In relation to the Relay

At the writing of this piece discussions regarding the fate of the olympic torch relay are in full swing one question seems to dominate: given the recent demonstrations in several cities, notably in Paris and London, will the international relay (that envisages "to unite humanity" in preparation for the Summer Olympic Games) be suspended or not? Moreover, will such relays be held in the future?

Regardless of one's position vis-à-vis the Games and their relevance for our contemporary societies, it goes without a say that such a decision ought not to go unnoticed - what we see here is a series of "clashes" that entangle the politics and policy-making of wide range of stakeholders spanning as they do over politics, society and even sports! Tibet is, of course, central here, as is, the question of China's politics which in turn spills over to the politics of other countries towards China via (or not) the Games! One other conflict that emerges is precisely "how we are doing politics today": we have the "summits" and we have the streets. We have Monsieur Sarkozy demanding that certain "conditions" be met in order for him to attend the Opening Ceremony of the Games, we have major European countries pursuing "round-table diplomacy", we have the Tibetan diaspora communities mobilizing all over the world, we have citizens of different countries calling, amongst others, for pluralism and tolerance. And of course we have the torch which carries the Olympic flame, and not surprisingly, sets many things on fire along the way...

It matters therefore to monitor the events. Not so much for the torch- although many might find canceling the relay hard to swallow- but for the implications and actions that come along, that is, the bigger picture "behind" the torch. Whatever the outcome, whether it involves action or inaction it will be of relevance, for, the mere recognition and the pondering over the torch issue at the level of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) inevitably draws attention to questions that have long been lingering and perhaps occasionally brought to the surface but never really tackled in depth. And the latter is the responsibly of the international community.

In my view, and regardless of what the IOC will decide, there are many ways that the international community could "go about" [in dealing with the important issues] but also a danger of "not doing anything about" the issues that are at stake here by, say, opting out, covering up or perhaps by resorting to some flowery speeches or promises for "the years to come". And that would be an opportunity missed and a grave mistake at the same time. For, ultimately, what lies behind the torch, behind Tibet, behind "street and office" politics are profound questions about democracy and the meaning of this thousand-year-old term in the context of our contemporary societies. And such questions do require answers.

Confronting the past, shaping the future

This past week violence has considerably escalated in two African states - both Kenya and Chad are immersed in hostilities that have massive consequences for the populations, as thousands are reduced to nothing short of a state of hopelessness and despair. Well over a month after the contestable results of the December 27th election and with several hundred Kenyans dead and thousands more displaced, Kenya is still a torn state; the Kikuyo faction of President Mwai Kibaki and the Luo - to which opposition leader Raila Odinga belongs - are both vying for power. At the same time, it is a sad development that Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, an expert mediator, will not participate in negotiation talks; the decision of the Kenyan government to exclude Ms. Ramaphosa is indeed a blow to the peace efforts of former Secretary General, Kofi Annan, whose recommendation of a Truth and Reconciliation Committee might relieve people of much anguish and suffering.

The situation in Chad is quite worrisome as groups of rebels wage a fierce war against President Idriss Déby - a member of the Zaghawa group, which is a minority in the country; Déby's 18-year rule has been particularly problematic after allegations of electoral fraud (on more than one occasions) and particularly after the Constitutional reforms that augmented the President's powers. As French and Westerns evacuate the country, rebels have managed to enter N'Djamena, the capital city of Chad, on February 2nd. With a quarter of a million refugees from Sudan occupying the southeast parts of the country and a native population gravely affected by the battles, the peace-enforcement troops that France and several other European states are expediting in the region will certainly prove crucial.

Conflicts in Kenya, Chad and elsewhere in Africa are distressing for the suffering they inflict on people, the destruction they cause on the infrastructure of rural and urban spaces and the nature as well as the state of instability they impose, with order and peace returning on average months if not years after ceasefire. At the same time they awaken us all to two sad realities, of the sort that tend to be neglected:

- Just because states in Africa are sovereign, and no longer under colonial rule, this should not mean that they have done away with colonialism altogether; colonialism is present through the legacy it has bequeathed to the countries and the people. A mere look at the map of Africa betrays the sad reality of artificially created countries and explains why ethnic tensions are frequent and so difficult to manage.

- Just because democracy is a desired form of government for many people, this means not that democracy is also preferred by all and much less that it is easy to implement. With volumes of political science dedicated to democratic transition and the difficulties that come along, it is not a surprise that many states fail and as a result swing between authoritarianism and democracy, or, alternatively maintain "pseudo"democracies or, on some occasions, electoral democracies.

This past week severe human rights violations have also occurred in Sri Lanka. Civilians have died as a result of attacks by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on the occasion of the 60th year anniversary of the independence of the country from the British. The Tamil Tigers, it must be noted, question the legitimacy of the Sri Lankan government and have been waging a secessionist war for the past 30 years. Another Asian country, Indonesia, has come to the fore this week as former dictator Suharto passed away on January 28th. Responsible for much of the progress of the Indonesian economy during his 31-year rule, Suharto had a notorious human rights record, with blatant suppression of political dissent and media censorship. Suharto was never brought to a court of law, and this should not go unnoticed.

