Pambazuka News 292: Wearing the hijab: choice or submission?
Pambazuka News 292: Wearing the hijab: choice or submission?
I applaud Mr. Bropleh's article because it hits on the point that in order for us – Liberians - to move forward, we must learn about our past, come to terms with our failures and incorporate the experience of our nation into our vision for the future to make it a unifying national vision.
Two UN agencies have pledged to help poor countries tackle climate change and improve their environmental management skills. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) cemented a bond between fighting poverty and protecting the environment by launching a joint Poverty and Environment Facility in Nairobi.
Kenya has been opening its school doors to more women and creating strategies to spur their interest in math and science. As numbers change slowly, advocates are realizing they face a stubborn foe.
Great piece by Selome Araya. I would like to reproduce it on my website which I will be launching at the end of the month. How can I go about it? Secondly, if I want my pieces to appear on your website, how can I go about it, if it is a possibility?
Editor's reply: You are free to reproduce content from Pambazuka News provided that you always include the source of the article (Pambazuka News) and the URL of the article (in this case:
With your experience of working on development programmes in developing countries, we hope you'll have seen Comic Relief funded projects in action. Now's your chance to play a lead role in developing, managing and evaluating one or more of our grants programmes and driving forward our international grant making strategy
Samir Amin examines the processes and impacts of the World Social Forum and considers whether it is after all a useful forum for popular struggles.
The undeniable success of the World Social Forums (and of the national and regional forums), from their first edition (Porto Allegre 2001) to their seventh (Nairobi 2007) shows that the formula met a real objective need, felt by many militants and movements engaged in their struggles against neo-liberalism and the aggression, including military aggression, of imperialism. In these struggles, movements and militants have much renewed their forms of organisation and active intervention in society.
Yes, the dominant political culture of the left had been marked in the 19th and 20th centuries by practices based on the hierarchical vertical organisation of parties, trade unions and associations. In the circumstances of the period the movements they stimulated – radical and reformist social transformations, revolutions, national liberations – transformed the world, in a direction generally favourable to the working classes. Nevertheless the limits and contradictions specific to these forms of action appeared strongly from the 1980-1990 period. The democratic deficiency of these forms, going as far as the self proclamation of 'vanguards' armed with 'scientific' knowledge and the 'exclusive effective' strategy, are at the root of later disappointments: reforms and revolutions brought to power regimes of which the least that can be said is that they frequently badly kept their promises, often degenerate, sometimes in criminal directions. These failures made possible the return to the offensive of dominant capital and imperialism as from the 1980-1990 period.
The moment of euphoria of capital and imperialism – which went onto the offensive under the banner of neo-liberalism and globalisation – was short lived, 1990-1995. Very quickly the working classes entered the struggle to resist this offensive.
Yes, in general, this first wave of struggle placed itself on the ground of retaliation to the offensive in all its multi-dimensionality: resistance to economic neo-liberalism, to the dismantling of social benefits, to police repression, to the military aggressions of the US and its allies. The chain of these grounds of resistance is continuous, and according to the local circumstances, struggles are deployed mainly on the grounds of the immediate challenge with which people are confronted. In this sense the demand for market regulation, the promotion of women’s rights, the defence of the environment, the defence of public services, for democracy, armed resistance to the aggression of the US and its allies in the Middle East (Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon) are in-dissociable from each other.
In these resistance struggles the peoples have innovated. Many of the old political forces of the organised left remained aloof from these first struggles, timid in face of the aggression, sometimes won over to the liberal and imperialist options. The movement was initiated by the 'new forces', sometimes almost 'spontaneously'. In their deployment, these forces promoted the fundamental principle of democratic practice : refusing the vertical hierarchy, promoting the horizontal forms of cooperation in action. This advance of democratic consciousness must be considered as progress of 'civilization'. To the extent that it is reflected in the social forums, these must therefore be considered as perfectly 'useful' for the development of the struggles in progress.
The resistance struggles have recorded indisputable victories. They have initiated the defeat of the offensive of capital and imperialism. The US project to control the planet militarily, which is necessary to guarantee the 'success' of the globalisation in place, the 'preventive' wars conducted to ensure its effectiveness (invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, occupation of Palestine, aggression against Lebanon) have already visibly held in check the political project of imperialism. The so-called neo-liberal economic and social project, designed to provide a strong and stable base for the accumulation of capital – ensuring the maximum rate of profit at any price – is, in the opinion of the very authorities who are its authors (World Bank, IMF, WTO, European Union), incapable of imposing its conditions. It is 'falling apart': the Doha round of the WTO round is in an impasse, the IMF in financial collapse. The menace of a sudden economic and financial crisis is on the agenda.
The challenge to which the struggling peoples are confronted is entirely situated in the answer they give to the question asked here, in the terms so forcefully expressed by François Houtart, moving up from the collective consciousness of the challenges to the construction of the active social agents of the transformation.
Obviously this challenge concerns, well beyond the forums, the peoples themselves. To what extent does the collective consciousness find its expression in such forums? It is certainly present in unequal degrees of maturity, as always in history, depending on the moments, the places and the movements concerned.
But beyond this, do the forums contribute to the necessary advance of consciousness, to the construction of agents of transformation? To which extent this collective consciousness is reflected within the social forums? We will attempt to reply to this question further on.
Progress is and will be difficult. Because it implies (i) the radicalisation of the struggles and (ii) their convergence in diversity (to use the formula of the World Forum for Alternatives) in joint action plans, which imply a strategic political vision, the definition of immediate and more distant objectives (the 'perspective' which defines the alternative). The radicalisation of the struggles is not the radicalisation of the rhetoric of their words, but their articulation to the alternative project which they propose to substitute for the systems of social power in place: constructing social hegemonies (class alliances and compromises) imposing themselves as alternatives to the social hegemonies in power (those of the alliances dominated by capital, imperialism and the local comprador classes in its service). Beyond a wave of 'coordination' of struggles (or even simply exchanges of views) which does not enable their dispersion to be transcended (and thereby their weakness), convergence can only be the product of a 'politicisation' (in the positive sense of the term) of the fragmented movements. 'Non-political civil society', an ideology imported straight from the US, which continues to wreak devastation, is fighting against this demand.
Convergence in diversity and radicalisation of struggles will find their expression in the unavoidable construction of stages allowing (i) advances in democratisation (conceived as an endless process and not as a 'blueprint', supplied by the model of western representative political democracy) associated with (and not dissociated from) social progress, and (ii), the affirmation of the sovereignty of states, nations and peoples, imposing forms of globalisation which are negotiated and not unilaterally imposed by capital and imperialism. These definitions of the content of the alternative construction are certainly not accepted by all.
Some believe that democracy (multi-party system and elections), be it dissociated from the social question (subject to the working of the market), is better than nothing. However the peoples of Asia and Africa do not appear on the whole inclined to fight for this form of democracy dissociated from social progress (and even in fact associated at the present moment with social regression). They often prefer to rally para-religious/ethnic movements which have very little democracy about them. It may be regretted, but it would be better to ask the question why. Democracy can be neither exported (by Europe) nor imposed (by the US). It can only be the product of the conquest by the peoples of the South through their struggles for social progress, as was (and is) the case in Europe.
The very mention of nation, national independence or sovereignty makes some people’s skin crawl. Sovereignism is almost always qualified as a vice of the past. The nation is to be thrown into the rubbish bin, moreover globalisation has already made it obsolete. This thesis which is popular among the European middle classes finds no echo in the South, nor in the US, nor Japan.
Transformation in stages does not exclude the affirmation of the prospect in the long term. For some, including the author of these lines, this transformation is that of the socialism of the 21st century; others refuse socialism, for them it is henceforth definitively polluted by its practice in the last century. But all the same, even if the principle of convergence is accepted, its implementation will be difficult. Because it is a case of reconciling (i)the advances in democratic practice acquired in and by the struggles (having to abandon the nostalgia for movements commanded by the 'vanguards') (ii)the requirements of unity in action, modest or ambitious depending on the local (national) situations.
The principle of necessary convergence is not accepted by all. Certain so-called autonomist currents, more or less inspired by post-modernist formulations, reject it. The movements they inspire must be respected for what they are, a frontline struggle. Some go as far as maintaining that the movement, although it is dispersed, is constructing the alternative by itself, going as far as claiming that the 'individual subject' is already on the way to becoming the agent of the transformation (the theoretical vision of Negri). However many powerful mass movements engaged in great struggles do not adhere to this theory. It can also be thought that organisations inherited from the past – political parties, trade unions, and so on – are capable of transforming themselves in the direction of the required democratic practice. The thinkers of the autonomist currents affirm they are able to change the world without taking power. History will tell if this is possible, or an illusion.
In any case, whether it is in big organisations or small ones, the conflict opposes the logic of struggle (which insists on its needs) to the logic of organisation (which insists on the interests put into play by the leaderships in place or waiting to seize the leadership, the participation in the dominant power in place, and thereby encourages 'opportunism').
Convergence cannot be constructed at the world or regional levels if it is not first put in place on the national levels because these define and manage the concrete challenges. It is at these levels that the swing in the social and political balance of power in favour of the working classes will or will not occur. The regional and world levels may reflect national advances, no doubt facilitate them (or at least not hinder them), but hardly more.
Advances in the directions opening the way to the construction of the alternative are taking place at the moment in Latin America, in contrast to their absence, or near absence, elsewhere, in Europe, Asia and Africa. These advances, in Brazil, in Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and their visible possible coming success elsewhere – Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua – are precisely the product of the rationalisation of movements having reached the level of an effective critical mass, and their political convergence. These are revolutionary advances in the sense that they initiated the swing in the balance of social and political forces in favour of the working classes. Their success is due to their real practical answer associating the democracy of the management of the movements and the political focusing of their projects, overcoming the dispersion which dominates elsewhere.
