Taking the Reconciliatory Route: Human Rights and Peace Building

Taking the Reconciliatory Route

Ivana Vuco and Bonny Ibhawoh reflect on the Human Rights and Peace Building)
(First Published in Human Rights Dialogue, Winter 2002, "Integrating Human Rights and Peace Work")

Ivana Vaco
Democracy is fragile in Nigeria. Democratic governance has crumbled under the burden of ethnic divisiveness three times in the past forty years; the current democratically elected, civilian regime came to power in 1999, after fifteen years of military rule. The frequency of violent clashes between various religious, ethnic, and geographic communities and their potential destructive impact on the national government have made peace work a necessity for a wide range of local civil society groups.

Since the end of military rule, human rights groups have been reassessing their mode of operation. They hope to establish themselves as a constructive element in the consolidation of democracy. This is a departure from the past, when they were uncompromising critics of the government. As the executive director of the Lagos-based Constitutional Rights Project, Clement Nwankwo, sees it, “Targeting the civilian, democratic government as a human rights offender could be counterproductive, even dangerous and destructive; human rights work now should seek to uphold the government, not overturn it.” In a country where democratic governments have been too weak to sustain themselves in power for longer than a couple of years, such a claim seems valid.

As a result, human rights groups have adopted a multidisciplinary approach to conflict, combining the methodology and perspectives of the human rights field with those of the conflict resolution field. This confluence of approaches has so far evolved only within certain human rights organizations; as yet, no long-term cooperation has been established between the human rights and conflict resolution organizations.

Human rights organizations like the Constitutional Rights Project began to infuse their human rights advocacy with conflict resolution work for several reasons. First, human rights violations are often the root cause of conflicts, and thus the protection of human rights becomes an integral part of peace processes. The involvement of human rights organizations in conflicts can ensure that human rights issues are addressed in a timely and effective manner. Second, the magnitude and scope of conflicts expose the inadequacy of traditional, community-based conflict resolution methods.

Conflicts in which communities turn against each other require strategies tailored to the complexities of the particular conflict, in addition to the traditional approach of identifying and exposing culprits. Human rights groups have thus begun their own conflict resolution trainings and negotiation sessions for the warring communities. Finally, the reconciliatory character of the conflict resolution field appeals strongly to human rights organizations seeking the middle ground in the work of advocating the protection of human rights, without undermining the legitimacy of Nigeria’s fledgling democracy. Thus, unlike human rights organizations elsewhere that emphasize uncompromising justice as a precondition for lasting peace, some human rights groups in Nigeria have made reconciliation and dialogue the basis of their work.

That human rights are an indispensable part of peace processes is best exemplified in the oil-producing Niger Delta. Here, conflict resolution methods alone are plainly inadequate for a number of reasons. Most important, they fail to address the real source of conflict in the Delta: unresolved human rights claims by the local communities. Economic and political marginalization, merciless environmental exploitation, and the destruction of traditional indigenous structures are only some of the most frequently cited reasons communities turn against each other. The government’s tactic of forcefully pacifying the communities under the guise of resolving intercommunal violence has exacerbated the situation; for example, the government killed and displaced thousands of members of the Ogoni and Odi communities in several brutal military interventions in the 1990s.

The human rights community is adamant that halting government brutality is an essential prerequisite for lasting peace. Since human rights groups typically have targeted the government, warring communities perceive them as more neutral; human rights groups have been better able to negotiate the tense security situation an address intercommunal violence. Because conflict resolution methodologies rely heavily on viable social structures and institutions, human rights methodologies have proved better suited to situations where traditional social structures and institutions have been seriously eroded.

The frequency and devastating extent of violent intercommunal conflicts have shown that a traditional human rights approach alone is also insufficient. While lobbying, disseminating information, and exposing the government’s activities all aim to remove the source of the conflicts, these activities do little to repair damaged relationships between warring communities in other regions. In response, human rights organizations are beginning to organize their own conflict resolution workshops for the warring communities. Some of them—for example, the Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta—have made it obligatory for their staff to take conflict resolution training. And they are becoming involved in peace processes through supervising the conflict resolution procedures set up by the government, overseeing the government’s analyses of conflicts, and supervising its execution of a peace process.

How to give human rights activism a more constructive role in society and promote a dialogue with the ruling regime is on the mind of every human rights worker in Nigeria. They all acknowledge that the field needs to use its expertise and experience to bring together different actors in conflicts. In the Niger Delta, for instance, a dialogue can be initiated that includes multiple communities, the oil companies, and the government. Some steps in this direction have been taken already. Some human rights groups have started doing their own independent studies of the conflicts, mediating meetings between the parties, and working to involve the government in the process. Others are working together with the government to instigate official inquiries and set up strategies for resolving the conflicts.