Yet this past week has brought also some positive developments in the field of human rights. Two important instruments of regional law came a step closer to becoming a reality: the Council of Europe Convention on Action against the Trafficking of Human Beings entered into force on February 1st, following the ratification of the Convention by four more countries (France, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Norway and Malta) this past January. The second instrument, the Arab Charter on Human Rights entered into force on January 24th, following the ratification of the seventh Arab state. Despite some controversial provisions regarding Zionism, the rights of children and non-citizens, the Charter provides a basis upon which human rights can be negotiated and further developed in the years to come.

Regional instruments are valuable as complements to existing law, often times acting as an "in-between" layer with international and domestic law on the two sides. In our contemporary times where conflicts and human rights violations span the entire globe, the international community has yet to guarantee a universal respect of human rights. In light of this deficiency, the regional instruments may in fact present us with a valuable tool to safeguard human rights in the various parts of world and with an opportunity to strengthen the legitimacy of human rights broadly speaking.

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Links:

on Kenya: Call for Kenyan Truth Commission
on Chad: Journal TV5 MONDE (in French; yet, worth watching for the images of N'Djamena)
on Indonesia and Human Rights in Asia: Asia's Need for Justice, Truth and Reconciliation

Somalia, today -

The scourge of war has been ravaging the population of Somalia for more than a year now causing a major humanitarian crisis that words alone cannot describe. Some 600,000 people, or, half the population of Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia, have opted to flee Inferno for the rural regions, in search of food or hope. Not that there is much of either food or hope in the impoverished villages, but anyway - let's assume there is.

Failed negotiations in late 2006 between the Transitional Government and the Islamist Movement led to a large-scale warfare when neighboring Ethiopia and the USA intervened on behalf of the Transitional Government, that is, against the combined forces of the Islamists and the Eritreans. Today, the Transitional Government is back in the capital but retaliation acts from the Islamists turn Mogadishu into a battlefield almost daily.

Famine is, for a second time in less than 20 years, a gloomy prospect for Somalia as political precariousness, lack of security and hostile checkpoints around the capital make the distribution of whatever UN and other food reaches the country disturbingly uncertain. Gross suffering and excessive deaths appear to be occurring as wounded women and children are frequently prevented from accessing UNICEF medical stations. If confirmed, the soon-to-happen expulsion of journalists from the area of Somaliland will seal the "death decree" for Somalia as it will sever the region from the world for good.

Reporting from the Shabelle River region for the Washington Post, Stephanie McCrummen is a voice in the field - and she communicates not only the plight of Somalis but also the quintessence of virtue in her article "A wealth of kindness among Somalia's poorest": entitled to only a loaf of bread and a few tomatoes per family, locals welcome their displaced compatriots knowing very well so that this means putting their very own survival at risk. Amidst so much misery, Somalis teach lessons for life - they truly do.

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References:

For updates: UN News on Somalia

Stephanie McCrummen's article: "A wealth of kindness among Somalia's poorest: Clan Ties Open Doors for Refugees From Capital"

Toys do not always come in a fancy gift wrap: Children of the World, Part B

I am holding a book in my hands by Ishmael Beah, a young Sierra Leonese who currently resides in New York City. If the name of the 26-year old does not sound familiar to you, there is nothing wrong; he is not to be found among the annals of African literature and story-telling tradition along with Soyinka, Achebe or Gordimer, but this makes his book no less important. In fact, it is precisely the hitherto "anonymity" of its author what is the defining element of the book: "A long way gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" is the story of Beah, a child-soldier in the Sierra Leone Civil War, one of many. Beah's memoir is truly the "voice" of many anonymous child-soldiers from Sierra Leone and abroad who have been trapped in bloody conflicts. It is the book of Beah's brother, Junior, who disappeared one fine day and was never to be seen again, it is the book of his classmates, of his friends, it is the book of other youngsters who could be in his position writing the book, but, sadly, did not "live to tell the tale" [to use the title of Garcia-Marquez's recent novel].

Like flies trapped in a spider web, the children caught by guerrillas (or the government army) are virtually at the mercy of their captors. And yet unlike flies, their death will not be quick and (presumably) painless but, instead, long and brutal. They surrender body and soul, agency and childhood. They get in return the only toy they are allowed to have: a gun boxed in instructions about killing and killing and obeying the superiors. This is because the voracious appetite of the leaders will not be satiated unless the children mutate into obedient recruits capable of satisfying any cause that appears "worthy" to the leaders. Generalized as this description may be, it resonates with the testimonies of several child-soldiers from different countries, Sierra Leone being just one example. A notorious case involves the now-indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) guerrila leader Joseph Kony of Uganda whose group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), has abducted some 20,000 children.

