Cultural Conundrums: Preserving Traditions While Upholding Human Rights

Since the beginning of my sociopolitical awakening, I have been irrevocably swayed by the argument that seeks to preserve and extol culture in the face of vacuous homogenization and synthetic mass production. In the hard-line games of power politics, however, this notion has long been forgotten, cast aside as a “soft” issue, unimportant in the arsenal of statecraft and industrialization. Culture was the argument of the weak and marginalized idealists who dreamed of a just, diverse and representative system of governance. And so, with zero appreciation for culture and its associates, the Bush Administration launched a myopic war into Iraq. From the innumerable tragedies and immeasurable flaws that followed we can draw the poignant lesson that culture and identity politics are not only part of the conversation, but play a pivotal and crucial role in international relations. Beyond the realization that understanding a people’s history, religion, traditions and values is as serious and necessary as geopolitical strategy, the appreciation for the beauty that every culture offers is becoming widely accepted throughout global civil society. Last November I had the privilege of being invited to participate at the annual SCUSA Conference held in West Point. As students from all over the world gathered to discuss global challenges and propose innovative solutions, we met several panelists who offered their own insight in the hopes of inspiring our work in the days to come. Dr. Azzam Karam of the UNFPA spoke on this issue in particular. I must admit that her argument troubled me deeply. Culture, she said, must be absolutely, unflinchingly, and totally respected. She made the point, for example, that genital mutilations, common in many African societies, are a right of passage for pubescent girls and cannot be replaced by any other ritual. It seems that, in our well-intended desire to preserve identities and empathize, we have somehow come to guise what can be described as nothing less than an atrocity in the regalia of culture, where it becomes untouchable and unquestionable. While craft, music, food, ritual and oral tradition must not be allowed to die out but be celebrated and perpetuated, we must all nevertheless learn to be discerning and condemn those aspects of culture that do not enrich, but humiliate, persecute and murder the innocent.

In this post, I will focus on one example of the problematics of culture. On March 18 Amnesty International revealed that an estimated 1,000 people in the Gambia had been imprisoned and tortured by paramilitary “witch hunters.” Amnesty suggested that the government has been laying charges of witchcraft against opposition members, rounding them up and forcing them to drink “hallucinogenic concoctions to confess witchcraft.” While news of government sponsored witch hunts is novel (though not surprising, since President Jammeh has also claimed to have found an herbal cure for HIV/AIDS), witch hunts that target children - even babies - have been occurring in Nigeria for some time now without Western advocacy groups taking notice. This long-held belief in witchcraft or "juju" has been manipulated and transformed by fear and ignorance into a powerful weapon against human rights. West Africa is a land of rich traditions and a societal fiber so fiercely solid that it has survived in spite of brutal civil wars, military dictatorships and unrivaled poverty. People guard their history and instill values and traditions in the younger generations, that they may be passed on and never forgotten. A belief in witchcraft is not new to this region. In recent years, however, children have become victims of their communities’ fear and the scapegoats for endemic poverty, illness, death and are even blamed for causing droughts and poor harvests (see above image). In the Niger Delta region of Nigeria this has become astonishingly widespread; with an estimated 15,000 children targeted in the Akwa Ibom province alone. Many blame the arrival of fundamentalist Evangelical groups to the region for these unprecedented witch-hunts. One of the country’s wealthiest preachers, Helen Ukpabio has even produced a film End of the Wicked in which children become possessed by demonic spirits and are pictured being “inducted into covens, eating human flesh and bringing chaos and death to their families.” She has also authored a book instructing parents to look for warning signs of possession such as crying during the night, fevers and poor health which are commonplace throughout the impoverished nation. Ignorance and hunger, if fueled by fear are an explosive combination. When this is exploited by preachers who charge up to $400 dollars for performing excruciating exorcisms (over half of the country’s population lives on less than $1 a day) we have a corrupt structure of abuse that must be called into question and destroyed.

Reports of children being mutilated, burned, stabbed with nails and savagely beaten by their own parents are easy to come by. Children who are accused of witchcraft are ostracized from their communities and often have nowhere to go. “Many of those branded "child-witches" are murdered - hacked to death with machetes, poisoned, drowned, or buried alive in an attempt to drive Satan out of their soul.” In a documentary, reporters from the Guardian taped the confession of a man calling himself “the Bishop” who claimed to have killed over one hundred and ten witches (he has since been brought to trial). Last week, a seven month old girl and her ten year old sister were accused of being witches and banished from their town. Some groups like the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN) and Stepping Stones have created shelters for the brutalized and abandoned children whom they can find (see above image). Governments must of course be held accountable, although corrupt regimes are seldom responsive to such internationalist demands. More importantly, however, the religious institutions promoting this insidiousness must be reached and called to recant and lead believers down a truly righteous path that respects the life of children. Local religious leaders hold an authority which no distant government can counter, and therefore are the cornerstone of any coherent solution.

