Rosemary Bechler

 Rosemary Bechler (London, openDemocracy): responds to Anthony Barnett's coverage of the campaign against 42 days:

Thanks for the cogent reading of this important moment in the decline of the Westminster hall of mirrors. Doesn’t one need to include in a third episode in this drama? – the refusal of the two main political parties challenged in this bye-election to participate in debating the issues. For all the commenting and blogging, as in the case of the Iraq war and an ever-lengthening list of crucial decisions for the UK, we still have not been told why 42 days is deemed to be necessary to our national interest. All the talk simply obscures this ominous silence.
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Rosemary Bechler

Thank you - all the MigrantVoice authors and bloggers for writing at short notice with passion and point. In a week we have moved beyond the shy introductions stage to 'pleased to meet you' and opened up a conversation on some of the big issues which has provided much food for thought. This excellent introduction will remain open not only for newcomers to browse, but for comment and addition.

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Rosemary Bechler

Sonja Linden started out writing 'verbatim plays' and I like many others can testify to the 'palpable effect' these first hand accounts of detention and forced removal have had on her audiences. The Darfuris or Rwandans whose words and experiences she drew on thank her, however, in particular, for making their characters feisty and rounded - not just victims, however innocent. It's a moving account.

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Rosemary Bechler

On one of the many earlier occasions when desperately provoked people broke out of Campsfield or some other detention centre, the message to the British people was not to approach them on any account because... the implication was.... or was it? ... let's say the suggestion ... that they were violent criminals of an indeterminate but horrendous kind.

No-one would expect a coffee-table book tete-a-tete. But 'Arresting Aram' and some of the other comments made this week about the 'surprising' pleasure and interest some of us have had in meeting the people involved - confirm my earlier suspicion that a much more 'dangerous' outcome, for the authorities at least, and for the militarisation of immigration and asylum which is under way, might be the formation of the kind of bridges that Jenny talks about in her last post: the bridge between the people behind bars and the people who don't know how innocent most of them are.

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Rosemary Bechler

Another reason why many of us look away is simply because the scale of what we are up against is so huge and so daunting. At the opposite end of the problem from the individual moral dilemmas with which we are increasingly familiar - there are the coordinated actions of countries, at the UN or the EU.

Take the news from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees this week. Here are some of the headlines from UNHCR's Global Trends report:

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Rosemary Bechler

Who cares for whom in this world? - is the question that Zrinka asks in today's article, 'Insult and injury' - to which Jenny replies, "For the people locked up in Campsfield (for what?) - not enough people." This is a very uncomfortable exchange for those of us in the middle ground or the silent majority. In her piece later this week Sonja Linden mentions some caring professionals that have inspired a character in her play, Crocodile Seeking Refuge, who ruin some aspects of their lives when they "step over the professional line in their dedication to their [asylum seeking] clients." But in the course of her work with the Migrant and Refugee Communities Forum, Zrinka's encounter is with another type of professional, as she puts it:

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Rosemary Bechler

One of the contributors to the MigrantVoice roundtable last week asked where were the writers and commentators who could make an impact on this debate on sanctuary or refuge - "There is no-one to speak with confidence and charisma on immigration and asylum issues. Very, very rarely does it happen." 

Today's MigrantVoice authors - Philippe Legrain and Irshad Manji - might well qualify. I was particularly struck by Philippe's question: "Since governments conspire to deny people the right to cross borders freely, is pretending to be a refugee really so terrible?" and by Irshad's thought that perhaps the Statue of Liberty should be sent back to France.

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Rosemary Bechler

Welcome to our new blog partners, Jenny Allsop of STAR, Oxford and Craig Barnett of City of Sanctuary in Sheffield, and an old friend, Zrinka Bralo of MRCF, who are joining us today! They will be adding their thoughts and experiences to the discussions this Refugee Week, and helping us begin to get at the real picture around the UK - a picture that all our readers can help us fill out, since we are all experts on this fundamental challenge for ourselves and our societies - and we very much hope to hear your comments too.