Who could deny that the state powers that these advances have produced pose problems; that they risk getting bogged down under the pressure of external constraints and those of the local privileged classes? For all that, should the possibility that these changes (in power!), which open for the mass movements, be spurned? These powers will allow other advances, based on the association (and not on the dissociation) of the affirmation of national independence (vis-à-vis the US), of democratisation and social progress.
Elsewhere the image of reality, despite the struggles, is less promising. In Europe the priority given to the construction of the European Union encourages a slide towards social liberalism, the illusions being kept alive by the rhetoric of the third way, and of capitalism with a human face. Will the 'movement' succeed on its own in overcoming these handicaps? Personally I strongly doubt it and think that decisive changes in the orientation of the political power is a precondition, in particular the break with atlanticism (NATO is the enemy of the peoples of Europe). Others don’t think so. In Eastern Europe, fast on the way to becoming, in its real relations with Germany and Western Europe, the analogue to what was (and still is) Latin America in its relations with the USA, illusions are even greater.
In Asia and Africa we are seeing excesses which we qualify as culturalist and which feed the illusion of supposedly civilizational projects based on para-religious or ethnic gatherings. Here the talk of cultural diversity often comes to the help of this retreat into impasses. This talk is, moreover perfectly tolerated (even encouraged) by the capitalist and imperialist power.
It is necessary to know more at this point – how progressives have asserted themselves in Latin America, to know more about the reasons for the relative stagnation of the movements elsewhere, about their decline or defeat in certain cases. That should be the essential direction for numerous debates, in the forums and elsewhere. The world forums are meeting places and poorly equipped to provide an adequate framework for deepening these debates. The national and regional forums are or could be more suitable.
The proposals drawn up in the Bamako Appeal in January 2006 answered the call to give more importance to deepening the debates of this nature. They are only proposals and not imposed decisions. These were naturally refused on principle both by the extreme autonomist currents and by the mass of apolitical NGOs. But they are making their way elsewhere.
The World Social Forum Charter in no way forbids initiatives of the Bamako type, and the Bamako Appeal was moreover endorsed by Movements’ Assemblies . Nevertheless, this initiative irritated the WSF Secretariat. Why? Perhaps because it does not basically share the proposals contained in this appeal. Should we conclude from this that the secretariat aligned itself with apolitical NGOs (and perhaps the extreme autonomist currents) to close the forum to other currents of action? Who would deny that the document in question – drawn up by 200 participants in one day and a night – points out inadequacies, even contradictions. Should its drafters furthermore be accused of intellectual arrogance, of outmoded vanguardist attitudes, even of dangerous political motives? It would be necessary to show that the extremist autonomist currents produce nothing which is not the spontaneous, eloquent and coherent product of the direct expression of the masses, that the intellectuals who formulate the theses of these currents do not exist. It would be necessary to show that the apolitical NGOs do not hold views which, in fact, have an obvious political sense, in making their own the rhetoric of the system institutions: reduction of poverty, good governance and exacerbated culturalism.
The world forums have a history and a prehistory. They did not appear suddenly without preparation. François Houtart, Bernard Cassen and others have recalled the essential stages of this history, from the anti- Davos in Davos (1999) and other initiatives. The object of this paper is not to propose an assessment of their deployment over the last seven years. Even if one thinks that their success is certain and their impact real (which is our case); nevertheless emphasis must be put not on self-congratulation but on the weaknesses.
The authorities responsible for the actual management of the forums are various (secretariat, international council, leadership of the principal movements and NGOs represented). They are the focuses of power, by definition, as always, and it would be naïve to ignore it. Their often dominant concern is self assessment with respect to internal performance criteria, often of a very banal nature (quantity of participants, number, perhaps quality of the debates, direct material questions of organisation). The real criterion of assessment is external to the forums: do they contribute to facilitating the progress (rather than the stagnation, even the decline) of the struggles? It would be desirable that this dimension of the challenge find a greater echo in the assemblies and meetings organised by these authorities..
Taking the criticism a little further we venture to say that the world forums suffer from a growing imbalance in the presence of their participants. The forums, which are very costly in money and intellectual work, attract more NGOs (sometimes of course devoted to the support of the struggles) endowed with staff and financial means – those of the North, but also, in brutal terms, those of their Southern clientele – than the major movements in conflict. Hundreds of thousands of peasants engaged in fierce struggles, whole peoples confronting the machine guns and bombs of the imperialist occupier, sometimes make their voice heard here and there in a workshop. But many other organisations, sometimes insignificant in the scope of their action, dispose of workshops to make their propaganda. Let us speak frankly: some of these organisations are part of the system constituting safety valves rather than being part of the alternative. These failings of the world forums are also seen in the national forums. But here the immediate proximity of the forces in conflict with the existing order favours, at least potentially, the overcoming of the failings mentioned here.
The reconstruction of a front of countries and peoples from the South is one of the basic conditions for the emergence of another world, one not based on imperialist domination. Without in any way underestimating the importance of the transformations of all types which have originated in the societies of the North in the past and present, up to now these have remained harnessed to the imperialist wagon. One should therefore not be surprised that the great global transformations have originated in the revolt of the peoples of the peripheries, from the Russian revolution (the 'weak link' of the period) to the Chinese revolution and the non -aligned front (Bandung) which, for a moment, obliged imperialism to 'adjust itself' to demands which conflicted with the course of its expansion. This page, that of Bandung and of the Tri-continental (1955-1980), of a multi-polar globalisation, has been turned.
Since the conditions of globalisation in place preclude a remaking of Bandung, the current ruling classes of the countries of the South are trying to join this globalisation, which they sometimes hope to be able to change in their favour, but which they are not fighting. They divide into two groups of 'countries': those which have a national project (the nature of which – essentially capitalist but nuanced by concessions or their absence in favour of the working classes, but nevertheless in open or muted conflict with the imperialist strategies – may be discussed case by case), such as China or the emerging countries of Asia or Latin America; and those which have no project and agree to adjust unilaterally to the demands of the imperialist deployment (in this case they have compradore ruling classes). Variable geometry alliances are in the process of being constituted between the states (the governments), the emergence of which was seen within the WTO. The possibilities which these rapprochements can open up for the working class movements must not be disdained, but examined with open eyes.
Is a front of the peoples of the South, going well beyond the rapprochements between ruling classes, possible? The construction of this front remains difficult, handicapped as it is by the culturalist excesses here referred to, and by the confrontations they entail between peoples of the South (on pseudo-religious or pseudo-ethnic grounds). It would be less problematic if and to the extent that the states having a project would – under the pressure of their populations – evolve in a more resolutely anti-imperialist direction.
That implies that their projects free themselves from the rut of the illusion that resolutely and exclusively 'national capitalist' powers are in a position to influence imperialist globalisation in their favour and to enable their countries to become active agents of imperialist globalisation, participating in the fashioning of the global system, and not unilaterally adjusting to it. These illusions are still great and strengthened by nationalist rhetoric as well as that which encourages the emerging countries in the process of 'catching up' developed by the institutions in the service of imperialism. But to the extent that the facts refute these illusions, new popular and anti imperialist national blocks will be able to clear the way and facilitate the internationalism of peoples. It must be hoped that the progressive forces of the North will understand it and support it.
In conclusion it should be said that the future of the forums depends less on what happens within them than what develops elsewhere, in the peoples struggles and in the evolution of the geo-strategy of states. This does not lead to any pessimism about the forums, but it leads to modesty in assessing their achievements. In parallel then (and not in conflict) with the continuation of the forums militant actions, other forms of intervention are necessary, allowing the deepening of the debates and joint actions.
Since its creation in 1997, the World Forum for Alternatives has been engaged on this path. It is a network of numerous 'think-tanks' directly articulating social and political forces struggling against the system. It attempts to stimulate working groups (and not only exchanges of view) perhaps facilitating joint action fronts. For information: groups of trade unionists ('rebuilding the united labour front'), of peasants’ movements (imposing access to the land for the benefit of all peasants), of non-aligned political forces on the global policies of capital and imperialism, working on questions of international law or the reform of the United Nations system and the economic management systems of globalisation.
Many other national, regional and global networks are deploying praiseworthy efforts in comparable directions. We will not list them at length, but simply recall – as examples - what ATTAC represents in France, or the work of 'Focus on Global South', ARENA and so many others. It would be highly desirable, in the perspective of strengthening the effectiveness of the forums, that a greater presence of these programmes be reflected in the forums.
* Samir Amin is an Egyptian political thinker and is a director of the in Dakar, Senegal. He has written more than 30 books including Imperialism & Unequal Development, Specters of Capitalism: A Critique of Current Intellectual Fashions, Obsolescent Capitalism: Contemporary Politics and Global Disorder and The Liberal Virus. His memoirs were published in October 2006.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
The Sudanese government of Omar al Beshir continues to decline to cooperate with the Human Rights Council. This article argues that this defiance has implications for the concept of sovereignty and intervention when states are victimising their own citizens.
Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on Friday rejected a UN peace force for Darfur and said he would not grant visas to UN rights monitors who want to visit the strife-torn region. He also said that the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, led by Nobel peace laureate and anti-landmines campaigner Jody Williams, would not be allowed to travel to Darfur because its members were biased.
While the international community is looking for ways to prevent further human rights abuses in Africa, especially in Darfur, the government of Sudan has declined to cooperate with the Human Rights Council by refusing to issue the necessary visas for the High-Level Mission to carry out its work inside the country in fulfilment of its mandate. Indeed, on the final day of an Africa-France summit gathering in the Riviera resort of Cannes, Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir justified that decision during a news conference, in the following terms: 'There are members of that delegation who in our view are not impartial therefore it is difficult to say that they will be honest and reflect reality.'
