China in Africa

Having just written that Geneva is a wasteland on the brain fodder front, I must confess that actually I went to a very interesting lecture at the Graduate Institute here t'other day. Given by Deborah Brautigam, it was a revisionist take on the role of China in Africa - very different from the usual Western interpretation of Chinese aid and investment to Africa as exploitative, neo-colonialist, part of a power struggle with the West, etc. She's just published a new book on the subject, The Dragon's Gift, and her very interesting blog is here.  Although I think she sometimes allows herself to be carried away with her role as professional critic of the conventional wisdom, is was certainly enlightening and refreshing. Some tid-bits:

• Chinese official development assistance (ODA) to Africa is actually smaller than that of the US or UK - it's just that we (or rather, the Western media) often misinterpret Chinese loans, credit lines or private investment from China as 'aid'.  
• What's for sure is that Chinese investment in trade with [see correction from the speaker below, thanks you!] Africa is huge, having grown from $5billion in 2002 to $50billion in 2008. But Brautigam was at pains to point out that although the West may have an image of 'China Inc', this is coming from private enterprise.

She seemed to suggest that the Western donor-states could learn from China in terms of promoting and encouraging development in Africa.  I'm all for more of a role for entrepeunership and enterprise in development rather than promoting a reliance on aid, but a short-term model of growth/profit at all costs is not sustainable (in an economic, social or environmental sense). There must be a happy medium...?

The Rights' Future

My old LSE professor Conor Gearty is running an interesting collaborative web-publishing project, exploring the development and future of human rights.  Conor posts a 'chapter' every Monday, invites comments and criticisms, to which he responds in a 'round-up post' on the Friday. This will all feed into a book, to be launched next year...
I've had my say on the first post, do add your thoughts too:
http://therightsfuture.com/t1-coming-out/

Also, you can listen to a recording of the launch of the project here. You'll have to scroll down the page a bit. Incidentally, this site is full of recordings of LSE events - some real gems there. I miss the LSE Events programme - despite its huge diplomatic, academic, civil society and political community, Geneva has rather a dearth on the brain fodder front...

Clegg, conference and climate change

Jonathan Porritt's blog points out the worrying fact (and one that I have not seen mentioned in other analyses) that Nick Clegg's speech to the Lib Dem party conference did not mention climate change. Not once.

I haven’t done my homework, but my hunch is that this is the first Conference speech from a major Party Leader that will have completely ignored climate change in recent times. Ever since Tony Blair used his conference speech as Prime Minister in 1997, to raise the whole profile of climate negotiations, it’s been up there as a ‘must mention’ by all Party Leaders – however superficial and meaningless some of those mentions may have been.

I rather doubt David Cameron, let alone the new Labour Leader will make such a fundamental error.

Amnesty on burqa bans

Following my previous post on burqa bans, it caught my attention that Amnesty International has urged the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina to reject a draft law that would ban "the wearing in public of clothes which prevent identification" - including full-face veils.

I wasn't aware of AI's position on this previously; their statement is worth reading in full.

'Honour' killings

The Independent has, to its immense credit, had a series of excellent articles focusing on so-called 'honour' killings recently, mostly the work of Robert Fisk.

It's all worth a read, but here is his conclusion.

His views on what 'we' can do are somewhat dispiriting:

[T]he grim truth is that Westerners can no more change this – can no more persuade village elders in Afghanistan of the benefits of gender equality and an end to "honour" killings – than we could have persuaded Henry VIII of the benefits of parliamentary democracy or Cromwell of the laws of war. The height of such pomposity came the other day from Navi Pillay, the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights. "Violent 'honour' attacks," she pontificated, "are crimes that violate the right to life, liberty, bodily integrity, the prohibition against torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, the prohibition on slavery, the right to freedom from gender-based discrimination and sexual abuse or exploitation, the right to privacy, the obligation to denounce discriminatory laws and harmful practices against women." Phew. I can see how they'll be shaking in their shoes after that in Baluchistan and Helmand province. 

I agree to an extent, although I do think that 'outsiders' can play an important role in supporting (financially, politically, logistically) those brave 'insiders' who are trying to foment change.

The paranoid style in American politics

I spoke to my friend Chloe last night who covered the Glenn Beck rally in Washington DC for Al-Jazeera. We discussed how the existence and prominence of lunatics like Beck genuinely mystifies us. Why is it that American politics (not exclusively, but in particular among democratic countries I think) is such a breeding ground for ignorance and intolerance and hyperbole and blatant scaremongering (Obama is a Muslim etc etc)?

