Reclaiming Activism

By Alex DeWaal

The World Peace Foundation: Reinventing Peace, Tufts University  - April 30, 2013

For most of my adult life I introduced myself as an “activist” first and a writer, researcher, or practitioner of humanitarian action or peacemaking second. Then, about seven or eight years ago, I became rather uncomfortable with the word. Not because I had diluted my personal commitment to working in solidarity with suffering and oppressed people, but because a group of people, in whose company I didn’t want to be, were claiming not only to be activists but to define “activism” itself. I am speaking of course about the policy lobbyists in Washington DC, also known as “designer activists,” who took on the role of promoting certain causes related to Africa, and who arrogated to themselves the privilege of defining these problems and identifying and pursuing ostensible solutions. It was no accident that those purported solutions placed the “activists” themselves at the center of the narrative, because many of them were Hollywood actors—or their hangers on—for whom the only possible role is as the protagonist-savior. The actions they promoted all had one thing in common: using more U.S. power around the world.

I was not the only one to find this arrogation of “activism” offensive, demeaning and counter-productive. One of the most refreshing aspects of our recent seminar at the World Peace Foundation was finding out just how much the consensus among national civil society activists from Uganda and Congo, as well as Sudan, has coalesced around the view that the basic narratives and policy prescriptions of the Enough Project and its ilk are not only simplified and simplistic, but actually pernicious. Theirs isn’t activism: it’s insider lobbying within the Washington establishment using celebrity hype as leverage. They are not just a benign variant of advocacy, perhaps somewhat simplified: they are wrong.

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How Hollywood cloaked South Sudan in celebrity and fell for the 'big lie'

Film stars have been speaking from a flawed script about the newest nation. Daniel Howden points a finger at those who have failed to grasp the awful reality      

By Daniel Howden  

The Observer, Saturday 28 December 2013

When violence erupted two weeks ago in the world's youngest country, one of the first voices to speak out, before the US president or the head of the United Nations, was that of the Hollywood actor George Clooney. There was nothing particularly objectionable about his counsel, which in any case was more likely authored by the American activist John Prendergast, with whom he shared a byline. It spoke of the need for a robust UN response and, even as tens of thousands of civilians fled ethnically motivated death squads, of the "opportunities" present in South Sudan.

This is a country, not yet two and a half years old, whose birth has been soaked in celebrity like no other. As well as Clooney, Matt Dillon and Don Cheadle have been occasional visitors who have tried to use their star power to place the international public firmly in the corner of this plucky upstart nation.

Unsurprisingly, the actors were highly effective at communicating a narrative about the new country that borrowed from a simple script. The south had fought a bloody two-decade battle for its independence against an Islamic and chauvinist north led by an indicted war criminal. The cost of that war, regularly touted as two million lives, meant that the south would need huge development support to lift it from the impoverished floor of every quality of life index published.

The great threat in this narrative was the vile regime in Khartoum, the capital of rump Sudan, which would seek to undermine its southern breakaway, or march back to war to reclaim some of its lost oilfields.

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A New Book: NGOization: Complicity, Contradictions and Prospects

Edited by Aziz Choudry and Dip Kapoor

GOization: Complicity, Contradictions and Prospects
Edited by Aziz Choudry and Dip Kapoor 
Zed Books
11 July 2013 Paperback ISBN: 9781780322575 248 pages 

The growth and spread of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at local and international levels has attracted considerable interest and attention from policy-makers, development practitioners, academics and activists around the world. But how has this phenomenon impacted on struggles for social and environmental justice? How has it challenged - or reinforced - the forces of capitalism and colonialism? And what political, economic, social and cultural interests does this serve?
NGOization - the professionalization and institutionalization of social action - has long been a hotly contested issue in grassroots social movements and communities of resistance. This book pulls together for the first time unique perspectives of social struggles and critically engaged scholars from a wide range of geographical and political contexts to offer insights into the tensions and challenges of the NGO model, while considering the feasibility of alternatives. 