Whether it fits the definition of child labor or not, the truth remains that the brutality and exploitation of children-converted-into-soldiers in combat zones and conflicts is repugnant and intolerable. The "institution" of child-soldiers consists, naturally so, an outright violation of the essence of the major human rights texts like the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" (1948) or the "Convention on the Rigths of Children" (1989)- in fact, it is safe to argue that captors of child-soldiers nullify the very notion of human rights, let alone of children rights. Conversely, it needs not be repeated how damaging participating to wars is to children; what must be mentioned though is that even the children that manage somehow to escape or are rescued by the international community even at an early stage -like Ishmael Beah who was saved by UNICEF- need to undergo tremendous treatments in order to recover, to heal and to come in terms with their past.

The 11-year conflict that tore apart Sierra Leone erupted in 1991 with the first expedition of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a guerrila group who wanted to oust the All People's Congress (APC) government. The conflict ended in 2002, leaving thousands dead and an estimated 2 million people displaced. Statistics of the children-soldiers are harder to tabulate and largely do not make headlines during and even after the conflict ends. However child-soldiers are a distinct reality of warfare today, particularly in Africa, notably in Uganda, DR Congo and Angola, but elsewhere too, as in Colombia and Lebanon. According to Amnesty International some 300,000 children soldiers -close to the population of such capitals as Ljubljana, Slovenia or Canberra, Australia- fight in conflicts today. On the legislation front, progess has been achieved by the entry into force of the "Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Children on the involvement of Children in Armed Conflicts" in 2002 although sadly not all countries that are party to it have ratified it. Against the distressing reality and in lieu of any conclusion, I have decided to quote from Amnesty International's website a 15-year old girl, a former child-soldier of Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda - she tells: "I would like to give you a message. Please do your best to tell the world what is happening to us, the children. So that other children don't have to pass through this violence."

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Reference: Child Soldiers, Amnesty International

Toys do not always come in a fancy gift wrap: Children of the World, Part A

Yesterday was the World Day Against Child Labor and I, like many, was dumbfounded by the statistics of UNICEF and the ILO: over 132 million children work worldwide in agriculture, the largest "employer" of children. Children work also in private households, factories, mines - the list, sadly, goes on.. And one could take the discussion a step further, only to discover more misery, only to realize how systematic the violations of such major conventions as the Convention of the Rights of Children (1990) or the ILO Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour (1999) are...

One of the worst forms of child labor, or shall I say, child exploitation, is occurring in Thailand today: Muay Thai, or Thai Boxing "for children". Children as young as four are taken to booting camps where they are trained -from dawn to dusk and beyond- to participate in "children boxing", a sport that scors high in popularity among many Thais. In fact, behind children boxing there is an entire industry of bookmakers, trainers and parents who collectively and conscientiously exploit children in order to make profit: yes, it is about children fighting for the pure enjoyment of adults and the money-making that comes along.

Even though it has been illegal since 1999, child boxing continues to date - causing acute physical and psychological violence to children, often hampering their physical and mental growth. The industry, however, remains undeterred partly because it is lucrative, partly because of the underlying cultural argument [that Muay Thai is part of the culture of Thailand] - which is true except that it needs not to violate human rights, let alone the rights of the most vulnerable, the children. The version of Muay Thai that is revived in the poor neighborhoods of Bangkok seems closer to a misappropriation of the cultural heritage of the country, rather than anything else.

It is my firm belief that cultures, and more so cultural traditions must be preserved for the people that cherish them as part of their heritage and for the rest of us, outsiders, to be able to observe and enjoy. However one must be alert to potential misappropriation of culture in the name of some obscene goal: it is easy for the culturally sensitive to be overtaken by some mélange of cultural righteousness and a dose of "cultural relativism" discourse. Muay Thai, as practiced today, looks less like a cultural tradition and more like a distorted version or an ill-twisted reflection of something "cultural".

Humbled as I am by my limited knowledge of Thai culture and practices, I have refrained from expressing an inflexible position, even if subtantial evidence has tempted me to do so. Hence in my post so far I have favored "likelihood" over "certainty" when making culturally-related statements. However if there is one thing I am certain of, then this is that the four year-olds appearing on the footage of both France 24 and TV5 Monde did not make a rational and conscientious decision to join the boxing camps, if they made any decision at all, simply because at the age of four one is not in a position to make such decisions. They were taken there. Hence I have grounds to doubt that the physical or psychological torment that children undergo is in any manner or shape acceptable to them. I am even concerned that they may not have the opportunity to express an opinion (about pretty much anything) because of punishment (or fear thereof).

Profit needs not "guide empires" only (to borrow a line from a famous Greek song). Profit needs not be found in modern, industrialized, free-market societies only. Profit can be found in poor, rural Thailand too. And so can voiceless, vulnerable and exploited children - only that news about children ought to surprise us, economics not.

Links

The poignant video of France 24: Muay Thai: No child's play In English. Footage is graphic.

On Child Labor

En français: L'agriculture emploie 70 % de la main-d'oeuvre infantile

Στα ελληνικά: Το δικό σου σουβενίρ ποιο Κινεζάκι θα το φτιάξει;