This refusal blatantly breaches the Council’s decision to establish the mission, which was adopted by consensus following intense consultations that included the participation of representatives of the Sudanese government. Under Decision S-4/101, adopted on 13 December 2006, the Human Rights Council established a High-Level Mission to assess the human rights situation in Darfur and the needs of Sudan in that regard. The Council asked the Mission to report to its fourth session, which will start on 12 March 2007.
This development is shocking, considering that such statements and decisions come from the head of an African state where at least 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2,500,000 displaced since 2003 as a result of fighting. Despite repeated pledges to stop the violence, the Sudanese government has utterly failed to do so and political negotiations have stalled. Reasonably, one can argue that the collective shame and regret expressed over the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and the commitment of African states to the promotion and protection of 'human rights, the rule of law and good governance' on the continent as principles and objectives of the African Union have had little or no impact on the gross violations of human rights and mass killings committed with impunity in Darfur.
This case reflects a widely-held view of sovereignty: that allows governments to do essentially what they want within their own national borders. It should provide sufficient cause for a more serious and pragmatic assessment of the practicality of the principles of state sovereignty and intervention. In fact, having experienced genocide in Rwanda more than twelve years ago, what should the world do when a large number of people are victims of violence originating from within their own country?
Weak, failing, failed, and poverty-stricken states often use notional borders to preserve the fiction of effective sovereignty. This is certainly true in the case of Sudan and sets the context in which any discussion of intervention on the continent should be placed. Khartoum’s government is invoking sovereignty, firstly, as a veil to hide its brutal campaign against civilians; and secondly, as a shield to fend off calls for international action to protect its victims. While respect for the sovereignty of Sudan must be upheld as a core principle of international law, general principles of international law and the AU Constitutive Act itself provide for inherent limitations on the exercise of this principle, inter alia, where what is at stake is the protection of citizens from exposure to grave and massive violations of human rights in the absence of the willingness or ability of the state to protect. Therefore, Sudan should be taught that sovereignty, properly defined, is not a defence against demands for redress of breaches or gross violations of fundamental human rights.
The deteriorating situation in Darfur demonstrates how urgent it is for African leaders and the international community to move the debate of sovereignty versus intervention beyond semantics and to reach a consensus on when a defence of 'state sovereignty' is patently unacceptable.
* Joseph Yav Katshung is a human rights lawyer from Congo.
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
'After all it’s only a piece of cloth.' Aaliyah Bilal discusses the complexities of the Hijab in East Africa with particular reference to Zanzibar.
'Sitara kubwa kuvaa Vazu refu miguuni Msiige bila nija… Nguo ziteremsheni Yapungue maasia…'
'Wear a full covering, for your protection, A long garment, to the feet, Do not imitate without morality, Lower your garments so that there may be less rebellion…'
Sheik Amri Abedi, the first black mayor of Dar es Salaam and close advisor to Julius Nyerere, published the poem 'Nduo Ziteremsheni' (Lower your garments) for political as well as aesthetic reasons. As a missionary of the Ahmadiyya movement and a statesman, Abedi was perturbed by the westernisation of women’s dress in Tanganyika and sought to redress this 'rebellion against God' with the release of the book Diwani in 1963. The quoted passage is a small portion of a much longer poem included in this volume. While it addresses the women of Tanganyika in general, Abedi takes issue with Muslim women in particular, going so far as to call those who wear western attire 'evil'.
However inaccessible the medium, the content of poems such as 'Nduo Ziteremsheni' reveal something essential about Swahili women’s experiences with a truth that resonates on all levels of society today as much as it did when it was written - women’s bodies are contested sites where upon society negotiates meanings. In Muslim communities, the hijab is central to this phenomenon. All of these factors, as they are played out in East Africa, take on a special quality in light of the increased adherence of women throughout the region to this form of Islamic dress: a fact that Amri Abedi would be proud to know.
The Zanzibari experience provides a rich study of the phenomenon, made more interesting by how drastically the culture of dress has changed in recent history. The revolutionary period of the 1960s was a time when traditional social mores were being challenged by Zanzibari youth on a grand scale. They protested Islamic cultural hegemony by wearing western style clothes. They watched western films despite condemnation by Muslim clerics. The reality one confronts today is starkly contrasted to this example. Whereas it was common to see young women in short skirts and other non-Islamic clothes during the1960s, today a jaunt through the streets of Stone Town exposes the almost universal compliance of women to hijab.
The reassertion of rigid Islamic dress codes in contemporary Zanzibar has not yet been the subject of any published scholarly analysis. A glimpse into Zanzibari transnational and local politics provides clues into why this may be taking place. Historical linkages between Tanzania and the peninsular Arab states, aided recently with the building of Islamic mosques and schools throughout the country, have made the island susceptible to ideological movements from outside. A significant dimension of this reassertion is also related to the course of party politics. The portrayal of the Civic United Front by the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (revolutionary state party) as a party of Muslim extremists, coupled with the widely condemned violence against the CUF constituents in the wake of the elections has put many Muslims in Zanzibar on the defensive. In light of these realities, the strengthened adherence to conservative Islamic dress makes sense.
Zanzibar represents an extreme case, but it possesses all of the major thematic characteristics at play in variety of East African contexts. The circumstances of women in southern Sudan, Kenya, and on the Tanzanian mainland attest that the entire region is undergoing a wave of islamisation. In all of these contexts, there is convincing evidence that politics plays a significant role in the increased use of hijab. Concerns arise, however, when we become overly reliant on political analyses to understand such gendered and religious subjects. Given the marginal position that Muslim women continue to play on the political stage, analyses that begin and end within the confines of a political framework yield a consistently damning message - Muslim women are oppressed by hijab.
While it is part of a cosmopolitan sensibility to question and condemn any subversion of women’s rights, one must ask if the attachment of African communities to Islam and symbols such as hijab really constitute such an outcome. In a discussion of women and hijab in East Africa, we should turn our attention to a different kind of evidence. What we find beyond the lens of a top-down political analysis illustrates how a nexus of factors hinder as well as help Muslim women.
However clear the connections are between the social status of women and Muslim practice, Islam is hardly alone as a marginalising force in the lives of East African women. Unfortunately, these women also contend with forms of patriarchy that are endemic to African societies at a rudimentary level. The threat of rape, mistreatment, or being outcast on the grounds of sexual impropriety cooperate with currents of islamisation in ways that endorse hijab. In contexts where donning hijab diffuses unwanted attention from men— although the practice underlines the patriarchal structures that make it necessary—the immediate needs of women encourage a favorable depiction of its use.
The contemporary discourse has become overly comfortable with the portrayal of Islam as a force that opposes modernity. What is most troubling is that these ideas are perpetuated in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary. The East Africa is home to a number of locales wherein processes of modernisation and islamisation work in tandem. In Kenyan costal towns, when confronted with an increase in drug use as a result of increased prosperity, the reassertion of an Islamic identity becomes a tool through which those communities resist the spread of substance abuse among their youth. A similar story comes to us from eastern Sudan where the migrant workers to Saudi Arabia, once they return home, implement Islamic structures in their communities that, in effect, cause a rise in school attendance among Muslim girls. While this is linked with an increased use of the hijab in both contexts, the overall effects are advantageous to women.
Another interpretive cleavage that is consistently ignored in discussions of women and hijab is the issue of a woman’s devotion to her perceived God. There is a tendency, especially in the context of a global Islamic revival, to short circuit all contemporary discussions of hijab to the political forces that are deemed to have triggered their appearance. The plausibility of these factors cannot blind us to the likelihood that at least some women cover for pious reasons.
Hijab is a word that turns heads and sells books, but it is a pretty empty subject on its own. After all, it is only a piece of cloth. Furthermore, any inquiry into the positive or negatives of its use does not end in answers, but exposes greater complexities. The story underneath the practice is more interesting. The idea that an increased adherence to hijab references the subversion of women’s agency within systems of Islamic jurisprudence seems to be the salient issue. In this regard, it is the personal jihad of Muslim women everywhere to create spaces within Islam where they act as subjects and not objects of Islamic discourse—a field that remains the guarded terrain of men like Sheik Amri Abedi.
In contrast to other parts of the Muslim world, there is some cause for optimism in the case of East Africa. One of the encouraging developments in African societies today shows women growing more powerful in their communities. Muslim women in East Africa, it is hoped, will begin to experience greater changes in their religious communities as they themselves play more visible roles in shaping the circumstances through which people come to Islam.
* Aaliyah Bilal is a masters student at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
'The concern is not my oppression, but the inaccessibility of hijabi bodies and a general discomfort with those who have no problems with visible signs of cultural and religious difference', writes Kameelah Janan Rasheed in recounting her personal experience of wearing the hijab.
I have spun myself into a web of non-stop, albeit non-linear, intertextual journeys and discursive shadow boxing matches towards a coherent narrative about hijab. I feared that in writing about hijab that my thoughts would be so reminiscent of previous works, that my narrative would be surrendered to the museum of embalmed anachronisms and clichés. This fear kept me running as far as my short legs could carry me away from the oppression versus liberation paradigm, and hiding in a dark corner away from self-hating confessionals about the ugliness of Islam.
I am not interested in proving to anyone that I am in fact liberated or that by wearing hijab in America I am engaging in a radical feminist act. Just as I gave up the task of proving my blackness or womanhood years ago to those who were skeptical of my 'credentials', I do not plan to spend time here validating my humanity or agency. Such a task is a distraction. The task here is not to shuck n'jive or discursively gyrate towards a presentation of hijab and myself that will grant me entrance into the feminist or 'mainstream' community. I do not want to spend time convincing people that in fact my hijab is not surgically attached to my scalp.