All of this marks a significant change in the work of Nigerian human rights groups. They have become more involved in aspects of conflict extending beyond human rights issues, thus making themselves a more relevant and more visible element of Nigerian civil society. And, whereas some human rights groups still see their role as primarily adversarial, most have opted for a more cooperative stance. Although some have questioned whether such a stance undermines the neutrality of the human rights field, this redefined position of the human rights groups might be just the type of support Nigeria needs at this moment.

Response

Bonny Ibhawoh
The role of human rights, Richard Wilson argues, is to create the bedrock of accountability on which democratic legitimacy can be built. But need this be the sole function of human rights? Beyond accountability and retributive justice, is it valid to deploy human rights discourses for the larger ends of social stability and peace building? Today, human rights have become too important to be limited to their legalistic foundations. Beyond law and the quest for retributive justice, there is much that the legitimizing language of human rights can bring to our quest for peace and social stability, as Ivana Vuco’s essay suggests.

In highlighting the limitations of supposedly traditional African models of conflict resolution and restorative justice, the essays by Wilson and Vuco address a growing concern with the construction of localized narratives, which draw on culture and tradition, in human rights and peace work. Much of this concern springs from the old debate over the universality and cultural relativism of human rights, which in recent years has shifted toward a discourse on legitimizing universal human rights and making them relevant to local sociopolitical contexts. The debate reflects the tension between the universal and the local, and the ways in which the language of human rights has been deployed to further nation-building agendas.

When former archbishop Desmond Tutu used the African concept of ubuntu to justify the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s emphasis on restorative justice and social stability rather than retributive justice, he was following in a tradition of African leaders and intellectuals who have articulated distinct cultural interpretations of human rights to meet local political exigencies. In the 1960s, Tanzania’s president Julius K. Nyerere articulated a socialist-oriented concept of human rights, which prioritized social and economic rights over civil and political rights. Like Tutu’s ubuntu, Nyerere’s ujamaa (African socialism) was an attempt to manufacture legitimacy for state institutions using a combination of the language of contemporary human rights and perceived African traditions of communalist/restorative justice. Although such appeals to African traditions are often idealistic, they represent an attempt to legitimize nation-building agendas with the language of human rights.

Wilson clearly does not think that the compromised, nonlegal/juridical use of rights language can ultimately serve the ends of justice, human rights, and peace. He argues that regimes should seek legitimacy not through efforts to forge moral unity and communitarian discourses but, instead, on the basis of justice defined as proportional retribution and fairness. In contrast, Vuco understands the appeal that conflict resolution has to some Nigerian human rights organizations, which are employing the language of human rights as “an indispensable part of peace processes.” These organizations are seeking the middle ground in the work of advocating for the protection of human rights without undermining the legitimacy of the country’s fledgling democracy. In many other African countries, human rights groups have found it useful to draw on traditional community-based resolution methods, with their emphasis on securing consensus and on the reciprocal relationship between rights and social responsibilities, in their conflict resolution work.

The concern about detaching human rights from their legal foundation when they are deployed to legitimize nation-building agendas is a valid one. As Wilson rightly points out, the risk in this approach to human rights is that it obscures accountability and does not particularly serve to promote the rule of law. However, while legal enforcement founded on accountability and retributive justice is a core part of contemporary human rights, the normative traditions on which human rights are built are not solely legal. They are also moral, religious, and philosophical. The language of human rights can contribute a great deal more to efforts to secure peace and social stability when the breadth of its basis is recognized.

The tide of global justice is turning in favor of legality, prosecution, and punishment rather than reconciliation and forgiveness. The TRC represented a shift from this dominant paradigm of retributive justice. But rather than being a deviation from a supposedly global ideal, the TRC in its emphasis on reconciliation and restorative justice might in fact represent an African-inspired normative contribution to the universal human rights corpus. The move by Nigerian human rights groups from human rights advocacy to conflict resolution represents a similar paradigmatic shift. As Vuco notes, by making this shift, they have become more involved in aspects of conflict that extend beyond traditional human rights issues.

This is significant because one of the major challenges of human rights discourse in Africa (at both academic and policy levels) has been the need to legitimize universal human rights within local contexts. One way of doing this is by articulating a sense of human rights informed by local exigencies and perspectives, which the rest of the international community can also use. With the sanctity of the legalistic/individualist paradigm of human rights being increasingly questioned, an African sense of community obligation that goes beyond retribution can serve to strengthen the cross-cultural legitimacy of universal human rights. This may be the most significant impact of the South African TRC and the conflict resolution work of Nigerian human rights groups.