It is unseemly for me to imagine mothers who burn and mutilate their own infants, and fathers who douse their sons with petrol and set them aflame. It is equally difficult for me to believe that these people act out of hatred. The weight that they bear in such extreme poverty, with death looming around every bend is too much for any person to endure; and so they turn to spiritual leaders who offer them a tangible answer to their suffering, exploit their lack of education and through the unmatched fear wielded by the power of religion drive these men and women, who are themselves victims of perverse systemic violence to commit the unthinkable. Advocacy groups such as Amnesty must look beyond the ranks of government and into the quotidian realms in order to also question and shine a light on the plight of these children. Tragically, some traditional beliefs are being twisted and turned criminal, not being revered and imparted. While we must strive as determinedly as ever to preserve the things that are vanishing and uplift cultural identities against the monolith of modernity, we must also question and sound an alarm when death and destruction come in their place.

Bashir and the ICC: The Repercussions of Indictment

Last week, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Omar Hassan al-Bashir (see left), the president of Sudan, indicting him on five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes, saliently reviving age-old questions of sovereignty, international justice and the myriad of problems that lay within the attempt to reconcile the two. Since the Peace of Westphalia was signed in 1648, baptizing the nation state as a sovereign entity, quests for internationalism and cooperation have been thwarted by claims of this sacrosanct and supreme law. That being said, norms of international justice changed a great deal since the aftermath of the Second World War. The precedent-setting Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials internationalized questions of justice and made it clear that the international community is morally bound to try and adjudicate when national governments fail to deal out punishments to unforgivable crimes. In the wake of such unmatched devastation, states became increasingly concerned with human rights abuses and abusers, and also evermore willing to put offenders on trial. It had become clear that when dealing with crimes of immense magnitude or grievousness one is often dealing with government leaders themselves, illuminating an important legal dilemma between justice and sovereignty: immunity. Without overcoming this formidable barrier, nothing can truly be done. In one of its most revolutionary measures, the ICC states that no incumbent or retired head of state is immune to persecution. Bashir would be the first sitting head of state to be tried for war crimes. It is unlikely however that the Sudanese government will send him to the Hague and even less probable that the UN will go into Sudan to fetch him. In the wake of this news, the government expelled all humanitarian aid organizations providing relief in the troubled Darfur region and claimed that the ICC’s action was nothing more than thinly veiled colonialism. So my question is, is it worth it? Even if he is arrested, tried and convicted, will this at all quell the violence and unrest in the Sudan? I found two blogs that address the headline, one written by George Clooney, celebrity and prominent activist for action against the genocidal regime, and another by Martha Heinemann Bixby, director of Team Darfur and blogger for the Save Darfur coalition. My comments on each of these can be found below as well as at the respective sites.

Comment: "Nothing New to Report"

After the Holocaust, the world said, “never again”. But April of 1994 passed by dripping with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Rwandans, the UN retreated in fear, Clinton twiddled his thumbs, and it had happened again. The Genocide Convention demands action and intervention in the face of systematic killing and displacement, and so we are hesitant to label Darfur as such. The truth is, we do not care enough for the troubles of a distant land that an average American would be hard-pressed to find on a map. Instead we make promises: “never again” “not on our watch” and leave the dirty, worthy work to relief organizations who must be sworn to silence in order to provide what aid they can. While Bashir’s indictment is indeed a “window of hope”, is it one that will let in the winds of change? Or will it be another illusion of light that clouds over with the grime of negligence and forgetting? The immediate repercussions of the ICC’s actions have now resulted in the expulsion of organizations whose relief makes the difference between life and death for tens of thousands. Christophe Fournier, the president of Medecins Sans Frontiers fears that this will have a “devastating and immediate effect on the population”. News of their expulsion reached MSF at the same time as a meningitis outbreak was declared at the refugee camp in Kalma.

Meanwhile, the ICC lacks an army or police force and depends on States (both party and non party to the foundational Rome Statute) to participate and apprehend the defendant. Under Security Council Resolution 1593, Sudan has the obligation to cooperate with the ICC; whether the former will enforce this remains to be seen. The UN’s most recent decision to determine whether or not Sudan’s expulsion of aid groups in itself constitutes a war crime offers some hope that the organization is committed to act, though perhaps in a limited and ultimately insufficient manner to ensure that the government reverses its criminal decision. It is a tremendous shame that the fear and abuse experienced by so many has not been enough to rally the necessary support from those of us who look on to end this genocide without questioning. Humanity’s honor and dignity can decay no further when news media are more concerned with celebrity gossip than with reporting the many tragedies that unfold daily without an audience. The ICC has taken a small step whose progress depends entirely on the political will of states and the UN. Even if Bashir is tried, I fear that little will change for the people of Darfur, and that conflict could spread throughout the vast country if regional and international organizations are not prepared to step in and provide the necessary support for peace negotiations and stabilization. With China so present and steadfastly opposed to interventions that could mitigate its ludicrous profits in Sudan and the U.S. preoccupied with its impending economic collapse, it is a fine line upon which we must walk with care and conscious of the very real repercussions any miscalculation could have on an already devastated people.