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Rosemary Bechler

‘Then cherish pity; lest you drive an angel from your door.’
From ‘Holy Thursday’, Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake

The last line of Blake’s poem, with its echo of the Biblical injunction - ‘Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. Unawares!’ (Hebrew, 13:2) – reminds us that giving sanctuary or refuge to strangers who need it is part of a longstanding and venerable tradition in Britain. Indeed, by some accounts, we pride ourselves on a liberal asylum tradition that dates right back to the welcome that we gave Huguenots from France and the Protestants expelled by Phillip III of Spain in the late sixteenth century.

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Rosemary Bechler

In her final report from the Wilton Park conference, Rosemary Bechler speaks to Liberian peace activist Leymah Roberta Gbowee, about women's essential role in peacebuilding.

Click here for parts one, two and three

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Rosemary Bechler

In the third of four reports from a UN conference on women targeted by armed conflict, Rosemary Bechler speaks to Nicky Dahrendorf, who as UN Action coordinator in the Congo holds "possibly one of the most challenging jobs ever devised".

Click here for parts one and two

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Rosemary Bechler

In the second of four reports from the UN conference on women targeted by armed conflict, Rosemary Bechler talks to military peacekeeper Patrick Commaert about the responsibility to protect, and learning from Rwanda, Somalia and Srebrenica.

Click here for the first report

2. "The good news"

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Rosemary Bechler

Last week's UN-led conference on women targeted by armed conflict proved an eye-opener for Rosemary Bechler. In the first of four reports, she looks at the effects of the changing nature of warfare, in which "It has probably become more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in armed conflicts".

1. "The bad news"

My lightening visit to the Wilton Park conference on "Women Targeted by Armed Conflict: What Role for Military Peacekeepers?" last Wednesday was a real eye-opener. Since this trip was sandwiched between International Peacekeeping Day on Thursday and Tuesday's release of a new report by Save the Children UK showing that girls and boys in conflict-affected countries such as Sudan, the Ivory Coast and Haiti fail to report sexual exploitation and abuse by some humanitarian aid workers and UN peacekeeping troops through fear, you might expect this revelation to contain further information about abusive peacekeepers. Actually, the eye-opener was about the nature of war today.

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Rosemary Bechler

We linked to a notice of the upcoming exciting Women's Peace Building Cyber-Dialogues on October 21. Mavic has written to us with a brief report-back from that event:

"As part of the 5th anniversary of United Nations Security Council resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on women, peace and security, the International Women's Tribune Centre in collaboration with Isis-WICCE convened a Peace-Building CyberDialogue on UNSCR 1325. Envisioned as a global town hall meeting, this 'real time' discussion with voice and web camera facilities, connected women working on peace-building issues at the national and community levels with gender advocates, policy makers and diplomats meeting at the UN as well as with women attending the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) International Forum in Bangkok, Thailand.
 
Women gathered in Nepal, the Philippines, Timor Leste, Uganda and Zimbabwe as well as in Bangkok, Thailand and New York, USA to discuss their experiences with using UNSCR 1325, including ways to use the resolution to strengthen women's participation in key decision-making bodies that deal with peace and security issues and the issues that they want to bring to the attention of decision makers. Participants in New York included Rachel Mayanja, the Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women. Ms. Mayanja noted the women's concerns and suggestions and took their messages to the Open Debate of the UN Security Council, which took place immediately following the CyberDialogue.
 
Peace activists from Burma and the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as advocates from Canada who came for the UN Security Council Meeting in New York also joined the peace-building cyberdialogues.
 