Taking the Reconciliatory Route: Human Rights and Peace Building

7/26/2007 06:57:00 PM human rights, politics, war and peace

Intregrating Human Rights and Peace Work

Intregrating Human Rights and Peace Work
(First Published in Human Rights Dialogue, Winter 2002)

Human rights advocates and conflict resolution specialists share a common aim - building stable societies based on mutual respect and the rule of law - and often work on the same conflicts, addressing closely related issues. Despite the substantive overlap in their work, however, they often talk past each other. At a recent meeting between peace workers and human rights advocates, a rights activist made it clear that her organization "does not do peace." At the same workshop, a peace worker bemoaned the fact that the conflict resolution field has no guiding regime of laws and institutions comparable to that available to human rights advocates, implying that human rights principles were not a resource she could usefully apply to her own work.
This issue of Human Rights Dialogue is the seventh in a series exploring ways to dismantle the “human rights box,” to find creative ways to increase participation in the human rights movement, and to expand access to the benefits of a human rights framework. By exploring the relationship between human rights groups and peace groups in different settings, this issue seeks to shed light on the barriers to the integration of human rights into peace work and on the means to overcome those barriers. Contributors provide insights into the interaction between human rights and peace groups in the countries where they work or have conducted research: Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, and South Africa.

The unfortunate fact is that both in the field and in the offices of international organizations, human rights groups and peace groups often work on separate tracks and even at cross purposes. Mutual stereotyping by group members is common: Conflict resolvers are characterized as willing to compromise rights or avoid sensitive discussions of abuses altogether to satisfy the interests of the parties and secure a political deal; human rights advocates are seen as idealistic and uncompromising in seeking redress for individual violations, even at the cost of prolonging conflict. In at least some cases, these stereotypes are expressions of a fundamental clash between the human rights groups’ principled, legalistic, rights-based approach to resolving conflict and the more pragmatic and cooperative interest-based approach taken by peace groups.

In general, contributors agree that there needs to be better coordination between peace groups and human rights groups. Peace workers have to be willing and able to design intervention strategies that ultimately promote human rights standards. Human rights workers need to learn conflict management skills in order to address community demands and communicate effectively the relevance of human rights to the parties in conflict.

These needs have not gone entirely unnoticed. In the fall of 2000, major donors funded an institute devoted solely to addressing the problem—the Center for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution (CHRCR) at Tufts University. Executive director Ellen Lutz describes the CHRCR’s work in developing training and education programs that give peace workers and human rights advocates a better grounding in each other’s concerns and strategies.
Michelle Parlevliet and Ivana Vuco demonstrate that an approach that integrates human rights and conflict-prevention strategies can be both pragmatic and principled. The effective response of the South African Center for Conflict Resolution to an instance of conflict in Cape Town shows that a principled, rights-based stance can be the pragmatic response, according to Parlevliet. Vuco’s study of human rights and peace work in Nigeria describes how some human rights groups are taking a less adversarial approach to their work in a new, more open political environment.

In societies divided by ethnic, religious, political, or other intergroup tensions—Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland, for example—this integration of approaches is harder. In these conflicts, as Jehan Perera and Christine Bell explain, differences in the emphasis each community places on human rights have had the unfortunate effect of dividing them along the lines of the parties in conflict. Comments by Alan Keenan and Jeevan Thiagarajah on the Sri Lankan conflict stress the role of politically powerful actors in perpetuating Tamil-Sinhalese divisions, which makes it difficult for an independent movement to unify peace and human rights groups. In response to Bell, Mari Fitzduff explains that in Ireland rights-based approaches were effective in making claims against the state but did not adequately address nonstate actors, such as paramilitary groups.

The clash between human rights advocates and peace workers is most visible during formal efforts to resolve conflict, when the need for redressing abuses is most pressing. The typical human rights organization’s position is that there can be no peace without justice, in the form of criminal prosecutions for past abuses, and that impunity cannot be tolerated, even if the pursuit of justice prolongs the conflict. Peace groups, especially those oriented toward conflict resolution, are often more forgiving, tending to support reconciliatory approaches and nonpunitive measures, such as amnesty, as a means of ending conflict as quickly as possible.
Richard Wilson, Bonny Ibhawoh, and Vasuki Nesiah and Paul van Zyl offer insights into this debate by discussing different notions of justice—retributive versus restorative, punitive versus nonpunitive—and linking these notions to the cultural sources and legitimacy of the human rights framework. Wilson calls for a vigilant watch over activities conducted in the name of human rights; his concern stems from his observation that political elites in South Africa conflated human rights with "nation building,” which he argues undermined human rights and the rule of law in that country. In contrast, drawing on the case of Nigeria, Vuco and Ibhawoh argue that it is valid to use human rights language in serving the greater goal of social stability. The authors of the two commentaries on Wilson’s essay argue for expanding the notion of justice beyond legal prosecutions and for developing creative ways to achieve accountability that are suited to local capabilities and culture.

International policy makers are also debating what it would mean to incorporate a human rights perspective into conflict prevention and resolution. Looking beyone the question of appropriating human rights strategies (e.g., litigation, maning and shaming, and the like), actors at this level are considering whether human rights can function as a broad framework in which in which to carry out peace. In an interview with Dialogue, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Danilo Türk says that the human rights framework functions best at the level of norm-setting and that the desire for peace should serve as a further motivation for insistence on those standards. In the view of United States Agency for International Development (USAID), according to special advisor for conflict resolution Dayton Maxwell, a “human security” framework that is broader than a “human rights” framework can provide the basis for a more successful collaborative approach.