It reminded me of this classic article by Richard Hofstadter (which Nick Kristof gently alluded to in his column which I posted below re. the 'Ground Zero Mosque').  It's well worth a read, and I think his theory has held up since he wrote in 1964. 

Michael Tomasky has also written an insightful piece on the mentality of the Beck movement.

The way it should be

From the Washington Post, a refreshing counter-balance to the 'Ground Zero Mosque' madness lamented in my last post. Yes, "At Pentagon 9/11 site, Muslims pray without objection".

The fantasy of the 'Ground Zero Mosque'

One long-running story is illustrating perfectly how frighteningly good certain sections of the American media and (mainly) right-wing interest groups are at bending the truth for their own purposes.

This infuriates me.  The so-called 'Ground Zero mosque' is not a mosque, rather an Islamic cultural centre designed to promote inter-faith understanding no less, and it is not 'at' Ground Zero at all but two blocks away. 

For voices of sanity, read Nick Kristof here ("Today’s crusaders against the Islamic community center are promoting a...paranoid intolerance, and one day we will be ashamed of it") and Howard Kurtz on the mindless media stampede here.

I also liked a reader comment in the Economist last week "In all fairness, we've been building ground zeros near Mosques in Iraq since March 2003."(Via liebejessy on Twitter, thanks.)

It's classic Adam Curtis 'Power of Nightmares' stuff, and almost as crazy as the recent poll which shows that nearly 20% of Americans think President Obama is a Muslim. Comedian Andy Borowitz has a funny take on this, but really, its pretty damn depressing...

The civilising force at a stag do

Jonathan Freedland has a good piece in the Guardian today marking 100 days of the coalition government.

I particularly like this quote, from Tory Rick Nye, on the role/influence of the Lib Dems:

"It's like inviting your fiancee's brother to your stag weekend: it's inherently civilising. You're not going to have the strippers, you're not going to get blind drunk." To Nye, the Lib Dems are the fiancee's brother, forcing the Tories to be polite and behave themselves.

No one really wants to be that fiancee's brother, spoiling all the wildest fun, but for the bride's sake it's probably a good thing he's there...

Immigration scare-mongering

Good article in the Grauniad by Gary Younge about how conservative rags & broadsheets mis-use unemployment & immigration statistics. I'm always surprised by how many people I otherwise think of as fairly progressive, clever, right-on, swallow these intentionally dodgy interpretations as fact.

I agree with Younge's conclusion:

Stopping immigration as a means of fighting unemployment makes about as much sense as banning ice-cream sales in a bid to reduce shark attacks. And it will do about as much good too.

On being wrong

I don't always agree with Johann Hari, but I really like this week's column about how we need to change our attitude towards mistakes.

Burqa bans

I just read this excellent piece by Kenan Malik on burqa bans. As a perceived human rights buff/feminist/politics loudmouth, people often ask me whether I'm for-or-against such policies , it being one of those issues that has 'crossed over' into the comment sections of both tabloid and broadsheets. My replies tended to be in the 'bans are bad' camp but located perilously close to the fence. The 2 factors tending to bring me closer to that fence are 1) the burqa strikes me as an unquestionable and grotesque symbol of female subjugation and 2) bans may help those women who don't have a choice in wearing the burqa. By this I mean not solely, or even principally, those who are literally forced against their expressed will to wear it, but those for whom their upbringing, education or socio-cultural milieu is such that a real, informed choice is impossible.

Malik has placed my feet much more firmly in the anti-ban camp. He doesn't tackle quite effectively enough why some women may 'choose' to wear the burqa, stating rather simplistically that evidence suggests that "in Europe most burqa-clad women do not act from a sense of compulsion" but instead "do so voluntarily, largely as an expression of identity and as an act of provocation". (I'm not denying that there is a possibility that a woman could make such a choice in a genuinely free way; but I would argue that many such apparently free choices are nothing of the sort.) However, otherwise his argument is very convincing. Amongst other insights, I like this (an obvious point but worth making):

What of the suggestion that women are forced to wear the burqa, and so need protection from the law? It is true that in countries such as Saudi Arabia or Yemen women have little choice but to cover up their face. That in itself is a good reason for liberal societies not to impose coercive dress codes.

and this:

The burqa is a symbol of the oppression of women, not its cause. If legislators really want to help Muslim women, they could begin not by banning the burqa, but by challenging the policies and processes that marginalize migrant communities: on the one hand, the racism, social discrimination and police harassment that all too often disfigure migrant lives, and, on the other, the multicultural policies that treat minorities as members of ethnic groups rather than as citizens. Both help sideline migrant communities, aid the standing of conservative ‘community leaders’ and make life more difficult for women and other disadvantaged groups within those communities.