Nor, do I want to spend energy arguing that there is not a tracker embedded in my hijab that screeches a pronounced 'haraam, haraam' when there is too great of a distance between the said hijab and my head. The task here is to share stories that if nothing else will illustrate that self-elected liberators who are convinced of my oppression are doing more to oppress me than my hijab ever could by fixing me in conceptual incarcerations. In telling me that as a hijabi, I can only represent and ever be seen as the epitome of oppression - the atavistic aberration, then you have succeeded in reifying the patriarchal structures you pretend to despise. You have held me hostage in your imagination and my only key to freedom is to surrender and corroborate your assumptions of my subjugation.
If I tell you that I am comfortable as a hijabi, and do not feel the least restricted, why do you still feel the need to speak down to me as if I am a child? Why do you feel the need to convince that I am living in a matrix where I have managed to confuse liberation with oppression? The question has never been so much 'is Kameelah oppressed'? because when this question is asked I do not believe that there is a genuine concern for my wellbeing. The question has always been twofold: 'Why do you feel it to be your right to tell me how I should live my life? And: 'Why do you even care?' My experiences, that are mine and not to be generalised for other hijabis, have illustrated that the concern is not my oppression, but the inaccessibility of hijabi bodies and a general discomfort with those who have no problems with visible signs of cultural and religious difference.
My childhood and adulthood, neither of which are completed life stages, were full of paradox and alienation as I attempted to navigate what seemed to be rough uncharted territory of a nerdy short black Muslim girl suspended in time and spaces that just could not 'figure me out'. I am the daughter of two black working-class Muslim reverts. I grew up in a small city in northern California where you could count the number of Muslims on one hand. Because being starred at and having rude comments directed at me is a sadistic task I rather enjoy, I then spent four years at a private Catholic school where I was not only one of very few black students, I wandered about as the only Muslim student. Thinking it could not get worst then being called a suicide bomber, or Osama bin Laden's wife, I embarked on another four-year journey at a private liberal arts institution where the number of Muslim students was heartbreaking. While most comments at this institution were reserved for private discussions, the college experience as well as my time in Johannesburg, South Africa provide an opportunity to understand what literally annoyed people about my hijab.
While in Yeoville, a hybrid inner-city/suburb of Johannesburg, I was approached by a man who was intent on liberating me from not only my gender oppression, but from my racial confusion. Apparently, 'I am not free' in hijab and Islam is not an African religion.
I had committed not only the ultimate sin of embracing a faith that 'forced' me to be modest; I had chosen a faith that had no roots in Africa. Let's not bother with the contrary historical facts, as that is the least of our concerns. What I found of the utmost importance in this monologue (yes, because I was unable to get a word in edgeways) was that he conceptualised my channels of freedom via the ritualistic removal of my hijab and his penetration or sexual conquest. I never knew that my freedom toolbox included a penis and an instruction guide - I will keep this in mind.
As he continued to speak in a series of poorly phrased insults, I realised that this was no longer about gender oppression or black authenticity; it was about the politics of accessibility to certain bodies. He repeated almost in a hypnotic fashion, 'I cannot see you…I cannot see your essence'. In wearing hijab, it was his argument that I was making myself inaccessible to men, and particularly to him. Choosing to place myself off the radar was not a choice I could exercise. In fact, I was required to make myself available and accessible to his gaze as well as the gaze of other men.
Thus, the crime I had committed was not one of accepting my subjugation as a Muslim woman and 'confused African woman', but of refusing to situate myself in his myopic discourse of liberation that ultimately puts me at his mercy. If I was mistaken in this assumption, it was further validated by a number of men in Johannesburg and in America who have told me similar tales of my inaccessibility, as a reason why I should not wear hijab. They started with a narrative of genuine concern for my oppression and devolved into a shallow desire for a free pass to accessibility. It was not always about what was said, but the delivery of these diatribes. In many of these situations, these men used aggressive and paternalistic tones. They attempted to silence me by raising their voices. They worked to discredit my line of defense by telling me I did not know enough. Most of all they were surprised that I was able to put together a sentence and to give as good as I was given.
It was a reminder that the covering of my head is not a covering of my mind or my mouth. Now, my mama taught me that in a conversation that I need to speak up irrespective of the genitalia I assume the other person to possess. My dad taught me to do it with tact. I think that while I am better at the former than the latter, it was a necessary lesson. For me, this battle over hijab editorialised by patriarchal not feminist discourses has never been about my liberation or the liberation of Fatima or whatever common Muslimah name you choose to insert here. Really, can men and institutions that consider me less intelligent and inept be that concerned about the death of patriarchy? This battle has always been about the accessibility of certain bodies and a neurotic discomfort with difference. If I can be convinced or forced to unveil and assimilate my discourse and lifestyle someone else can feel comfort. Someone will assume greater access to my body. However, for someone else to feel comfort when they look at me, and secure greater dominion over me, some part of me has to be sacrificed.
I cannot make any conclusive remarks about hijab generally or in my personal experiences. What I can say is that as these discourses about my oppression reach a nauseous height and hegemonic preoccupation in numerous imaginations, I will continue to write. I will not write to prove my liberation, but write to assert my right to exist as I choose without harassment, intimidation and ridicule. People often say, 'well, if you don't want to be singled-out then just don't wear hijab'. I guess while I am at it, I should lighten my brown skin to reach a more appeasing colour? Or give my hips back to mama. Assimilation is not an option. The reality is that, yes, I wear hijab and no, I do not need your approval. While I do not need your approval, I would not mind a little respect.
* Kameelah Rasheed is a Fulbright scholar at Wits University in Johannesburg South Africa. She also blogs at
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Since 10 January 2007, the workers of Guinea have been on strike to demand better living conditions, respect for public morality, and the enthronement of democracy. In the face of the demands presented to the Government by the workers' union, CNTG-USTG, supported by the majority of the peoples of Guinea, the government of President Lansana Conté has adopted an approach laden with contempt for the citizenry and the use of naked force against the populace. Dozens of protesters in Conakry, Simbaya, Lambanyi, Matoto, Télémelé, Mamou, Kankan, and Labé have been murdered in cold blood or maimed for life by the security services. And yet, in spite of the ferocious repression unleashed by the government, the Guinean people have, at great personal and collective peril, intensified their self-mobilisation on a scale not seen since the historic defeat of colonialism. Invariably, the response of the regime has been to do even more of what it has always done best: Arrest and torture union leaders and ordinary citizens, impose a state of emergence/state of siege presided over by the military high command, and threaten even more mayhem against the populace.
CODESRIA, as an organisation of African intellectuals who are fully conscious of their social responsibilities cannot remain indifferent in the face of the latest act of naked repression that the Conté regime has deployed against Guineans, repression that has crippled the country, impoverished its peoples and brought the state to the brink. The Council observes that academics in Guinean universities who have been part of the popular movement for change have not been spared the repressiveness of the regime and the principle of academic freedom that is a foundational pillar of CODESRIA has been put at bay in Guinea. The Council would, therefore, like to add its voice to the voices of democrats all over the world who have expressed their solidarity with the people of Guinea and denounced all forms of dictatorship. The Council also joins the Guinean trade union movement and other social movements in the vanguard of the struggle for change in their demand for democratic and equitable management of the Guinean commonwealth.
The struggles of the people of Guinea remind us that freedom is not given but won – often at a high cost. This we know very well as members of an institution which produced the Kampala Declaration on Academic Freedom and the Social Responsibility of Scholars (see the CODESRIA Website: to prevent the wanton abuse of freedoms in the African higher education system. I would, therefore, like to invite all members of the Council to take a moment to remember the people of Guinea and to solidarise with them, doing so in the settled knowledge that their victory will be another important step towards democracy and development in Africa - just as it was when Guinea's historic 'No' against Charles De Gaulle's project of a French federation to perpetuate colonial rule emboldened and accelerated the African independence project.
Members of CODESRIA wishing to express their solidarity with the people of Guinea and their struggles are invited to send their messages to: [email][email protected] and they can rest assured that the messages will be forwarded to the trade union and academic staff leaderships in Conakry. We have a duty at this time to let the people of Guinea know that they are not alone!
Adebayo Olukoshi
Executive Secretary, CODESRIA
A new report by Book Aid International looks at the role libraries in Africa play in relation to two areas: literacy and enabling people to access relevant and useful information to enhance knowledge. Based on a survey of library networks in Malawi, Uganda, Somaliland, Tanzania and Kenya, the study lists findings and key challenges for libraries and information centres in Africa.
A study by DFID asserts that governments must radically rethink education delivery to out-of-school youth. The ‘Business as usual’ approach will not meet the education challenges of the HIV epidemic in Mozambique and South Africa. The research looks at how open, distance and flexible learning (ODFL) can reduce the effects of HIV on young people.
A book exploring the ways in which HIV and AIDS stakeholders are denying a basic set of human rights to same sex practising people, and potentially jeopardising overall efforts to combat the AIDS epidemic in Africa, was launched in Johannesburg on 15 February at Behind The Mask.
Titled Off the Map: How HIV/Aids programming is Failing Same-Sex Practicing People in Africa, the book, published by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), aims to get some attention to the fact that same sex practising Africans are at increased risk of HIV because of both biological and social vulnerabilities. 'Challenges to the right of freedom of expression, housing, arbitrary arrest, bodily integrity, increase the vulnerability of our community. But still, little attention is paid to this issue', Cary Johnson, IGLHRC senior specialist for Africa said.