Intregrating Human Rights and Peace Work

7/26/2007 06:52:00 PM human rights, war and peace

Joint Actions for Hiroshima and Nagasaki Commemorations Across Canada

Following is an up-dated summary of forthcoming peace actions for Hiroshima andNagasaki Day commemorations. Please make corrections and up-dates. The list isnot complete and some cities may still be missing. Please send corrections andevent information up-dates to Anton Wagner, Toronto Hiroshima Day Coalition,awagner@yorku.ca 416-863 1209; fax: 416-863 9973; The suggestion has been madethat groups across-Canada organizing commemorations issue a joint call askingParliament to take a lead on negotiating an international nuclear weaponsabolition convention and to re-establish Canada?s former international role inpeacebuilding by establishing a Department of Peace. Peace actions that we areaware of so far include:

August 2:

Press conference by Halifax Peace Coalition. Contact: Tamara Lorincztlorincz@dal.ca

Saturday, August 4:

Vancouver: David Laskey from Veterans Against Nuclear Arms has arranged to haveMayor Sam Sullivan declare August 6 as Hiroshima Day in the City of Vancouverand for the Mayor to read his Proclamation on Saturday August 4th at theopening ceremonies of the Powell Street Festival, an annual event thatcelebrates the Japanese Canadian contribution to Canadian life. Contact:laskey8824@shaw.ca

VSA9, Vancouver Save Article 9, a group organizing to stop the Japanesegovernment from changing Article 9 of the Japanese constitution that prohibitswarmaking, hold an A-bomb and Humanity exhibition August 4 and 5 in conjunctionwith the Powell Street Festival. Contact: Eiichiro Ochiai eo1921@telus.ne

Sunday, August 5:

Montreal: Hiroshima is Montreal?s twin city and in 1998 donated a Peace Bell tothe Montreal Botanical Garden as a symbol of peace and eternal friendshipbetween the two cities. An annual peace ceremony has been organized by theJapanese Pavillion of the Botanical Garden with the support of the City ofMontreal since then. Often the mayor or a representive and the Consul Generalof Japan are present. The ceremony is held in the evening, August 5, at 7 pm tocorrespond with the commemorative ceremony taking place in the Peace Park inHiroshima, on August 6. The Peace Bell in the Japanese Garden will ring 62times throughout the day of August 6. Everyone is invited to come to the August5 Japanese Garden commemoration starting at 7 pm to remind us of the importanceof world peace. Contact: General information, Montreal Botanical Garden,514-872 1400 or Karine Jalbert, Communications Coordinator, 514-872 1453,karinejalbert@ville.montreal.qc.ca

Midland-Penetang, Ontario: Peaceworks commemorates Hiroshima Day at the PenetangPeace Garden on Rotary Trail. Potluck picnic at 5.30; commemorative ceremony at7.00pm with a presentation by James Bacque, ?A Modest Proposal: Eliminate WarBy Privatizing It,? music and the Orillia Raging Grannies. Learn to make anorigami crane. Contact: Elizabeth O'Connor peace_works@hotmail.com

Monday, August 6:

Halifax: The third annual Peace Day takes place from 3 to 4:30 pm in the WorldPeace Pavilion at the Dartmouth Waterfront Park near Alderney Landing. (In theevent of rain the event will be inside the terminal building of the passengerferry from Halifax to Dartmouth). The program includes a youth performance ofthe play ?One Thousand Cranes,? speakers including MP Alexa McDonough, and theRaging Grannies. Organized by Physicians for Global Survival, Voice of Womenfor Peace and the Halifax Peace Coalition. Contact: Tamara Lorincztlorincz@dal.ca or http://www.halifaxpeacecoalition.ca/

Fredericton commemorates Hiroshima Day with Lantern Night: A Vigil AgainstNuclear Weapons, at 8:30 pm at the Peace Pole, near the Walking Bridge, southside Fredericton. (In the event of rain, the event will be held at ConserverHouse, 180 St. John St.) The program includes speakers from the local chaptersof Project Ploughshares, Veterans Against Nuclear Arms and the FrederictonPeace Coalition, and poetry and music. Contact: info@frederictonpeace.org orvisit http://www.frederictonpeace.org/

Ottawa: A commemoration of the 61st Year Since the Nuclear Destruction ofHiroshima and Nagasaki will be held at 7 pm at the Friends Meeting House.Includes a power point presentation ?Sixty years of Struggles by Canadians toBan Nuclear Weapons,? a general discussion of initiatives being taken today forthis purpose and what individuals can do towards banning the bonb, communitysinging and a walk to the pond by the Canal to float handmade lanterns.Sponsored by the Ottawa Monthly Meeting of Friends (Quakers) in collaborationwith Physicians for Global Survival and the Ottawa branches of ProjectPloughshares and Religions for Peace. Contact: Murray Thomson,mothom@sympatico.ca Debbie Grisdale, pgs@web.ca Jordan Bishop,jordanbishop@sympatico.ca