Some of the key points that participants in the cyberdialogues raised were:

-        the need to ensure that women understand SCR 1325 and along with this, their need to be trained to gain skills in negotiation and in understanding and analyzing conflict - so that they can participate more effectively in discussions and negotiations on peace and security issues  

-        the need to educate the general public to develop a broad constituency of people who are aware of the issues [arising from conflict and those that bring about conflict] and how these can impact on their daily lives

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Rosemary Bechler

 

For many of you, Senator Mobina Jaffer, Chair of the Canadian Committee on Women, Peace and Security will need no introduction. Others may like to read my profile of her in today’s article. She was one of many people I went to see to try and understand how to assess the success of Resolution 1325 to date. I met someone who was always looking forward to the next day’s opportunities, whatever had happened yesterday. So I asked her for a message for the Women Making a Difference bloggers, and I think she was just the person to ask. This was her message to you all:

“I have spent some time reading the posts in this blog and I am energised by the passion and in many cases, frustration shared about the international results to date of resolution 1325.
 
I too am frustrated.  I want to see change happen now.  I don’t want to have to travel back to places like Darfur and witness the scars, both physical and emotional. I know that as impatient as I am to see change, my sisters in Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, the DRC and Iraq are even more impatient. They know what the cost of war and the value of real peace are where they are actively involved in decision-making.
 
Don’t give up. Don’t be overwhelmed by the obstacles that are faced as we move this important issue forward. It is only through the collaboration and partnership of our sisters around the globe that the commitments in 1325 will be fully realised. Change is taking place, we are moving forward. Our efforts are paying off so please stay strong. The work of one woman is like a stone dropped into the water. The ripples cast go on and on.”

Rosemary Bechler

Yesterday, one of our readers sent us the following message and link:

“Dear friends
please read this when you have the time. Its about terrorism and the politics of violence, and (I think)  has something to do with your interests. If you agree, please put the link on your website, or pass it on... “

http://www.himalmag.com/2005/september/cover_story.html

Well, I for one, do agree. It’s great to to be offered something to read on our last official day of blogging on UN Resolution 1325 that opens up an even wider historical debate on violence that could keep us going for months! Read the rest of this post...

Rosemary Bechler

Today, I received a hasty message from Dyab Abou Jahjah, head of the Arab European League, a movement which started in Belgium and spread to the Netherlands and France. I interviewed him for openDemocracy and occasionally after that, he came into our discussion forums. I remember him telling us about his most recent book, which has some themes that might interest Women Making a Difference bloggers. He wrote:

“Honestly, I am disgusted by extremists on both sides. More and more I am aware of the necessity of a democratic alternative, a radical democratic alternative. This society as it is today, locally and globally, is going nowhere.

I am writing a book now that is focused on the Arab world and Islam. I will be looking at history, and advocating a new Arab nationalist left project for the future. I will consider Islam and call for reformism, a protestant Islam, an Islam that gives religion back to the people - taking religion away from the multitude of churches and popes.

I will be defending the right of religious practice like the hijab out of a democratic analysis, but I will be attacking the hijab itself and proving that it is no Islamic obligation but rather a social-stratification tradition that turned theological. I recently said in an interview that the veil is not an Islamic obligation, that I will educate my daughter not to wear one, but that if one woman “believed” that it is part of “her” religion in her own interpretation of that religion that that woman has the democratic right to practice “her” religion as “she” understands it and not as I do. Now that I am expressing these views, fundamentalists and extremists on both sides attack me. But I think that this is the price to pay and it is one I am happy to pay.

I am glad to exchange ideas and views, in openDemocracy and elsewhere. Please let me know what you think of all this.”

Today he wrote to say that events in France are hectic at the moment, but that we might like to have a look at a recent comment piece by him on that subject.

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Rosemary Bechler

The International Action Network on Small Arms has sent out issue 8 of its bulletin dedicated to  1325 - the 'pioneering resolution on women, peace and security.' In one section, Sílvia Roque and Tatiana Moura from the  Peace Studies Group of the University of Coimbra in Portugal have formulated a set of goals they think 1325 activists should  work towards, as follows:

" · Guaranteeing that States considered at peace do not interpret Resolution 1325 only in terms of what they should do for other  States or oblige other States to do, but that they seek to explore and translate the meaning of the Resolution in their own  contexts given the continuum of violence; Read the rest of this post...