In this book various activists from around the continent contributed personal stories while others interviewed people who had HIV/ Aids related stories to tell. The book relates to Aids Law Project’s Jonathan Berger’s research-Re-sexualizing the Epidemic, where he investigated the issue of little funding and public attention paid to the issue.
Judge Edwin Cameron wrote the preface of the book and various activists from the continent contributed stories as they personally relate to them.
'This is a long overdue book calling attention to a serious and neglected issue –with important ramifications for all people working in the HIV/Aids field.' Sofia Gruskin, Director of the program on International Health and Human Rights from Harvard School of Public Health concluded.
Musa Ngubane - reporter for Behind the Mask, South Africa
Friends of Africa International in collaboration with International League for Human Rights and the Mission of Nigeria to the United Nations will hold a major panel discussion at the Mission of Nigeria on “Legislative Advocacy on the Elimination of Violence and Discrimination Against the Girl Child.” This will be a side event to the 51st Session of the Commission on the Status of Women.
Many smaller home-grown initiatives, many of them started by local people in response to an urgent need in their communities, are battling for a share of the millions of donor dollars earmarked for HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment poured into Africa every year, according to a report by Plusnews.
A high-speed condom, designed in South Africa, is poised to take safer sex to new heights in a nation grappling with soaring HIV infection rates. Roelf Mulder, co-designer the product, said he hoped its aesthetic appeal would help change the latex prophylactic usually thought of as a passion killer into a passion filler, while also preventing the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, is urging HIV-positive Burundian refugees in camps in neighbouring Tanzania to return home, where they will have better access to treatment and care.
Thousands of people in northern Niger who lost their homes in floods last August are still living in emergency shelters and struggling to survive cold desert weather. The August floods in Bilma, near the regional capital Agadez in northern Niger, destroyed around 1,200 houses and made 4,400 people homeless when their mud-walled houses were washed away.
United Nations agencies and the southern Sudanese government are to establish a task force to monitor cases of sexual abuse and exploitation involving international staff, officials said. Participants at a one-day workshop on the prevention of sexual abuse and exploitation on Tuesday in the southern capital of Juba agreed to launch a public information campaign against the abuse.
Several thousand Sudanese civilians who were forced to flee their villages after fighting broke out between the Targem and Reziegat Maharia communities in South Darfur have moved to Kass town, where humanitarian agencies have started assisting them, the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) said.
A campaigner for transparency in the international oil sector, employed by the nongovernmental organisation Global Witness, was released on bail on Wednesday after she was arrested in the oil-rich Angolan enclave of Cabinda and charged with spying. Dr Sarah Wykes, an experienced researcher into the links between corruption and human rights in resource-rich economies, is not allowed to leave the country and might have to wait for a year for the trial to begin.
A UN agency on environment has recommended phasing out of high sulphur diesel in Kenya to reduce air pollution. The United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles (PCFV) says use of high sulphur diesel is contributing to environmental degradation.
Treating genital herpes may slow the progression of the AIDS virus in those infected with both viruses, researchers reported on Wednesday. The test involving 140 women in the West African country of Burkina Faso found that when herpes was being treated with 500 milligrams of the drug valacyclovir twice daily for three months, the women were less likely to shed, or spread, the AIDS virus.
A powerful tropical cyclone with winds of up to 230 km per hour (144 mph) surged ashore in southern Mozambique on Thursday, uprooting trees, knocking over electric pylons and raising fears of new floods. Cyclone Favio, the strongest to hit the southern African country, is heading towards the Zambezi River valley where it is likely to worsen floods which have already killed some 40 people.
The ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) has won the 2007 elections after it grabbed more than half of the 120 seats in Lesotho's parliament, warding off a strong challenge from a new opposition.
Human Rights Watch is urging Algerian authorities should drop politically motivated charges against two human rights lawyers. Amine Sidhoum and Hassiba Boumerdassi have been on trial since August on charges of handing unauthorized documents to their clients in prison. They face up to five years in prison if convicted.
The 2006 Gender Gap report provides a comprehensive guide to how countries measure up in comparison to one another when it comes to addressing the gap between men and women in terms of economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The bishop of Uganda's South Rwenzori Diocese has warned Christians in Kasese against homosexuality and described the act as an abomination in biblical teachings and the African culture. “Since God created Eve as Adam’s companion, it means men are meant to marry women and not fellow men, or women marrying fellow women,” Bishop Jackson Thembo Nzere-Bende said on Sunday.
LGBT activists in Nigeria are conducting workshops to educate the media on how to fairly report on issues of sexual behavior. Executive Director for the International Centre for Reproductive Health (INCRESE), Dorothy Aken’Ova, stated that activists undertook this initiative after observing that the Nigerian media failed to report fairly on sexual behaviour issues contrary to their international counterparts.
Peter Hallward, professor of philosophy at Middlesex University, interviewed ousted Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide while in exile in South Africa. The interview covers a whole spectrum of issues including the social, political and economic problems facing the country and elicits Aristide's own views of the crisis and his own future.
Uganda has undertaken educational reforms that will see the country offering free secondary education to 250,000 students. The government programme began on Monday February 19, aiming at getting 90 per cent of children who pass their primary school exams to go on to secondary education.
At least 38 Rwandan militiamen and five Congolese soldiers have been killed in clashes this week as Congo's government strives to impose its authority on the country's war-torn east, a U.N. official said on Wednesday.
Swedish freelance photographer Lars Björk was expelled from Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara on the evening of 20 February, a day after his arrest in the territory’s capital, El Aaiún, RSF reports. The authorities made him take the first bus north to Agadir, where he boarded a flight back to Europe.
Reporters Without Borders reports that three Eritrean state media journalists were recently released after being held for several weeks at police station No. 5 in the capital, Asmara, but a fourth is still being held.
FEATURES: Kameelah Rasheed gives a personal experience of wearing the hijab
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Beyond the hijab in East Africa by Aaliyah Bilal
- Islamic headscarf: Halima Zouhar asks if it's choice or submission
- Joseph Yav Katshung discusses sovereignty and citizens rights in Sudan
- Samir Amin examines possibilities for popular struggle within the World Social Forum
LETTERS:
- Mariam Yansane reports from Guinea
- CODESRIA calls for solidarity with the people of Guinea
- Post-election violence in the DRC
- Akina Mama Wa Afrika gets a new head
- Response to the article 'Cultural paradigm for Liberia’s reconstruction'
- Response to 'Misrepresentation of Africa'
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeen reports on the Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative
BLOGGING AFRICA: West African blogs
BOOKS & ARTS: FESPACO 2007, review of the HIV/Aids programme in the LGBTI community, poem by Khadija Heeger
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: Powerful cyclone hits flood-ravaged Mozambique
HUMAN RIGHTS: Egypt government raids Islamist opposition
WOMEN AND GENDER: 2006 Gender Gap Report published
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: 1000 Ethiopian refugees expelled from Kenya
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: Lesotho’s ruling party wins elections
DEVELOPMENT: Niger Delta: Of ‘Terrorists’ and Freedom Fighters
CORRUPTION: Rich nations prodded for ‘illegitimate lending’
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: Small organizations lost in funding maze
EDUCATION: Uganda gets free secondary education
ENVIRONMENT: UN calls for ban on High-Sulphur fuels in Kenya
LGBTI: Ugandan bishop warns Christians on homosexuality
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Egyptian blogger jailed
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: Beaming books via satellite
NEWS FORM THE DIASPORA: Interview with Aristide
PLUS: Fundraising and Useful Resources; Courses, Seminars and Workshops and Jobs
* Pambazuka News now has a Del.icio.us page, where you can view the various websites that we visit to keep our fingers on the pulse of Africa! Visit
A study by the Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR) Zambia reports on local communities' perspectives of the impact of poverty reduction programmes. Overall, it concludes that PRSP implementation in Zambia, whilst successful in some areas, has in general been weak.
Nigeria has allocated US$25 million to fund the first site of the African Institute of Science and Technology (AIST). Construction of the Gulf of Guinea Institute will begin on 20 February in Nigeria. Its research will centre on several different fields including biological, environmental and mathematical science.
Of the one million people who become new mobile phone subscribers everyday, about 85% live in emerging markets, according to the mobile phone industry body, the GSMA. As the BBC reports, there is growing evidence that mobile phones are more than a fashion accessory and can transform the lives of the people who are able to access them.
The wearing of the headscarf and hijab by Muslim women is increasingly becoming a contentious issue in the West. Halima Zouhar provides some historical context to the headscarf and opinions on why young Muslim women are choosing to cover their heads.
One of the most polemical themes associated with Islam is the status of women. Women are regarded as subaltern beings, deprived of rights, and subservient to men. And the symbol of a woman’s submission is the headscarf. But in fact, the headscarf is becoming more visible these days in this part of the world than it is in the Arab world or in the West. And most surprisingly, it has acquired great ‘popularity’ amongst young women, even those educated and in touch with Western civilisation. What are the reasons driving these women to publicly display their religious affiliation? What does the scarf symbolise? Are these young women searching for an identity? This article analyses these questions.
The removal of the traditional headscarf is relatively recent for the Muslim woman, dating back to the colonial and postcolonial eras. The headscarf did not used to carry the religious dimension currently accorded to it. Although introduced by Islam in the 7th century , it was anyway part of a Muslim woman’s traditional dress. Therefore the question of whether or not it symbolised the subordination of woman did not arise.