Cristina...and the rest

Interesting article on the Guardian Global Health blog which uses the sad state of women's rights in Argentina to make the case for a strong UN women's agency.

Of the former, I can testify with limited experience. Argentina really is a strange place socially and politically: extremely liberal, cosmopolitan and modern in some ways (for example, gay marriage has just been legalised), it is still woefully backward in terms of female equality. Call it 'macho culture' if you will, but don't shrug your shoulders and grin in a 'all-the-Latinos-are-at-it' way - this is deeply-rooted sexism with profoundly harmful consequences, as the Human Rights Watch report quoted in the above article makes clear. Such a situation is not inevitable and the problem can be tackled, but it will take considerable time, effort and resources, none of which are being deployed effectively at the moment.

[I did however go to a rather good exhibition about women in Argentina 1810-2010 while in Buenos Aires. Of course things of this nature get the green light and plenty of publicity partly because of the political interest involved, the President being a woman n'all... at every rundown of brilliant women through the ages in Argentina (there's also a photographic display on the tour route in the Casa Rosada presidential palace) the conclusion, the pinnacle, is of course Cristina. Many Evita-Cristina comparisons shoe-horned in there too, naturally.]

As for the UN women's agency, I'm glad some effort is being made to streamline the UN's women's bodies (currently we have: the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for the Advancement of Women, the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues AND the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women) but I'm afraid I too am pessimistic about whether the political will exists to make the new agency sufficiently powerful or dynamic to make a real impact. I hope I'm wrong.


Update 24 September: 'Super-agency' UN Women is now semi-operational. Encouraging signs: Michelle Bachelet, former President of Chile (so a significant political figure with real gravitas and good contacts), has been appointed as its Head; the body has starting budget of US$500 million, more than twice the current combined resources of the 4 agencies it is replacing.

Show them the money

Cash transfer programmes are the sexy new gadget in the poverty reduction toolbox. They're spreading so quickly partly because a lot of evidence shows that they work, and also because as gadgets go they're pretty damn easy to operate - the government just hands over money to the poor. Well, it's almost that simple - some of the most successful programmes are conditional, so people get given their money in return for the fulfillment of some sort of socially desirable goal; commonly, a child's school attendance.

The Economist ran a feature on CCTPs last issue [thanks ST for alerting me]; read the leader here and the Brazil case-study here. Incidentally, the UN independent expert on human rights and extreme poverty, who also happens to be research director at my new workplace, has been focusing on CTPs too; the website for her mandate has some interesting resources, including detailed information submitted by various countries regarding their own CTPs.

Back on the blog

Greetings. After a long hiatus, I'm resurrecting this blog.

So, what's changed? Well, I have: travelled a fair bit (Nepal, India, Singapore, Australia, Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, USA); lived in Buenos Aires where I learnt Spanish*, soaked up the city and ate a lot of steak; become vegetarian; attended a few weddings; moved to Geneva and adjusted to 5 days per week in an office again.

Blogging again is one happy side-effect of more time sat at a desk. As I'm working on human rights full-time now, there will continue to be an emphasis in that direction in my posts. So, to kick things off, and in acknowledgement of the fact that another big change during my radio silence is a new UK government, there's this. The UN General Assembly declared access to clean water and sanitation to be human rights last week, against fierce oppposition from the UK; a notable change in tack, as Labour minister Hilary Benn was happy to acknowledge the right to water back in 2006. I'm concerned and slightly mystified by this development.

Although I never wanted to see David Cameron walk into Number 10, I'll admit to thinking that the coalition government has done a reasonable job so far, all things considered, but its stance on human rights (see here and Conor Gearty here) and sustainable development (for example, shutting down the Sustainable Development Commission, claiming that SD has been 'mainstreamed' into government policy - see Jonathan Porritt on this here) I do find troubling.

*Mostly just as a challenge to myself, at some point I aim to start translating these posts into Spanish. Watch this space for an URL if you're interested, and feel free to whip out the red biro...