Toronto: The Toronto Hiroshima Day Coalition organizes the annual Hiroshima DayCommemoration at the Toronto City Hall Peace Garden from 6:30 to 9 pm withVeterans Against Nuclear Arms. This year?s commemoration, entitled ?Paths toHope? to emphasize concrete steps that can be taken to achieve the eliminationof nuclear weapons, is MC?ed by Phyllis Creighton from Science for Peace.Councillor Raymond Cho will read Mayor David Miller's Toronto Hiroshima DayProclamation. Prayers for peace from Father Damian MacPherson, President of theToronto Area Interfaith Council, Imam Abdul Hai Patel from the Council of Imamsof Canada, and representatives from the Toronto Buddhist Church and the BahaiCommunity will be presented. Physicians for Global Survival will present theToronto launch of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.Hiroshima survivor Setsuko Thurlow will read peace poems by Kurihara Sadako.The City of Hiroshima Peace Proclamation will be read as well as the 50thanniversary Pugwash Conference statement. Following speakers from VeteransAgainst Nuclear Arms, the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee and the federalDepartment of Peace initiative, MP Peggy Nash will speak on the federalgovernment and peacebuilding. The Yakudo Traditional Japanese Drummers and theRaging Grannies will perform. A lantern ceremony will conclude the event.Sponsored by the Hiroshima Day Coalition, the Japanese Canadian CulturalCentre, Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, Physicians for Global Survival, Voice ofWomen, and the Older Women?s Network. Contact: Anton Wagner, awagner@yorku.caand http://www.myspace.com/hiroshimaday

Winnipeg: Project Peacemakers, the Winnipeg chapter of Project Ploughshares, andthe Peace Alliance Winnipeg are organizing this years event which includesmaking lanterns, a lantern ceremony at twilight, music and speakers fromProject Peacemakers and the Japanese-Canadian community. Contact: ProjectPeacemakers, 204-775 8178, info@projectpeacemakers.org

Saskatoon: Veterans Against Nuclear Arms organizes a screening of thefull-length documentary Veterans Against Nuclear War filmed in Canada and inHiroshima and Nagasaki at the Broadway Theatre at 7 pm. The event is alsosponsored by the Saskatoon Peace Coalition and Project Ploughshares. Contact:Betsy and John Bury, burybjd@sasktel.net

Grand Forks, BC: The Boundary Peace Initiative in the B.C. Southern Interior ishosting a Hiroshima Day Commemoration at 1 pm in Gyro Park (next to theBoundary Museum) with presentations on Uranium Mining and Exploration impactsalong with a fundraiser for our group. The Boundary/Kootenay/Okanagan isthreatened with mining of the known deposits of uranium in our areas. Ouryouth will do chalk silhouettes throughout the downtown on August 5th (it?seasier than the water soluble paint that caused issues with City Council a fewyears ago). We are a member of the B.C. Southern Interior Peace Coalition, the Canadian Peace Alliance, Abolition 2000, Lawyers Against the War, Uranium FreeB.C., Uranium Free Kootenay Boundary and an affiliate of the Fellowship ofReconciliation as well as working with other local, national andinternational groups. Contact: Laura Savinkoff, l4peace@telus.net

Salt Spring Island, BC: Continuing an over 25-year tradition of markingHiroshima Day, this year?s event takes place in the peace park across fromArtspring, 10am-2pm (lanternmaking); 7:30 pm (gathering) Contact: Jan Slakovjs@saltspring.com

Thursday, August 9:

Hamilton: The annual Hiroshima-Nagasaki Memorial Observance takes place at 7 PMin the Hamilton City Hall Council Chamber. The Guest Speaker will be Prof.Graeme MacQueen, Founder, Centre for Peace Studies, McMaster University,speaking on ?The Crisis of Civilization and the Need for Imagination.?Presented by the Hamilton chapter of Project Ploughshares and co-sponsored byAmnesty International Group One, the Hamilton Mundialization Committee, UnitedNations Association in Canada, Ghandi Peace Festival, Physicians for GlobalSurvival, Interfaith Council for Refugees and Human Rights, McMaster UniversityCentre for Peace Studies, Hamilton Culture of Peace Network, Operation Lifelineand Food Not Bombs. Contact: Leonor Sorger, lsorger@hamiltondiocese.com

Powell River, BC: Powell River is organizing a traditional Hiroshima-NagasakiCommemoration at Willingdon Beach at 7 pm with songs, a Peace Lantern Ceremonyand a speech by our Mayor who joined Mayors for Peace in 2004 and has beenasked to endorse the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. TheICAN campaign will be launched in Powell River at the same time and petitionscirculated for signatures until the end of September. Contact: Dr. Sylvia Keetsylviak@prcn.org