Table of Contents

Preface by Sangeeta Kamat
Introduction - NGOization: Complicity, Contradictions and Prospects - Aziz Choudry and Dip Kapoor
1. Saving Biodiversity, for Whom and for What? Conservation NGOs, Complicity, Colonialism and Conquest in an Era of Capitalist Globalization - Aziz Choudry
2. Social Action and NGOization in Contexts of Development Dispossession in Rural India: Explorations into the Un-civility of Civil Society - Dip Kapoor
3. NGOs, Indigenous Peoples and the United Nations - Sharon H. Venne
4. From Radical Movement to Conservative NGO and Back Again? A Case Study of the Democratic Left Front in South Africa - Luke Sinwell
5. Philippine NGOs: Defusing Dissent, Spurring Change - Sonny Africa
6. Disaster Relief, NGO-led Humanitarianism and the Reconfiguration of Spatial Relations in Tamil Nadu - Raja Swamy
7. Seven Theses on Neobalkanism and NGOization in Transitional Serbia - Tamara Vukov
8. Peace-building and Violence against Women: Tracking the Ruling Relations of Aid in a Women's Development NGO in Kyrgyzstan - Elena Kim and Marie Campbell
9. Alignment and Autonomy: Food Systems in Canada - Brewster Kneen

Mandela Is Gone, but Apartheid Is Alive and Well in Australia

By John Pilger

Truthout | Op-Ed  - Thursday, 19 December 2013

Apartheid was defeated largely by a global campaign from which the South African regime never recovered. Similar disapproval seldom has found its mark for Australia's treatment of its Aboriginal population.
In the late 1960s, I was given an usual assignment by the London Daily Mirror's editor in chief, Hugh Cudlipp. I was to return to my homeland, Australia, and "discover what lies behind the sunny face." The Mirror had been an indefatigable campaigner against apartheid in South Africa, where I had reported from behind the "sunny face." As an Australian, I had been welcomed into this bastion of white supremacy. "We admire you Aussies," people would say. "You know how to deal with your blacks."
I was offended, of course, but I also knew that only the Indian Ocean separated the racial attitudes of the two colonial nations. What I was not aware of was how the similarity caused such suffering among the original people of my own country. Growing up, my school books had made clear, to quote one historian: "We are civilised, and they are not." I remember how a few talented Aboriginal Rugby League players were allowed their glory as long as they never mentioned their people. Eddie Gilbert, the great Aboriginal cricketer, the man who bowled Don Bradman for a duck, was to be prevented from playing again. That was not untypical.

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Turkey’s human rights groups in a funding squeeze

By Murat Çelikkan

Opendemocracy - 10 December 2013

In their study, “Universal values, foreign money,” Ron and Pandya find that most human rights groups in selected parts of India, Mexico and Morocco rely heavily on foreign funds. The authors then raise provocative questions about why this is so. Poverty? Fear of government retribution? Lack of public trust in human rights groups themselves?
Their findings inspired me to investigate the same questions in my own country, Turkey. I quickly discovered that there are almost no studies of nonprofit funding in Turkey, and that is especially true for Turkey’s human rights organizations. So this essay is limited to what little I could learn about the largest domestic rights groups in the country.

First, a little history

In 2005, a group of activists created a national umbrella organization for Turkish human rights organizations, the Human Rights Joint Platform (İnsan Hakları Ortak Platformu - İHOP). Its founding members were the Human Rights Association (IHD, 1986), Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (Türkiye İnsan Hakları Vakfı - TİHV, 1990), Organization of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed People (İnsan Hakları ve Mazlumlar Derneği - Mazlumder, 1991), Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly (Helsinki Yurttaşlar Derneği_- HYD, 1993), Amnesty International - Turkey (Uluslararsı Af Örgütü - UAÖ, 1995), and the Human Rights Research Association (İnsan Hakları Araştırmaları Derneği- İHAD, 2006). Although the Human Rights Foundation and Mazlumder later abstained from formal membership, they still participate in some IHOP activities.