Comment: “The arc of the moral universe is very long but it bends toward justice”

Darfur is the Rwanda of our time, and yet, despite the insurmountable shame of the world bearing witness without taking the necessary action, it seems we have learned very little from it. The UN Security Council has been faced with an existential crisis between its core missions and the political will of its member states. It seems to me that with China being such a crucial player, and so shamefully siding with Khartoum in claims of sovereignty and non-interference, the Security Council will be hard pressed to issue a statement demanding and supporting the necessary action. The ICC’s decision is indeed a “game changer” as you and Fowler suggest. But, is it enough? Many are looking to Obama to also throw the American muscle behind the Court’s decision; previous administrations, however, have worked diligently to challenge the creation of the ICC and thwart its jurisdiction. Though Obama’s policy shows signs of turning in a different direction: away from American Exceptionalism and towards international justice and cooperation. Many critics do not want the ICC to hold sway over American troops, who would then be subject to prosecution should they violate the Geneva Convention and other Human Rights statutes. Even if Obama looks away from impending economic doom to voice support for the Court and its indictment of Bashir and the UN Security Council do the same and offer the corresponding support, what effect will this have on the ground when there is no will to enforce and no capacity to send the necessary manpower? The Sudanese government has already issued threats of killing and maiming any and all who support the court and undermine the government. As Fowler suggests, these threats must be countered with international assurances that “such actions will be met with swift and severe consequences”. While this is undoubtedly a worthy call, I wonder how realistic these expectations are. Who is going to intervene?

The ICC’s indictment has caused the government to protest by expelling critical humanitarian aid agencies and organizations working in severely troubled regions. The IRC reports that in the Kalma Camp of southern Darfur alone, “this will leave 91,000 people without essential medical services” while “100,000 will be without clean drinking water”. So while it is imperative that justice be dealt to the chief orchestrator of mass rape, murder and displacement, what effect will this have on the very people Bashir has persecuted? Khartoum’s genocidal policies cannot be the work of this one man alone, so if he is removed, does the abuse end? If the ICC fails to apprehend him and the matter goes no further, where does that leave the people of Darfur? This crisis will not be resolved by Bashir’s apprehension, though it is no doubt a positive step, but rather, requires massive and radical support from the UN and regional organizations; which essentially amounts to a multilateral invasion that unseats those currently in office and oversees the stabilization of effective institutions and practices. This is unsavory to everyone who would need to be involved. With Bashir indicted, fears that the peace process will stall and the fragile truce between north and south will collapse once more into civil war – all of which are consequences the structures of agency and enforcement capacity in the international community is simply not prepared to deal with. So, is it worth it?

The Post Drug War Mentality: Why Peace Begs Legalization

An incessant violence, increasingly brutal and widespread has taken hold over a beautiful and once safe country. For decades it was the beacon of stability in a tumultuous region gripped by dictatorship. But now Mexico faces collapse, threatened by drug cartels who wield more power than the fledgling government. In a recent report published by the Joint Operating Forces Command, army and intelligence officials fear that Mexico could implode into a failed state. It seems that only the potentially nuclear threat of an unstable Pakistan rivaled concerns over currently escalating cycles of violence and the government’s failure to bring stability. While many Latin American journalists have been quick to denounce these projections, pointing to Mexico's history of robust institutions and rule of law, it would be naive to pretend like the country faces anything but an existential crisis. In 2008 alone, over five thousand lives were lost to drug related violence, a number that qualifies the situation as low intensity civil war. In response to this, President Calderon has sent tens of thousands of troops to border towns such as Juarez in the hope of fighting fire with fire. This however, is not the answer; the problem is much more fundamental. For every drug lord killed there are ten ready and willing to take his (or her) place and be twice as vicious as the one who fell. The power of the cartels stems from the illicit nature of the material they traffic. To blunt the violence, the government will have to begin to seriously consider legalizing the substances that have brought so much bloodshed upon its people. Though Calderon has made a timid proposal to decriminalize possession of small amounts of cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine, he will soon be forced to take on more drastic and unpopular options.