The scarf began to be defined as a symbol of the submission of Muslim women during the colonial period. Then, the colonial power, considering itself superior and endowed with a civilising mission to bear on a primitive, backward and archaic population, held it up as a symbol of resistance. The unveiling ceremony in Algiers in 1958 is extremely relevant here:
'13 May 1958, Algiers, the place du Gouvernement: Muslim women climbed on to a podium to burn their veils. The stakes of this staged gesture were measured: the colonial authorities required that Muslim women broke ranks with the struggles of their own people.'
Unveiling the Muslim woman of her headscarf was one of the coloniser’s great challenges: a means of validating his superiority and civilising mission that consisted of the ‘emancipation’ of the Muslim woman, whilst at the same time elevating the model of the Western lifestyle, which the indigenous population was supposed to assimilate. As Edward Said has pointed out, the colonial education system played a major role in assimilation:
'For Barrès, the essence of France is most visible in French schools; thus he says of a school in Alexandria: "it’s charming to see these little oriental girls welcoming and reproducing so vividly the imagination and the melody of the French Isle".'
This influence bore fruit, given that it educated an elite, which knew how to defend, and still defends, the interests of the West in the Arab countries. That elite has retained the Western model as a reference point well after independence, simultaneously disdaining and disregarding the Arab-Muslim tradition, perceived to be a disruptive and restraining force in the process of social evolution and the emancipation of women.
'Two factors render the triumph of orientalism even more evident. In so far as it is possible to generalise, contemporary culture in the Middle East tends to follow European and American models. When Taha Hussein said in 1936 that modern Arab culture was European and not oriental, he was merely putting on record the identity of the natural Egyptian elite of which he was a distinguished member. Likewise today he belongs to the same Arab cultural elite, even though the powerful current of anti-imperialist ideas from the Third World that gripped the region from the early 1950s has blunted the Western edge of the dominant culture.'
Generally during the post colonial period, Arab and Muslim women witnessed their being torn between two different cultural models: one, which fascinated; the other, the heritage of a strong tradition. In this context, there was little real knowledge about the Muslim religion, nor of the status of the Muslim woman at the centre of this religion.
It was not until the next generation of their daughters, that today’s young women, who faced with both the fascination of their parents for Western culture and the scorn attached by the West to Islam, have launched themselves into a quest to understand their religion, and simultaneously their identity, which is a mixture of influences, Eastern nor Western.
From this point on, wearing the Muslim headscarf has proliferated amongst young women: it does not signify the rejection of Western civilisation and a return to tradition, as in many aspects, tradition and religion diverge. Rather, Islam represents a balanced perspective for young people seeking to affirm their identity. The headscarf may represent a challenge to a society wishing to see in the woman wearing it subservience and regression. But this cliché does not correspond to contemporary reality. For in most cases, it is the woman making her own decision, choosing nevertheless to lead an active and independent life. In short, these women are adopting the emancipated lifestyle so revered by the West, whilst at the same time living with the precepts of Islam.
* Halima Zouhar is a post-graduate student at the University of Granada in Spain.
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
This piece was originally written in French and translated by Stephanie Kitchen.
Tajudeen reports back from the launch of the Citizenship Rights in Africa initiative (CRIA) held last week in Kampala, Uganda. If we are all Africans, and recognised as such, then we can stop 'foreignising' people who disagree with us, or referring to other Africans as aliens, or discriminating against fellow citizens as 'indigenes' or 'settlers', and practising other forms of xenophobia that are so rampant across Africa. An African citizenship will, he says, restore to all of us what is naturally ours - being African.
Last weekend I returned to Kampala for a few days. It is always a pleasant return for me in a way I do not or expect to be welcomed to Lagos, or feel very homely in my current abode, Nairobi, now more notoriously referred to as Nairobbery. Kampala is a city bursting with all kinds of construction: roads, hotels, bungalows and shopping malls. It is a frenzy the economics of which I have not been able to understand. They are all ostensibly being built for the Commonwealth Summit (CHOGM) being held in November. No expense is being spared and the government is in overdrive to give all kinds of subsidies and concessions to ensure that all these luxury apartments are completed before the summit begins. In this rush it is strangling the struggling domestic furniture industry because CHOGM builders can go to Malaysia and import all that they need with little or no tax. After the summit what will happen to these hotels? Would a one-week summit generate returns to keep them open forever? It is clear that in spite of all the rush some of them may never be completed, while some may find other uses, and the very big ones like the new Serena Hotel should survive having risen from the ashes of the old Nile Hotel to the status of a hotel 'fit for a Queen'.
My visit was not about touring the dizzy heights of Kampala. I was in town to participate in a launch of a very important campaign sponsored by the Global Pan African Movement (PAM), the International Rights Initiative (IRRI) and Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI): Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative (CRAI).
It is a matter that concerns all Africans. We may call ourselves Ugandans, Nigerians, Malawians or whatever, but are we really citizens? Do we really enjoy the full rights, freedoms and feel the complementary obligation to be loyal and voluntarily discharge our duties towards these states? I am always envious at the rate at which Western governments dispatch airplanes and soldiers to take their citizens out of any conflict situation, whether war or natural disaster, across the world. Hence Westerners are often the first refugees from any theatre of conflict. How many times has an African government mounted the same operation to rescue their citizens?
How many times have we heard any of our numerous diplomatic representatives in Europe or America or even in Africa make any public comment about the treatment of their citizens in the countries they are resident in? But let one Westerner be unfortunately lost in some impenetrable forest anywhere in the world, and the ambassador or high commissioner and the full weight of their propaganda machines - the BBC, CNN, VOA, RFI - would be brought to be bear on all of us; and if it is in Africa our security establishments will do anything to find the missing Westerner yet may not raise a finger for their own citizens. That is why many of our people will not run to the police or the army or 'government people' when they are in trouble.
The one aspect of citizenship that makes news is the now routine arbitrary denial of citizenship to compatriots who may have fallen out with the powers that be. The most recent demonstration of this is the publisher of the only surviving privately owned media in Zimbabwe, and also the proprietor of the Mail and Guardian in South Africa, Trevor Ncube. Because he would not toe the line, the Zimbabwean government refused to renew his passport, denationalised him and rendered him stateless. An older, well-known case is that of Jenerali Ulimwengu, who is the CEO of the Habari Corporation, publishers of several Kiswahili and English language newspapers in Dar es Salaam. Of course there was the more famous case of Zambian President Kaunda who was denationalised by his successor, the little man with even smaller brain, Chiluba, who was later 'discovered' to be of DRC origin himself.
Jenerali and Trevor were at this meeting and gave chilling, if sometimes ridiculous, accounts of the processes leading to their denial of citizenship. Trevor has brothers and sisters who are not in trouble at all, and Jenerali also has siblings who were never the subject of any investigation by the Mkapa government. What is common to both cases is that the matter was purely political. The first time I met Mkapa, it was Jenerali who took me to his house near the Aga Khan hospital in Dar. He was certain that 'he was our man' to succeed President Hassan Mwinyi. Our man indeed!
But Trevor and Jenerali or Kaunda are lucky because their cases became a source of huge embarrassment to their governments who had to back-off either in court or gave in politically. There are millions of people across this continent who are affected. According to the press statement issued at the launch of CRAI:
'Tens of millions of Africans have been victims of the pandemic of statelessness and denial of citizenship. In terms of the number of people affected and the implications for peace and security, it is easily the most serious human security and human rights problem on the continent today.'
It further stated: 'Statelessness and the arbitrary denial of citizenship violate human dignity, undermine the integrity of government and its institutions, dislocate families, destroy the livelihoods of those affected, and render the victims open to further abuses of their rights and lead to war.'
Leading international and African advocacy groups joined the three organisations in launching CRAI. It is a cry for liberty in which all of us have a role to play, either as part of the problem, or as part of the solution. Anyone of us could be a victim. The solution is very simple: accept Africans as Africans and treat them with dignity anywhere they may be as legal African citizens, from Cape Town to Cairo.
If we are all Africans and recognised as such then we can stop 'foreignising' people who disagree with us, or referring to other Africans as aliens, or discriminating against fellow citizens as 'indigenes' or 'settlers', and other forms of xenophobia that are so rampant across Africa. If we disagree we should try to solve them peacefully or understand the basis of our differences without resorting to stripping our opponents of their humanity and citizenship.
Rights should derive from our being human beings and the state has an obligation to protect all of us as citizens regardless of the circumstances by which we come about our citizenship which may include, ancestry, birth, settlement, marriage, migration, naturalization. Conferring African citizenship on all Africans may not solve all our problems but it provides an important legal and political basis for us to hold our governments accountable and enjoy the full rights of political and socio-economic participation wherever we may be without fearing expulsion and statelessness. It will also remove the insult that non-Africans are freer to move around the continent, especially those holding North American and European passports, while Africans are routinely humiliated and treated as 'others'. We are both 'others' abroad and still 'others' in Africa. Do we not deserve a place to call 'ours' where we can enter or leave without hindrance? We may never quite be Nigerians, South Africans or Kenyans, Chadians or any of the other possible colonially-induced artificial creations, but at least we can be who we are: AFRICANS. An African citizenship will restore to all of us what is naturally ours.
* Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the deputy director for the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
An Alexandria court convicted an Egyptian blogger on Thursday for insulting both Islam and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and sentenced him to four years in jail over his writings on the Internet. Reuters reports that rights groups and opposition bloggers have watched Suleiman's case closely, and said they feared a conviction could set a legal precedent limiting Internet freedom in Egypt.
Zimbabwe's police immediately followed a ban on political rallies and protests in the capital’s restive townships by beating up schoolteachers striking over low salaries on Wednesday.
An appeals court has ruled Nigerian leader Olusegun Obasanjo did not have the power to sack his vice-president for joining an opposition party. The court in the capital, Abuja, ruled Atiku Abubakar should remain in his post despite his defection to the Action Congress for presidential polls.