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Thinktank director Tim Wilson appointed human rights commissioner

Attorney general says director of right-wing Institute of Public Affairs will 'restore balance' to Human Rights Commission      

By Bridie Jabour   

theguardian.com, Monday 16 December 2013

The attorney general has appointed a director from the right-wing thinktank the Institute of Public Affairs as Australia’s human rights commissioner.
George Brandis said Tim Wilson, a member of the Liberal party until this month, had been appointed to “restore balance” to the Human Rights Commission.
Wilson, a self-declared classic libertarian, directs climate change policy at the IPA as well as the Intellectual Property and Free Trade Unit.
Wilson said he had stepped down from his position at the IPA as well as resigned from the Liberal party to take up the appointment.
The IPA called for the Human Rights Commission to be abolished earlier this year with Simon Breheny, director of its Legal Rights Project, saying it did not protect human rights.

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Biden lectures Chinese leaders on “human rights”

By John Chan

World Socialist Web Site - 6 December 2013

In a provocative move that will further strain already tense relations with China, US Vice President Joe Biden made a point of sharply criticising the Chinese government over “human rights” in a speech yesterday to American business leaders in Beijing.
Biden called on China to “open its politics and society as well as its economy,” so that people could “speak freely” and “challenge orthodoxy” and “newspapers can report the truth without fear of consequences.” He declared: “We have many disagreements, and some profound disagreements [with China], on some of those issues right now, in the treatment of US journalists.”
Biden said that he had raised the issue with top Chinese leaders, including President Xi Jinping, after meeting with a group of US journalists in China. Sections of the American media have complained that China has refused to renew the visas of a number of journalists, including from the New York Times, Reuters, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, following the publication of stories critical of Beijing.
Beijing blocked the New York Times and Bloomberg web sites in China after their exposure last year of the huge fortunes of top Chinese leaders. The New York Times found that former Premier Wen Jiabao’s family had amassed at least $US2.7 billion, while Bloomberg exposed the hundreds of millions of dollars of assets owned by President Xi’s extended family members. The Chinese leadership is deeply concerned that the vast social gulf between the wealthy privileged ruling elite and the mass of the population can trigger social unrest.

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A New Book: Global Society, Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights,

Global Society, Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights
Cotesta V., Cicchelli V. and Nocenzi M. (eds)
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013

Global Society, Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights is the outcome of a decade-long scholarly project. The point of convergence emerging from the analyses contained in this volume is that “global society”, “cosmopolitanism” and “human rights” are likely to constitute the basis of present and future ways of life. The “project for humanity” of the future, while resting on local social associations, will have “globality” as its reference.

For further information, see the following link:
http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/978-1-4438-5161-9-sample.pdf

French general Paul Aussaresses who admitted torture dies at 95

The general was convicted for 'complicity in justifying war crimes' in connection with his memoir about Algerian independence war 

theguardian.com, Wednesday 4 December 2013

The French general Paul Aussaresses, whose cold admission of executions and torture during the Algerian independence war five decades ago forced France to examine a dark period of its past, has died. He was 95.

Aussaresses, whose death was announced on Wednesday on the website of the veterans' association Who Dares Wins, was convicted and fined in January 2002 for "complicity in justifying war crimes" in connection with a memoir about the seven-year war that ended with Algeria's independence from French rule in 1962.

The general was intelligence chief and a top commander during the brutal 1957 Battle of Algiers. His admission of torture and summary killings horrified then-French President Jacques Chirac, who also served in the French army during the French-Algerian war in 1954.

"I express regrets," Aussaresses said in a 2001 interview with the Associated Press. "But I cannot express remorse. That implies guilt. I consider I did my difficult duty of a soldier implicated in a difficult mission."

Aussaresses was instantly recognisable by his eye patch. He lost sight in one eye because of a botched cataract operation, not combat.

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