Joint Actions for Hiroshima and Nagasaki Commemorations Across Canada

7/26/2007 12:23:00 AM

Al Jazeera in Africa

In my recent trip across Eastern and Southern Africa, I was quite surprised to see the growing influence of Al Jazeera TV channel in the continent. It was available in all the hotels I stayed in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Nairobi and Kampala. Most middle class homes with cable television now have access to Al Jazeera's 24 hour news service. It is increasingly becoming the news source of choice across the continent. Its programming, which focuses more on the global South, seems to haves truck a chord among many Africans. Yet, this TV station is still not available on cable in the US and Canada. No American cable network will carry Aljeezeera because of the perception that it is a propaganda outlet for Islamic jihdists. We may debate and disagree on the objectivity and credibility of Al Jazeera as a news source but it says a lot about the growing polarization of our world that a news channel that is so influential in shaping minds and opinions of so many people accross Africa and the Middle East is not even available to the US and Canadian public. Any wonder why the gulf between the West and rest keeps widening?

Al Jazeera in Africa

7/17/2007 02:30:00 PM africa, media, world

Snowy Johannesburg, South Africa

Johannesburg, South Africa had its first snowfall in 26 years while I was there in June 2007. It was a sight to behold. Jo'burg is one my my favourite African cities - diverse, bustling and alive with hope and possibilities. I am looking forward to the World Cup games there in 2010. The new stadium in Soweto will be the place to be!

Snowy Johannesburg, South Africa

7/16/2007 04:09:00 PM africa

Bustling Nairobi, Kenya

Images of my recent visit to Nairobi June 2007: A bustling and vibrant African city

Bustling Nairobi, Kenya

7/16/2007 04:03:00 PM africa

A Voice for Africa: Stephen Lewis and the Race Against Time

A Voice for Africa: Stephen Lewis and the Race Against Time
By
Bonny Ibhawoh

Race Against Time: Searching For Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa. By Stephen Lewis. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2006. 214 pp. $18.95 (paperback). ISBN 13-978-0-88784-753-0. [Originally published in Journal of Canadian Studies, Winter 2007]

Those who, like me, have long wondered when, if ever, Canada will produce another international statesman and diplomat in the mould of Lester Pearson need wonder no more. In Stephen Lewis, the Canadian tradition of groundbreaking international statesmanship is assured. As the United Nations Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis has brought more than just his skills as a broadcaster, politician, and diplomat to his job. He has also brought his ideological convictions as a "democratic socialist," his lifelong passion for Africa, and his tireless commitment to mobilizing global action against a pandemic that threatens the future of a continent. Named among Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2005, Lewis is one of North America's most widely known commentators on human rights and international development.

Race Against Time is a compilation of Stephen Lewis's 2005 Massey lectures. It opens with a line that jolts, alerting the reader to the seriousness of the subject: "I have spent the last four years watching people die" (2006, 1). What follows is a riveting excursion into the tragedy that is the AIDS pandemic and one man's almost obsessive drive to do something about it. For those familiar with the discussion on AIDS, the central message of this book is a familiar one-the AIDS crisis in Africa has reached pandemic proportions and the global community needs to do more to redress its devastating impact on the continent. What makes this book unique, however, is the eloquence and passion with which Stephen Lewis delivers this message. It commands attention.

Lewis writes with the same energy and lucidity that we have come to expect of his public speeches. The anecdotes and biographical excursions that spice the book make it a compelling read. The narrative of Lewis's long-standing "love affair" with Africa is particularly intriguing. It takes us on a journey across Africa, from his experiences as an idealistic youth teaching in the newly independent state of Ghana in the 1960s to his fraternization with South African anti-apartheid activists, which led to his ban from that country by its white minority regime. The Africa that Lewis encountered in the 1960s was one of promise and vitality, much different from the one he sees today. It is heartbreaking, he writes, "to see the Africa I once knew reduced to such desperation" (60). Although we may have become used to images of a desperate Africa, Lewis contends that this is different: "The AIDS crisis in Africa is a different, but analogous holocaust" (107), a holocaust fuelled by poverty, ignorance, and apathy.

The statistics are familiar yet remain depressingly mind-boggling. In Zambia, 23% of all children are AIDS orphans; in Swaziland, 15% of the children will be orphans by 2010; and in Botswana, 35% of the entire adult population is HIVpositive. Even more troubling is the fact that, across the continent, hundreds die daily because they have no access to antiretroviral drugs needed to keep them alive. These alarming figures, Lewis argues, point to the collective failure of humanity. He is critical of the apathy of rich Western nations but also the "wilful inertia and outright irresponsibility" at work in the United Nations system that have hindered international action on tackling the pandemic (xi). It is inexcusable that lifesaving anti-HIV drugs that can stem the tide of deaths and prevent motherto-child transmission of the virus are still not available to those who need them most in Africa. We now have the drugs to control if not cure the disease. AIDS need no longer be a death sentence for mothers or their unborn children, yet in sub-Saharan Africa only 5-8% of pregnant women have access to these drugs.

