount if ten members purchase their book club pick from this store), Harvard Bookstore or, ok, Amazon.com.

Sustainable pads make a world of difference to African women

Elizabeth Sharpf, founder of Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE) was featured this week in The Feministing Five and I really wanted to share her story also.

Several years ago while working in Mozambique, she found a connection between inadequate sanitary protection for menstruating girls and women and lost income and education for towns, cities and entire countries,

Through research, she learned that menstruating girls and women lose up to fifty days a year of work or school because they are afraid of leaking through their make shift rags or bark.  Scharpf decided to do something about it and launched SHE, which gives out micro-finance loans and basic health training to local women so that they can manufacture pads from local sustainable materials and sell them at affordable prices.  Selling the pads is a source of income for the women and the girls and women who have access to the pads are less likely to contract infections and are able to participate in public life every day of the month.

Watch a promo video for the project:

While we take the availability of pads and tampons for granted in the United States, the lack of access to sanitary options has many dangers.

From the Huffington Post:

In developing countries, periods continue to be a serious handicap. According to UNICEF, ten percent of school-age African girls miss school because of a lack of access to affordable sanitary products. In Rwanda, it’s much worse. According to on-the-ground research by Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE), half the girls are missing school due to menstruation and the main reason given is that sanitary pads are too expensive. For women, 24% miss work–up to 45 days per year–for the same reason. This not only limits girls’ educational and women’s professional achievement, but leads to a significant economic loss for nations. SHE estimates that a lack of affordable sanitary pads reduces GDP by $115 million per year in Rwanda alone.

There are also serious health repercussions of not having pads. In Asia, many women still use rags; less fortunate ones use newspapers, banana leaves, even sand or ash. While rags were common before the pad was invented, the problem in developing countries is that often women don’t have access to clean water to wash them. And the taboo of menstruation means that many women cannot hang their rags to dry in the open. So, instead, they hide them in dark, damp places where no one will find them. As one might imagine, infections are rampant.

Summit is not right with this Copenhagen Summit


I wrote about Copenhagen on August the 27th predicting that the summit would just be a re-run of environmental commissions, conferences and summits before, such as the WCED in 1987. My doubts that the conference would actually address one of the most important issues of the environmental debate, the North/South divide, have been legitimised, as Copenhagen has been a capitalist showdown. Suggestions from UN chief Ban Ki-moon that long-term financial aid for developing countries may fail to materialise, highlights the precedence of certain countries (developed) interests at the summit.

Brown has travelled over to the Conference to try to provide the discussions some of his ’save the world’ techniques, however, his rhetorical comment…

“If you don’t get an agreement this week, people will doubt whether you can get an agreement at all.”

… can be levelled at all of the summits, commissions and conferences that have taken place regarding the enviroment. All that ever seems to become clear from the discussions is the need for many of the developed countries to compromise their ego to realise that THEIR production, THEIR waste, is the reason that the developing countries are having adverse environmental effects. Not only do the developing countries part take at the lowest levels in the international division of labour, they are also compounded by the environmental effects of those in the highest levels of the division. How is that fair? It is disappointing that the African countries have softened their demands. They should have stayed resilient together, as we all know that the major players need a result from this conference for their own self-seeking ego boasting polls. This is a moral as well as an environmental issue – it simply isn’t fair to exploit the developing countries and then provide them token financial support.

The hype that was created around the possibility of an ‘environment global deal’ being formulated from the conference always seemed to be overrated. There was obviously going to  be massive discrepancies in agreements, with China wanting developed countries to lower their emissions, whilst developed countries (notably USA) want China to lower theirs – for example. With the  summit’s end eminent, it is worrying that there are still many important issues yet to be discussed. It seems that there will be a piece meal set of commitments, but commitments like a marriage, can always be broken… The denial of campaigners such as Friends of the Earth at the summit is another issue that will long be debated after the conference ends. How important parts of our democratic system be cut out of the discussions due to some protesters causing violence is beyond me. However, there is no wonder supporters are getting angry at the level of progress that is being made, when they look back at all the talk around finding so many solutions to so many problems. On aside, I do not agree with the police tactics of spraying people with tear gas and beating them to a pulp, that goes for any demonstration.

Credit to Brown, our government is backing the extra funding for aid for African countries – but we need others. Obviously, USA is a key player here, something which Ed Milliband rightly pointed out. The recent advancement by Japan in relation to aid for developing countries is an important development too.

And what has Mr Cameron been doing? Well he is trying to steal the environmental limelight from the Copenhagen conference in announcing his £20bn initiative to basically get people back to work and off the doll, oh but it is environmentally friendly too. Same old Cameron.

Update: On that note, there is now news that ANOTHER summit will be set up to try to solve the problems that were not solved this time around. I bet I will be citing this blog if that summit does go along. There simply is too much talking and too little action. At the moment, Copenhagen represents a political football game, with the seeds of our future being kicked around the pitch in a self interested manner, only time will tell if this will change…