A recent bold statement by UK supermarket Tesco ushering in "carbon friendly" measures - such as restricting the imports of air freighted goods by half and the introduction of "carbon counting" labelling - has had environmentalists dancing in the fresh produce aisles, but has left African horticulturists confused and concerned.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/broadcasts/phumla.jpgPhumla Masuku, the manager of a South African lesbian women's football team speaks to Sokari Ekine from Pambazuka News about the team she founded, . Based in Soweto, the team hs encountered much homophobia and racism, but successfully made it to the international Gay Games in Chicago where they won the Bronze Medal. The music in this podcast is by Freddy Macha.
Refugees at the Tongogara refugee camp in Eastern Zimbabwe are making efforts to live of the land. Making use of land provided to them, the refugees - all from the Great Lakes region are cultivating food crops to supplement the reduced rations they receive and meet their daily needs.
Angolans relocated by UNHCR to this refugee settlement are on their way to becoming self-sufficient and even producing surplus crops to help feed the local Zambian population. A total of 4,971 Angolan refugees opted to move to Mayukwayukwa refugee settlement in western Zambia rather than repatriate with other refugees to Angola when the UN refugee agency and the government of Zambia closed Nangweshi Refugee Camp three months ago.
Some 406 Liberian refugees from Guinea have returned home through the border town of Yekepa, in Nimba County. According to UNHCR, the movement is part of ongoing voluntary repatriation from camps in Guinea which started in 2005.
Somalia has welcomed a resolution by the United Nations Security Council authorizing a six-month deployment of African Union (AU) peacekeepers to the Horn of Africa country, which has had no functioning regime in more than 15 years.
Nigeria is cracking down on "illegal aliens" from neighbouring countries whom the authorities call a "nuisance". Niger and Chad seem to have been singled out in the clampdown with thousands of their nationals packed into lorries and taken to the border.
A High Court in Britain has rejected the claims of a U.S.-owned debt-collection firm to $42 million of debt from Zambia, but left open the door for the firm to get as much as $10 million to $20 million for the loan, which it purchased from Romania at a discount for less than $4 million.
Followers of a Senegalese religious leader allied to President Abdoulaye Wade attacked supporters of a rival candidate late on Wednesday, injuring at least three people and raising tensions days ahead of elections.
A swiss entreupeneur is aiming to use satellites to transmit up-to-date educational materials. He aims to establish the technology not through programs run by traditional aid organizations but through a series of self-sustaining businesses.
Only a decade ago many southern Africans thought a mobile phone was a luxury reserved for rich chief executives of multinational companies. The rapid expansion of mobile phone networks has changed this but some challenges remain, particularly in making the service more user-friendly, reports IPS.
The African Leadership Institute (AfLI), a not-for-profit network, was established in 2003, following two years of planning, with some seed funding by Novartis International AG. The primary focus of AfLI is to build the capacity and capability for visionary and strategic leadership across Africa, especially among the promising leaders of the future.
Life is slowly returning to relative normalcy in Guinea now that the government has eased a curfew imposed after nationwide unrest, but a general strike is ongoing.President Lansana Conte called the curfew on 12 February to curb widespread looting and rioting, which had swept the capital, Conakry, and towns across the country during protests calling for his resignation.
Following three attacks by armed fighters in northern Casamance since the start of presidential election campaigns on 4 February, local government officials and supporters of the candidates are concerned that the rebels are trying to undermine Sunday’s vote.
On February 12, the Nigerian Minister of Information Frank Nweke issued a statement in response to an in-depth report by CNN on the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). He accused CNN of 'paying for, and staging the report' that showed hostages held by the group. Not surprisingly, CNN issued a statement refuting his allegations and attesting to the authenticity of the report.
Mr. Nweke added that the government was working to free the hostages (they have since been released) and could not resist the urge to throw in a humdinger of a remark; by adding that the manner in which the reporter in question went about covering the story was "…unacceptable, and to our minds, undermines global efforts in the war on terror."
This statement lends an interesting and very current global context to the problem of the Niger Delta. It also provides a framework for understanding the Nigerians government's stance on dealing with the escalating crisis.
Mend came in to the spotlight in January of 2006 with an email in which the organization warned oil interests to leave the land and threatened to disable to destroy the government's capacity to export petroleum. Since then, there have been well-orchestrated attacks on installations in the Niger Delta as well as a slew of kidnappings involving expatriates.
The problems and manifest discontent in the Niger Delta pre-date Mend. The Niger People's Volunteer Force NPVF was active until it was neutralized by the government and its leader, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, jailed. Mend also seeks the release of Asari, as well as the former governor of Bayelsa State Diepreye Alamieyeseigha who was removed by Obasanjo on charges of corruption.
Mend advocates for the rights of the Ijaw, and other groups in the delta, to benefit from its vast oil resources, and to protect their land from the environmental ravages of oil extraction. Since oil exploitation began in the region, little has improved in the lives of the people, if anything, crippling poverty has been exacerbated by the severe environmental impact of oil drilling.
When Ken Saro-Wiwa was executed for championing the rights of the Ogoni people, a military regime was in power. Nigeria is preparing for its second democratic election and little seems to have changed in the way the government seems to privilege the interests of global trade above the legitimate grievances of its people.
It is becoming common fare to legitimize crushing internal dissent by attaching the "terror" label. Like the global war on terror, the 'war' being waged in the Niger Delta is all about oil. But it is also about globalization and exploitation. It is about zero-sum development that reaps benefits for one at the expense of another. It is also about Emmanuel Wallerstein's World System, where the 'periphery of the periphery' remains marginalized regardless of the vast riches they possess.
As things stand, nothing will be resolved by the time Africom, the new US military command planned for Africa, is established on the continent. Oil qualifies as a 'strategic interest' for the United States to protect. It remains to be seen what this will mean for the people of the Niger Delta and those who are fighting for their economic and environmental rights.
Further Reading:
Niger Delta: Behind the Mask. By Ike Okonta
Mend: Anatomy of a People’s Militia. By Ike Okonta
Reuters Alertnet FactBox
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L05606460.htm
The Niger Delta Question
http://www.gamji.com/article5000/NEWS5521.htm
Time Magazine
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901060522-1193987-1,00.html
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/02/12/nigeria.reaction/index.html
Climate change and the need for alternative energy sources in southern Africa have led experts to develop a new technology to produce electricity with a so-called green tower. The tower is more than one kilometre high and collects hot air sucked up through its chimney, causing large turbines at its base to rotate and generate power.
Gauteng Province Premier Mbazima Shilowa has said education and skills development were essential if people were to escape the poverty trap and improve their standard of living, but there were inequalities in the schooling system that were detrimental to black pupils.
Tom Thabane's decision to walk out on Lesotho's government four months ago after becoming frustrated with the levels of corruption was vindicated yesterday by election results giving his new party a significant presence in the national assembly.When Mr Thabane quit the Lesotho cabinet to form his own party he said he could no longer stomach government corruption.
The Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) has given a gloomy prognosis of how efforts to recover billions of tax payers’ money, looted by the elite of the former regime and currently stashed in foreign and offshore accounts, have been hampered by strident bureaucracies involved in transcontinental investigations.
A study by international anti-debt campaigners argues that some debts owed by developing countries should not be paid at all. The report says that the Group of Seven (G7) most industrialised nations – Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Britain and the United States – lent money to regimes they knew to be corrupt or repressive in order to buy political allegiance.
Pambazuka News 291: Cultural paradigm for Liberia's reconstruction
Pambazuka News 291: Cultural paradigm for Liberia's reconstruction
The Solidarity for African Women’s Right (SOAWR) Public forum in collaboration with the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (IAC) was held on 25 January 2007 in Conference Room 4 of the United Nations Conference Centre (UNCC), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It had the following objectives: 1) To popularise the protocol on the rights of women in Africa 2) Discuss some of the provisions of the protocol in the context of Ethiopia 3)To provide space for interaction with the participants to contribute ideas and actionable recommendations towards the struggle for Women’s Rights in Africa and Ethiopia in particular 4) Launch “Grace, Tenacity and Eloquence: The struggle for Women’s Rights in Africa". Representatives of UN agencies, non-governmental organizations, members of the public and the press attended the forum. The full report is available here.
Last month, Kenya’s most celebrated literary icon, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, gave a series of lectures entitled Re-Membering Africa at the University of Nairobi. Rasnah Warah reports for the Mail& Guardian Online, on this historic moment, marking Ngugi’s first lecture in his homeland in nearly three decades, delivered at the very institution that stripped him of his professorship after he was detained without trial by the Jomo Kenyatta regime in 1977.
The Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies,Oxford University is pleased to invite applications for the position of Shell Fellow. The Shell Fellow will work within the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies. The post is available from June 2007 for three years in the first instance, with the possibility of extension. The closing date for applications is the 2nd March 2007; it is planned to hold interviews in the week beginning 12th March.
Sudan will not allow a U.N. human rights team to visit unless they replace a member of the delegation who Khartoum says is biased, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday. A six-member U.N. rights team was due to arrive this week in Sudan to investigate rights abuses in Darfur. But the government has said they will not get visas.
Mobile phones are being harnessed to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa under a new $10-million scheme announced on Tuesday with the backing of leading companies and the U.S. government. The "Phones-for-Health" project will use software loaded on to a standard Motorola handset to allow care workers in the field to enter critical health information into a central database in real time.
The lush hills in the Tzaneen Municipality of South Africa's Limpopo Province may seem a better place to spend a childhood than the dusty, overcrowded townships of Johannesburg, but living in the countryside can add to the hardships of children who are HIV positive or have lost parents to AIDS.