Recent security concerns are the visible sores and symptoms of a trade that will never be irradicated or even diminished. Daily decapitations and kidnappings may hold Mexican headlines hostage today, but ten years ago they found their home in Colombia. The drug production, trafficking and related violence that had paralyzed Medellin and Bogota in the 1980s was met with brutal, and eventually successful retaliations. Stifled, it traveled north and flourished in the ample spaces provided by corruption and endemic poverty. Helped by the United States' Plan Colombia, transit points in Mexico became the hubs of production and trafficking. With “drug syndicates controlling about 8% of global GDP”, these cartels have massive amounts of capital, and have armed themselves with state of the art weaponry including submarines and rocket missiles. Rule of law has been replaced by the rule of the gun. Meanwhile, the security forces that should be protecting citizens are often indistinguishable from the drug cartels they should be fighting whether through greed or intimidation. Officers are often given the choice of “Plata o Plomo” (Silver or a Bullet) and are easily bought into complicity. Entire municipal elections are now rigged through bribery and coercion. Only last week, the police chief of Juarez was forced to resign after the local cartel threatened that one police officer would be killed every forty-eight hours until his resignation. These same organizations are suspected to be behind massive protests in the border region calling on the government to remove military forces, proving that they can pressure not only politicians but entire populations. During Independence Day celebrations in Morelia, several bombs exploded and wounded unsuspecting crowds , raising fears that a fatal nexus between organized crime and terrorism is emerging here, too. The 2004 Madrid train bombings that were linked to Al Qaeda were carried out by a Moroccan drug trafficking network. We all have much to fear from such marriages of convenience – where acts of ideological and religious terror now have boundless funding.

Targeting the demand curve of this perverse equation is wasting energy. The reality is that people use drugs - always have, always will. Freud would suggest that society necessitates intoxication. In civilization, essentially, we are unhappy, and therefore inevitably turn to drugs for fleeting comfort. This he argues is an inescapably human quality, not something that can be constrained by law and order. These substances provide individuals an outlet of relief to counter the constant oppression of civilization, which we have paradoxically constructed to deter our life-quest for fulfillment and happiness. Prohibition in the United States saw, not only no decrease in the amount of alcohol people consumed but dramatic increases in violence and organized crime. Dissatisfaction is ubiquitous, and modern liberal constructs have attempted to channel it; but prostitution, pornography and drugs have never gone away. Despite the laws we codify to cement the rigid structures of our legal rational society, there are instinctual drives that people will simply never evolve past. Controlled substances, like religion, allow us to suffer the daily wretchedness and therefore play an important social function.

I am not proposing that a society of drug addicts is desirable, merely acknowledging that drug use is as rampant as it is intractable, and must therefore lose its stigma and become accepted and, more crucially, regulated by governmental agencies. Making something illegal only increases the economic profit that can be made off its illicit trade. De-incentivize, and business will be taken out of the hands of violent gangs and into pharmacies. The movement to legalize is no longer one clung to by stoners and hippies, but must be taken somberly by the voices of peace and development, understanding that the puritanical refusal to take this on will come at the bloody cost of too many lives. Theory only supports the cold hard facts, which are: drug consumption levels do not increase in societies that legalize and control substances; the control of these substances not only provides the government with massive amounts of revenue, crucial in the midst of rising unemployment and financial collapse, but ensure that the substances provided are clean and relatively safe for consumption. Like with alcohol, careful regulation would be necessary, as it is for legal prescription medications (that can be as detrimental and addictive as illicit ones). Driving under the Influence, for example, would remain a punishable offense. From Holland to India, the world is slowly realizing that criminalizing drugs has an equal opposite effect. Illicit drugs have been the bane of Latin America’s existence; fueling corruption and retarding development, and it is time to re-conceptualize and re-prioritize our values.

The drug trade is here to stay. If production is stifled in one area it will simply flow to another. Making it illegal benefits the cartels in Mexico and Colombia, but also the Taleban in Afghanistan and Hizbollah in Lebanon. By clinging to obsolete moralities we with one hand feed the monster we are trying to defeat. The reactionary argument (spearheaded by the Catholic Church) that discounts legalization on moral grounds must reconcile itself with reality. People who get high will keep getting high. Is it not then time to relinquish the stale argument that pretends to make of society something it is not? The many decapitated heads rolled into clubs have long divorced this position from relevancy. It is now a matter of life or death. The Mexican government has no power in its current war against the cartels. The only choice it has to make is whether or not it will make the difficult decisions necessary to keep the state standing. It either legalizes the source and controls it, preserving itself, or collapses at the mercy of this boundless profit-driven violence. Institutionalized corruption must be tackled, as Calderon has attempted to do as part of his plan to democratize and make the system more transparent. In the face of such violence, however, this is simply impossible, and will not make for peaceful streets (see image above). Morality is a force for good when it propels us forward, but can become a dangerous veil that keeps us from seeing the truths that lay on the other side of it. Reality is ugly and, if indeed we are willing to examine the underbelly of this beast and confront it in the hopes of saving lives and restoring peace and security, then unsavory choices must be made.

Days after this post was first published, The Economist wrote the following article: How To Stop The Drug War