Race Against Time is not just a book about AIDS. It is also a treatise on the gaping inequalities and inequities of our world. Unlike some other commentators on the subject, Lewis has spent enough time at the front lines of the pandemic to know that the quest for a solution cannot simply focus on the provision of antiretroviral drugs to HIV-infected persons in Africa or elsewhere in the developing world. The AIDS crisis has much to do with the larger economic crisis in the continent. Lewis argues quite persuasively that the AIDS pandemic in Africa and the continent's inability to respond adequately to it is partly the result of a succession of disastrous economic policies promoted by international financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). These policies, known as Structural Adjustment Programs, were introduced in the 1980s and heralded as the long-sought panacea for the continent's ailing economies. The programs laid down strict conditions for granting World Bank and IMF loans to African countries in order to reform their economies, curtail waste, and "improve governance" (9). As of 1993, 36 African countries had implemented these economic restructuring programs, which included the devaluation of national currencies, curtailment of government expenditure, cuts in public wages and social sector programs, privatization and commercialization of certain social services, and the elimination of government subsidies.1 The requirement that credit-seeking countries significantly reduce government spending on social services such as health and public education resulted in the total collapse of these vital social sectors across the continent. By the end of the 1990s, the consensus among experts was that these economic programs had been an unmitigated disaster. Even advocates of the programs such as the World Bank and the IMF conceded belatedly that African countries had implemented them at "great social costs" (Zuckerman 252).2

Structural Adjustment programs are, however, only one aspect of the many conditions that combine to keep Africa a marginal player in an increasing prosperous global economy. Lewis illustrates the wealth gap with an evocative juxtaposition. Every cow in the European Union is subsidized by two dollars a day, while between 400 and 500 million Africans live on less than a dollar a day. Tackling the AIDS pandemic must be part of a broader agenda that addresses this obscene prosperity gap. This means linking the fight against AIDS with the economic, social, and political conditions that fuel the spread of the disease. Lewis takes this comprehensive approach. He goes beyond the focus on providing antiretroviral drugs and forcefully advocates strengthening African economies through debt cancellation and favourable international trade to improve their own health care capacities. He calls for universal primary education to enlighten and educate the masses of Africa about the disease and empowering women across the continent to make them better able to protect themselves.

Is this really the best approach to tackling the AIDS pandemic? By dragging "extraneous" issues like debt cancellation, international trade, and women's rights into the fight against AIDS, do we not risk compromising international consensus and collaboration on finding solutions? Are we not better served treating the AIDS pandemic simply as a public health emergency? Those who raise these questions have a legitimate point. AIDS is too important to be entangled in divisive ideological battles and wrangles over international trade and finance. As Stephen Lewis reminds us, however, a comprehensive approach to confronting the AIDS crisis is not only necessary; it is imperative. Take the case of Malawi, where one of the greatest challenges to dealing with AIDS is the brain drain of the country's health care professionals to Western countries. Malawi has only one third of the doctors and nurses it needs because it cannot afford to pay competitive wages to keep them. The result is that there are "more Malawian doctors in Manchester (England) than in Malawi" (48). The response to this challenge cannot simply be to focus on providing antiretroviral drugs. Rather, it must also address how to build the country's economic capacity to attract and retain health care professionals. The same can be said for food. If a patient has nothing to eat, the body cannot handle powerful antiretroviral drugs. As Lewis so aptly puts it, "AIDS leads to hunger; hunger exacerbates AIDS. It's a merciless interaction" (134). The quest for solutions to the AIDS pandemic must therefore also involve issues of food security, access to basic health care, and poverty alleviation.

Although much of his discussion focusses on the failure of the international community to respond adequately to the AIDS crisis in Africa, Stephen Lewis also explores the conditions within the continent that have hindered the quest for solutions. He lays part of the blame on African leaders and governments that have done little to tackle the pandemic, on local traditions that subjugate women, and on societies that stigmatize people with AIDS. In the fight against AIDS, stigma is indeed the bane of progress: "It savages and ravages, ostracises and isolates those who are living with AIDS" (69). In denouncing the culture of denial and stigmatization that has hindered efforts to reverse the spread of the disease in some parts of Africa, Lewis pulls no punches. He is forthright and unapologetic. "What does one do about Swaziland?" he asks, almost in exasperation (183). The king defiantly practices polygamy, marries underage girls into his harem of wives, and lives ostentatiously in an impoverished country devastated by AIDS. Evidently, the king provides no moral leadership in his country's battle against AIDS.