The Islamic Courts Union (I.C.U.) regime, which had progressively taken control of much of Somalia, was overthrown in December by an Ethiopian invasion force backed—financially and militarily—by the United States. In theory, the Transitional Federal Government—a United Nations-supported body that for most of its existence has led only a nominal existence—is now in control of the country.
President Thabo Mbeki has firmly discarded any suggestion that a basic income grant was on the cards for impoverished South Africans. With a basic income grant, the government would effectively be "abandoning" its citizens, he said. However, a "more targeted, more precise" comprehensive social security system would definitely be implemented.
The president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is being urged to release human rights lawyer and former presidential candidate Marie Therese Nlandu and her associates from prison. The calls come following the resumption of Nlandu's trial before a military tribunal in the Congo capital, Kinshasa, on January 24. The former presidential candidate and her associates have been charged with illegal possession of firearms and with organizing an "insurrectionary movement."
An independent U.N. human rights expert Monday called for the release of three journalists arrested in Somalia and voiced “deep concern” at the closing of radio and television stations. “Threats to journalists and media outlets constitute serious violations of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Somalia, Ghanim Alnajjar, said in a statement, released at UN Headquarters in New York.
Reporters Without Borders have condemned the closure of privately-owned radio FM Liberté by members of the presidential guard, who ransacked the Conakry-based station, roughed up employees and arrested a journalist and a technician. A unit of presidential guard “Red Berets” burst into the studios of FM Liberté in the Conakry district of Kaloum at 11:40 a.m.on Tuesday while the “Matinée Plurielle” programme was being broadcast.
It is abundantly clear that this is an election year. L. Muythoni Wanyeki reports that the media are consumed with stories of how the Orange Democratic Movement intends to select its presidential candidate. Even further in the shadows, however, are the disturbing and profound issues of what would make the upcoming elections truly free and fair.
DevInfo Kenya has launched a new web-based information portal designed for development organisations, academia and individuals interested in social development issues in Kenya. This portal provides the opportunity to both access and share information about social development initiatives in Kenya.
Up to 400 African and Asian migrants have begun disembarking in Mauritania from a freighter intercepted by the Spanish coastguard over a week ago. The migrants were handed over to Spanish police after Mauritania and Spain reached a deal following prolonged diplomatic wrangling over responsibility for the migrants.
Fahamu, the pan African social justice organization, and the freedom of expression organization ARTICLE 19, have announced the release of a free, online training material on how to campaign effectively for freedom of information.
Afrisoc and RSSAF have declined the offer to sell copies of ‘African Perspectives on China in Africa’, published by Fahamu Press, for the following reasons: 1) to facilitate an exchange of ideas rather than an endorsement of any single approach; 2) to emphasise debate rather than commercial transactions; and 3) to comply with the requirements of the event venue that no cash transactions take place. In no way does this represent an evaluation, critique or censorship of the publication in question. Afrisoc and RSSAF encourage the presentation of diverse perspectives, and welcome the participation of all at the upcoming event.
The event China’s Involvement in Africa is the second in a series of panel discussions hosted by the Africa Society and the Rhodes Scholars’ Southern African Forum (RSSAF), two student organisations at the University of Oxford. This collaboration aims to bring the Oxford community together to discuss pressing issues in contemporary African society. Researchers and practitioners are invited to provide diverse perspectives on a specific issue in order to promote debate and facilitate an exchange of ideas.
On 30 January 2007, the event organisers were approached by Fahamu Press about the possibility of promoting their publication ‘Perspectives on China in Africa’ via book sales at the event. After discussion with the organising committee, it was decided that this request would be declined, for the following reasons:
1) It compromised the central purpose of the event: to facilitate the exchange of ideas by promoting a diversity of perspectives. We sincerely hope that the perspectives contained in the book will be raised in the panel discussion. However, we believe that the endorsement of a single book at the event would compromise the neutrality of the panel, given that there are many relevant books on the topic. 2) Commercial transactions, such as book sales, are not currently part of our vision for the panel. This does not rule out that possibility in the future, but multiple books and multiple publishers on a topic would always be offered to promote a diversity of ideas. 3) Our agreement with the event venue, Rhodes House, includes the condition that no cash transactions take place in the building. Book sales would contravene this agreement.
These reasons were openly communicated, and the suggestion that the sale of the book in question was declined for reasons of its content, authors or publisher is an unfortunate misunderstanding.
We deeply regret the misrepresentation of our response as “censorship”, and that those making allegations to this effect did not seek adequate clarification before publishing such erroneous comments. In no way do Africsoc and RSSAF engage in or support censorship, and accusations of such conduct are simply incorrect, misleading, and damaging to the credibility of these student-run organisations.
We believe our decision is fully justified, and indeed crucial to the facilitation of an open exchange of diverse ideas at the event. The planning committee reserves the privilege to decide whether book sales are part of the events we hold.
EDITOR'S RESPONSE: Thank you for accepting our invitation to you to respond to Fahamu's letter about this matter. If the reasons now provided by you had been expressed in the first instance, an entirely different discussion would have ensued.
Instead your committee wrote to inform Fahamu on 30 January that the only reason that the book would not be permitted at the seminar was because - quote:
"Undoubtedly the book enriches dicourse (sic) on this pertinent issue and is a very valuable contribution. We however feel it is (sic) represents one view of the relationship between China and Africa."
Leaving aside, for the moment, the fact that this opinion was formed without evidence (as the book was not yet available in the UK), your current statement is clearly at odds with the committee's original reasons for prohibiting the display of the book. Fahamu sought clarification of your committee's decision and were informed that that the committee stood by their decision. It is not, therefore, entirely accurate to state now that "These reasons were openly communicated" to Fahamu.
"From Uganda to Guatemala, the book provides shocking case studies of carbon offset project after project that went wrong. Land grabbing, human rights violations and illegal evictions."
According to Tony Blair recently – it is possible to combine having a good time with taking care of apocalyptic climate change. He was responding to criticism that he had set a bad example by jetting off to Florida for the annual Blair family holiday. His answer to the spoil-sport environmentalists was to pay a carbon offset company Climate Care to 'neutralise' the emissions from the air travel. Carbon offsets allow a polluter (Blair in this case) to continue life as usual (flying cheaply) by paying an intermediary (Climate Care) to invest their money (minus administration costs of course) in a project that reduces emissions of greenhouse gases somewhere else. This in turn caused a secondary furore because the concept of carbon offsets is a pretty controversial one. In the background of this media frenzy, the highly respected Dag Hammerskjöld Foundation published their new book “Carbon Trading: a critical conversation on privatisation, climate change and power” edited by Larry Lohmann that does a comprehensive demolition job on Blair's fun-loving approach to the end of the world as we know it.
From Uganda to Guatemala, the book provides shocking case studies of carbon offset project after project that went wrong. Land grabbing, human rights violations and illegal evictions, the collection of essays catalogues the abuses perpetrated in the name of 'saving the planet'. In Uganda, the Dutch FACE Foundation tree-planting project in the Mount Elgon national park is an example of the occupying force that Northern polluters can have in a Southern country. Since 1994 the Foundation have been planting trees on 25,000 hectares of land where the carbon 'rights' have been given over to them for the next 100 years. This is for the primary purpose of offsetting carbon dioxide emissions. The land within the boundaries of the park is hotly contested and 300 families were evicted in 2002. Communities living on the borders of the park who previously relied on the wood, herbs and animals of the forest now risk being shot at by guards if they trespass. The book argues that because land is politically contentious across the South, the exclusion of local people from this resource to protect 'carbon offsets' of rich Northern polluters can only be seen as an exercise in neo-colonialism.
However it is not only the dubious projects that the book takes issue with but also the wider system of carbon trading into which they fit. Carbon trading lies at the heart of the international treaty on climate change – the Kyoto Protocol. It is the mechanism through which corporate polluters and industrialised governments can trade greenhouse gases instead of reducing their own emissions. It works on the same principle as offsets but with the added bonus that countries and companies can trade credits between themselves rather than invest directly in a project. In this way it acts as a kind of currency. The chapter on the history of its birth onto the UN scene from US fossil fuel lobbyists via the Clinton administration is a fascinating insight into the horse-trading and brinkmanship that goes on at international negotiations. It is also a disturbing glimpse into the machinations of corporate power and neoliberal infiltration of the environmental sphere.
In the conclusion, the book's editor Larry Lohmann gives a stirring analysis of the political dangers of carbon trading by pointing out that in the short life of the climate negotiations, discussion of the precise details of the mechanism has become a “dangerous sideshow”. This has served to distract and confuse environmentalists and policy makers. In fact, for Lohmann, the resignation of policy makers to accept carbon trading as the only show in town is quitters talk. This desperate diplomacy ignores the plethora of existing tried and tested strategies that create dramatic social change. For him change does not occur in small rooms by planners but by move and counter move by all social actors in a slow and painful process of political democratisation of the issues. What climate change needs is a process of “decentring”. Shifting the solutions away from top-down entities such as the World Bank and international diplomacy and more towards grassroots movements that are already making headway on keeping fossil fuels in the ground.
If you thought carbon trading was a dull subject, think again. This book not only demonstrates that it is on the front-line of the conflict with neo-liberalism and corporate power but has infused the issue with the thrill of inspiring social justice movements across the South. If the topic intimidates you, the question and answer style of the book makes it accessible and informal. When you feel you're getting lost, the conversation steps back and gives a chance to reflect and regroup. Plus it's not all doom and gloom, the many strategies Lohmann lays out for tacking climate change from a social justice perspective are inspiring and dare I say they sound like fun! So I guess it all comes down to what your idea of a good time is after all Mr Blair.
You can order the book at