Rosemary Bechler

Tale of Cinema (Hong Sang-Soo,South Korea, 2005) NFT Sun 30 Oct 21:00

     I have only managed to see one film at the LFF, but wouldn’t have missed it for the world. It’s on again on November 2 NFT1 at 2pm – go if you can! Hong-Sang-Soo’s latest film is a sort of comic version of Kiorastami’s ‘Close-Up’. And if he is to be believed, Seoul is a city of adolescence – the aggravated Oedipal complex, narcissistic mood swings, impulses of generosity and devotion, the uncertain line between self and other, the impossibilities of communication, idealism, yearning and despair.

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Rosemary Bechler

Contents
...
8.  How democracy can be made to work
9.  How to cope with vulnerability and combat victimisation
10.How to defend women’s human rights
11.Towards a ‘bloodless knowledge revolution’


8.  How democracy can be made to work
Helen O’Connell called for a transformative politics: ‘…sustainable development and the elimination of discrimination and poverty can only come about through the strengthening of democracy. Democracy as promoted by the west, meaning elections every few years, is not what we mean. Important though elections are, we are talking about democracy at every level from family, to workplace, to international bodies, with the right to information, transparency and accountability at the core.  We describe this as sustainable democracy… We need a critical mass of women who will work to transform the political and decision-making structures themselves, their ways and hours of working, their secrecy, sexist attitudes, corrupt practices, and male-domination.  But at the same time we need to work to transform the agenda and priorities of our political structures. Peggy Antrobus and others talk about transformational leadership, which is not only transformational in style, but has economic, political and social transformation as its goal.’

Mu Sochua also offers a vision of transformational leadership: ‘Women as commune leaders see development as an entire cycle that begins with basic education and health. Development is complete when the community as a whole can provide for each other and protect its resources. In Cambodia where the power of the village chief rules, the strength of the farmers can only be sustained when we assist them by providing information, with advocacy skills and with legal protection. This is why leadership development is important and the role of NGOs can make a difference. I believe in the people's movements that are being formed everywhere, in all sectors… I work along many young leaders. They are factory workers, union leaders, students, sex workers, people living with AIDS. My strengths come from learning from their strengths.’

Inge Relph perceives ‘a pattern here of missed opportunity to build grassroots organisations as a priority...ideally before conflict breaks out and as an immediate priority post conflict. Somalia comes to mind where the investment that Womankind Worldwide and others had put into supporting the Save Somali Women And Children network meant that there was a cross-clan movement that could be mobilized and have critical mass to advocate for the needs of women during the transition and reconstruction.’

9.  How to cope with vulnerability and combat victimisation
Our bloggers shared accounts of the victimization process. Galia Golan writes, ‘women are on the disadvantaged side of militarized society. Clearly gender relations are affected by the militarization of a society.  In militarized society you have the elevation, adulation and privilege of the male protector. The male is seen to play an essential role for the society, for the nation, leaving the women in a sub-ordinate, auxiliary position, at best a helper.  In a society at war, male qualities are those that are most respected: strength, power, aggressiveness. These qualities are deemed more important than the soft qualities associated with women.’

Sam Cook observes, ‘the notion that men are there to protect women…is one that may seem relatively harmless to some. We see, however, that this notion then motivates attacks intended to demonstrate male community member's inability to fulfill their function and role and thus humiliate them and signal their defeat. It thus become about more than notions of masculinity that see men as "attackers" but also about those that require them to fulfill other less obviously harmful roles.’