Such tough talk has made Stephen Lewis a controversial figure in some quarters. At the International AIDS conference in Toronto in 2006, he strongly criticized the response of the South African government to the AIDS crisis in that country, describing its policies as "theories more worthy of a lunatic fringe than of a concerned and compassionate state" (quoted in Russell 2006). He has frequently been at the receiving end of angry rebuttals from governments and even the World Bank and the IMF, whose economic policies he holds partly responsible for the collapse of the social service sector in many African countries. Lewis may not be the quintessential diplomat; but, for the teeming population of HIVinfected persons and AIDS sufferers in Africa and across the developing world, he is a godsend. His commitment and occasional diplomatic faux pas have brought unprecedented global awareness to the tragedy of AIDS in Africa.

The Africa that Lewis presents is not only one of despair and misery, however. As the title of the book suggests, it is also one of hope and vitality. Lewis's source of hope is the resilience of people living with AIDS themselves. It is the kind of hope he has found among ordinary people at the front lines of the epidemic across the continent, from truck drivers in Ethiopia to sex workers in Kenya who are all beginning to take their destinies in their own hands by changing long-standing social attitudes in order to prevent the spread of the disease.

One limitation that some will find with Race Against Time is its silence on the link between AIDS and the problem of corruption and governance in Africa. While Lewis spends much time admonishing Western countries and the international community for their inadequate response to the pandemic, he pays little attention to the impact of corruption and mismanagement by African leaders on the AIDS crisis. Lewis offers a robust defence, however. Corruption and governance, he concedes, are legitimate issues of concern; but the preoccupation with them forever seems to tarnish the continent's right to health and recovery. For those who study and teach about Africa, this is always a concern-the notion that there is simply no hope for Africa. There is even a term for it, "Afro-pessimism."3 The presupposition that attempts at economic, social, and political developments are doomed to fail often becomes an excuse for inaction. As Lewis reminds us, it is easy to say that Africa is a basket case of anti-democratic chaos; but there are 53 countries in subSaharan Africa, an increasing number of them embracing democracy, and it is the height of arrogance to consign all of them to "some self-inflicted purgatory" (4). If anything, the evidence suggests that concerted international action can yield encouraging results, as is the case in Tanzania, where the cancellation of the national debt by Western creditors has made it possible for that country to provide free universal primary education to all its children.

Race Against Time is not a book for those looking for an objective and detached discourse on AIDS in Africa. Stephen Lewis makes no claim to dispassionate objectivity. He admits that he has been "emotionally torn asunder" by the onslaught of AIDS and that this has profoundly changed his world view (xii); but even as he excoriates governments and the international community for not doing enough to fight the disease, Lewis avoids the tone of self-righteousness that we have to come to expect from some of the world's "do-gooders." He readily concedes that, like many others, he must bear some of the blame for the world's inaction. As the director of UNICEF he could have done more to ring the alarm bells about AIDS much earlier. "I am culpable," he writes, "and I am not going to try to hide it" (83).

As if to atone, Lewis ends the book with a long list of recommendations that he thinks are crucial to winning the fight against AIDS in Africa. They include the cancellation of all remaining African debt (still over $200 billion), significant increases in aid to Africa by rich Western nations, and, perhaps most controversial of all, the institution of a corporate tax on certain multinational corporations to fund the global fight against diseases such as AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis that ravage much of the developing world. These are bold recommendations-some might even say unrealistic-but Stephen Lewis thrives on challenging norms and conventional wisdoms. He voices, with unequalled fervour and compelling eloquence, a great moral dilemma that confronts our world today. He reminds us that the scourge of AIDS is not just a problem of Africa and the developing world. It is a tragedy that shames and diminishes us all. But is anyone seriously listening?

Notes

1. For a discussion on Structural Adjustment Programs and their impacts on Africa, see B.K. Campbell and J. Loxley. Structural Adjustment in Africa (1989) and Sayre Schatz, "Structural Adjustment in Africa: A Failing Grade So Far" (1994).

2. See Demery, M. Ferroni, and C. Grootaert, eds., Understanding the Social Effects of Policy Reform (1993), and World Bank, Adjustment in Africa (1994) for World Bank and IMF commentary on Structural Adjustment Programs.

3. There is a growing body of literature on the phenomenon of Afro-pessimism. see for example, J.S. Saul, "Afro-pessimism/optimism: The Antinomies of Colin Leys" (2002), and Ruth Mayer, Artificial Africas (2002).

References

Campbell, B.K., and J. Loxley, eds. 1989. Structural Adjustment in Africa. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Demery, L., M. Feroni, and C. Grootaert, eds. 1993. Understanding the Social Effects of Policy Reform. Washington, DC: World Bank.

Mayer, Ruth. 2002. Artificial Africas: Colonial Images in the Times of Globalization. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.

Russell, Sabin. 2006. "South Africa's AIDs Efforts Assailed in Keynote Speech." San Francisco Chronicle, 19 August. The Stephen Lewis Foundation, www.stephenlewisfoundation.org/news_item.cfm?news=1372.

A Voice for Africa: Stephen Lewis and the Race Against Time

7/16/2007 03:35:00 PM africa, education, human rights