Marren Akatsu-Kubachi writes about electoral violence against women: ‘Where I come from, that is, Kenya, we have only 7 percent of women in Parliament… In Kenya, politics is a dirty game as I guess it is in every country. Women have to be prepared to face both verbal and physical violence when they join politics. The verbal violence can inflict more damage than the physical as the opponents, some who may be fellow women, hit below the belt, many times on assumed crimes. One of the ‘best’ targets is to direct the dirt on the moral virtues of the women.  She will be called a prostitute, drunkard, a woman of loose morals, a home breaker etc. If she is divorced the word divorcee will become a dirty word. She cannot campaign in social gatherings in the evening like the men as she will be called a woman of loose morals, ‘tanga tangaring (roaming) the bars.  If necessary she will be beaten up to teach her a lesson.’

How do we cope with vulnerability? Maura Stephens’ friend has one answer – self-defence and assertiveness training. Sarah Lindon discusses another possibility advocated by Judith Butler – that post-9/11 we realize that the human condition is one of vulnerability to others and learn to live accordingly.

10.  How to defend women’s human rights
In our publicity work, we encountered a tendency to attempt to pit women’s rights against human rights as if they were mutually exclusive. Cindy Weber discussed the arguments of Robert Whelan from Civitas, a UK think-tank: ‘Robert crafted his argument in support of human rights as a way of arguing against women's rights. Robert's argument is that human rights are universal rights, belonging to all humans, and that this therefore makes women's rights not just superfluous but 'special' and 'Western'… Robert's position makes several suspect assumptions - that rights are universal (and presumably easily universalized) to humans, that this universal claim to human rights is based in human nature, and that if human rights are not taken up this is not a systemic problem but an individual one. Translated into the debate between human rights and women's rights, what we have here is a suggestion that the trouble with women is NOT that they have been systematically excluded from political participation but that they have failed to claim their human rights and uphold them. By implication, it follows that it is silly to then grant women even more, extra special rights when they can't even effectively exercise the rights they already have, the rights that are already available to them.’

Sarah Lindon cited Judith Butler on the same point: ‘Butler says, in discussing international human rights, “I think we are compelled to speak of the human... And to find out how human rights do and do not work, say, in favour of women...” While her version of ‘human rights’ is one open to change, they are also an eternal truth claim and must be negotiated peacefully. Why is this important in building peace and security? 'Human rights' is one of the conceptual tools in this struggle. Butler identifies “a critical democratic project, one which understands that the category of the ‘human’ has been used differentially and with exclusionary aims, and that not all humans have been included within its terms, that the category of ‘women’ has been used differentially and with exclusionary aims, and that not all women have been included within its terms, and that women have not been fully incorporated into the human, and that both categories are still in process, underway, unfulfilled, that we do not yet know, and cannot ever definitively know, in what the human finally consists.”

11.  Towards a ‘bloodless knowledge revolution’
Many bloggers talked about the media and the communication aspects of advocacy work – ‘how to use the media to advance the women’s agenda, including peacebuilding’ – as well as how to use film documentary and story-telling which is more persuasive than ‘UN-speke’. Perhaps because this was a self-conscious media exercise, it raised this question up the agenda. There was discussion of Inge Relph’s encounter with Robert Whelan on Woman’s Hour – the daily UK radio programme for women; discussion of women Presidents and their impact as a media story; discussion of the coverage of UN peacekeeper abuse and its timing; and in the middle of the blog – the arrest of the owner-manager of a democracy radio programme in Cambodia.
Then there was the proposal to find out more of the diversity of views amongst Iraqi women: Inge Relph took up a suggestion of Scilla Elworthy’s to raise the issue of whether an e-poll of Iraqi women would be useful. ‘Iraqi women themselves need to have the freedom to articulate what they want. But have they had a chance to say how they want to claim their rights?... What about an E-POLL of Iraqi women?... If we had solid opinion figures on what Iraqi women want, we could use them in several ways - press, report to the FCO and State Dept, lobby Iraqi leaders, and support Iraqi women in an informed way.’
Boitumelo suggested that NGOs should budget for media coverage, holding out the possibility of a ‘bloodless revolution of knowledge’. She asked what had happened to the powerful underground communication that was used in South Africa until democracy came along, adding the provocative question -  ‘Is democracy a lullaby to put us to deep sleep?’
Jo Wilding took this up: ‘Boitumelo Mofokeng wrote (Oct 3), “I ask myself, if women owned half the media in the world, what stories would we be telling and how these would be educational and empowering to women. I have seen and continue to see women's columns of major newspapers still profiling women in a stereotypical way, functioning as if there's no Gender Commission, UNIFEM, etc. Media for me is a tool that we need to advance our cause.” Boitumelo, I agree. The media needs to represent the people, instead of telling us what we’re supposed to think. I’m not convinced things would change merely because women owned half the media – if they were women with the same intentions as Rupert Murdoch and the other filthy rich men who own the media now we’d be no better off (think of Condoleezza Rice, for example). Media co-operatives, on the other hand, offer the potential for collectively owned and run outlets to provide information, drama, news, social commentary and so on that pay a fair wage but do not exist primarily to make profit for essentially uninvolved owners or shareholders.’
They were joined by Mu Sochua: ‘One thing for sure is that we need to teach every woman to learn to speak to the media and to speak, full stop. There are so many things that are taken for granted by women about what we do, how we feel, how we act. We think that it needs no explanation. It is obvious that men understand us, that the society supports us. Wrong.’
Angela Castellanos took up the theme: ‘Over my long experience as communicator working in international development and women issues, I have noticed how often the value of communication is depreciated, since it is understood just as a dissemination. If we want to ensure that this Resolution is fully in the agenda, we need more than dissemination… We need to develop communication processes aimed to turn information into action. We need to develop communication processes aimed to empower women to push for this Resolution implementation.  We need to develop communication processes aimed to engage policy-makers to work towards its implementation.’

Sanam Anderlini wants positive stories of peacebuilding to join the stories of UN peacekeeping abuse: ‘I don't think that the coverage on peacekeepers abuse is counterproductive to our message - it is outrageous that peacekeepers and civilian humanitarian staff exploit those who they are meant to protect.  The question is why does the media fail to report on the positive work that is being done by ordinary people? Why is rape and violence news, and peacebuilding never worthy of coverage?  Maybe if the public demanded news about these things, the media would take some action.’

CODA
Many bloggers began with statements about how they hoped to learn from each other: ‘The forces that work against peace, justice, equity, the environment, and human rights do so by dividing and conquering. It is easy for those of us engaging in our various struggles to become splintered, fractured. We concentrate on our own most immediately pressing issues. But we must add on to our already over-full plates the task of keeping dialogue open amongst us, of helping our far-flung sisters (and brothers) in the many efforts we are making around the corner and around the world. This discussion is a fine example of such an endeavour. I am so pleased to be a part of it…’ – Maura Stephens

‘I am reassured that I am not alone in tackling such complex and at times traumatic matter in the work that we undertake. Also, I take comfort in the fact that I am not alone finding it difficult to make the time that I wish I had for this project due to work commitments. Though, I share in the belief that this is an important and potentially vital project that can make a significant difference to all our work through the sharing of experience and expertise.’ – Mary Blewitt

Jelena Djordevic illuminated new forms of solidarity, and the difference they made: ‘This was the solidarity that had been nurtured during the war in EX-Yugoslavia (and in other war/conflict affected areas) when individual feminist activists and groups were coming from all over the world to support us, to bring small gifts, to express solidarity, to spread the message to the world, to take us away for a trip where we could re-build our energy. Support was also coming from various feminist donors who were giving grants to strengthen our efforts on the ground (understanding our needs). This form of global feminist solidarity meant, for many of us, our own physical and psychological survival in the most difficult moments of conflict. Though this global solidarity was not enough to respond to many other challenges that activists face in conflict, this support was crucial in giving us strength and encouragement to continue our work. The question that came up was how to make this feminist global solidarity network stronger, more strategic, for the purpose of sustaining our activism and for the purpose of maximizing its responses to the challenges during the conflict as well as during the time when “the peace starts”?