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Globalization Strategies at Universities in Scandinavia

July 18, 2008
By null

Akiko Matsunobu takes the opportunity of a recent trip to the University of Oslo and Uppsala University to discuss developments in higher education and the role of the Tokyo Foundation in a globalizing world.

One of the programs administered by the Scholarship Division of the Tokyo Foundation is the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund, commonly known as Sylff. Established in 1987, this fellowship program aims at fostering future leaders capable of tackling various challenges with global viewpoints that transcend cultural, national, and other "boundaries" at a time when the world is experiencing ever-faster globalization. Sylff is currently offered at 68 universities in 44 countries. Its overall scheme is unique: the Nippon Foundation contributes US$1 million to each recipient university, and each university manages the fund according to its needs and priorities, disbursing the proceeds of the contribution to graduate students in the form of fellowships.

While every region in the world has its own cultural and social background, the concept of "leader" also differs from place to place. That is the very idea behind the Sylff Program: We believe that local universities are most capable of fostering leaders that can address the situations in the countries in which they are based. Thus we entrust the management of the funds and selection of fellowship students to the discretion of each university. More than 10,000 students have been selected as Sylff fellows (recipients of fellowships) since the first fund was set up at Tufts University in the United States 21 years ago. A significant number of the fellows are now playing key roles in their respective societies and fields of expertise.

I recently had the opportunity to visit Uppsala University in Sweden and the University of Oslo in Norway, two Scandinavian universities receiving Sylff. I would like to share with our readers my observations in the context of the situation of higher education in that region.

The Oldest University in Scandinavia

Botanist Carl von Linné named humankind Homo sapiens and is known as the father of taxonomy. Physician Carl Peter Thunberg visited Japan in the eighteenth century when it was a closed country, collected local plants, and built the foundation for the study of the flora of Japan. Dag Hammarskjöld, the second secretary-general of the United Nations, devoted himself to the cause of world peace, tirelessly working around the globe until his untimely death in a plane crash in Africa during a mission.

All of these people are deeply linked to Sweden's Uppsala University. Linné and Thunberg served as its vice-chancellor, while Hammarskjöld, who received the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously, obtained a bachelor of law and a master's degree in political economy from the university. Established in 1477 in the city of Uppsala, located about 70 kilometers north of Stockholm, it is the oldest university in Scandinavia. Including Hammarskjöld, to date the university has produced eight Nobel Prize laureates and has many eminent graduates in the fields of natural science, humanities, and social science, which speak to its high academic standards.

The Sylff endowment for Uppsala University is the second oldest (set up in 1988) out of the 68 institutions that have received the fund. A commemorative ceremony was held on April 11, 2008 to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Sylff's establishment at the university. This event was attended by the vice-chancellor, department deans, members of the Sylff Steering Committee and Sylff fellows, as well as a large number of teaching faculty and students from the university. All gathered in the convivial atmosphere at the Museum Gustavianum, one of the university's main historical buildings.

Over the past 20 years Sylff fellowships have been provided to 56 people studying international issues at the university, including doctoral students and young post-doctoral researchers. Of these, 10 have become professors and another 10 associate professors. It allows young scholars to devote themselves to research as an alternative to undergoing a period of economic uncertainty at a time when they need to build up their academic achievements.

Norway's Oldest and Largest University

In 1989 the University of Oslo became the twelfth institution to receive Sylff funding. Located in central Oslo, the university was founded in 1811 by King Frederick VI, the Danish monarch who ruled Norway at that time. As the oldest and largest university in Norway, it has played a great role in fostering national identity and establishing modern statehood, in keeping with its mission of fostering leaders. To date it has produced four Nobel Prize laureates in the fields of economics, chemistry, and peace.

As Norway's leading institute of higher learning, the University of Oslo was designated a domestic Center of Excellence (COE)* in nine fields and as a Nordic COE in two fields, including medicine, natural sciences, as well as humanities and social sciences. As such, the university boasts many excellent researchers and high research standards. The University of Oslo also makes substantial contributions to culture with its three cultural museums. The university's library assets, moreover, include one of the greatest collections of Tibetan mandalas in the world, with vigorous exchange programs underway with Tibet University. To date, 146 graduate students have been provided with Sylff fellowships at the University of Oslo.

* A COE refers to a core institute where top researchers carry out world-class studies in a cutting-edge research environment. Specifically, a COE is required to assign leading researchers to the fields or themes concerned, employ cutting-edge technology to conduct the research and deliver groundbreaking research results. In Japan, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) initiated the Twenty-first Century COE Program in 2002 as a policy aimed at establishing a COE program.

University Initiatives for Globalization

Uppsala University has concluded more than 3,000 joint research agreements with over 1,000 universities throughout the world and has worked out arrangements regarding exchange students with more than 500 universities worldwide. By carrying out proactive joint research, the university intends to further strengthen its five main fields, namely: research on peace, security, and democracy; genomes; drug development; brain, cognitive, and behavioral studies; and energy supply and renewable energy.

In 2006 and 2007 the institution conducted a large-scale review of its university-wide research activities to identify those fields that have the potential to become more competitive in the future and incorporate them into future strategies and draft plans. This project was called Quality and Renewal 2007. Under this project, panels of experts—consisting of prominent scholars at home and abroad—carried out evaluations in their respective fields. The results of the evaluation were compiled in voluminous English reports, identifying the names of all of the researchers involved, and were disclosed to the public. These efforts reflect Uppsala University's enthusiasm for raising its level of research.

Internationalization is acting as a major impetus for the University of Oslo as well. Courses taught in English number 800, student mobility has doubled since 2001, and foreign students constitute 11% of the student body. Furthermore, partners in joint research have become more international, with research themes being set up from a more international and interdisciplinary perspective. The University of Oslo is also expanding overseas, opening research centers in Russia, France, Italy, Greece, Germany, and the U.K. in Europe; as well as three in Asia: in Beijing and Shanghai in China, and Delhi in India.

China and East Asia as Academic Markets

The University of Oslo is currently directing its energies inter alia toward China. The second highest number of foreign PhD students comes from China, after Germany. In terms of research interest and academic exchange, China's presence is rising remarkably. Immediately prior to our visit to the university, the University of Oslo sent a large delegation to China in order to further develop existing partnerships with Peking University, Fudan University,, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and others. There are reasons for this orientation toward China. One of them, according to Rector Geir Ellingsrud, reflects the university's desire to secure a firm footing at an early stage of China's emergence as a fully-fledged research power. Another is the wish to offer faculty members and students at the university greater opportunities for research with and on China. Rector Ellingsrud further mentioned his university is convinced that China will become a major partner in the international community. To create ties of shared values, he said joint studies and projects as well as researcher exchange can be beneficial. Through all these talks, I sensed a strong passion for China.

The University of Oslo also has strong ties with eight leading Japanese universities (e.g. Tokyo, Waseda, Keio, Hokkaido, Tokai Universities, and others), and an increasing volume of research with and on Japan in disciplines ranging from dentistry, biology , nanotechnology and astrophysics to Japanese language and culture, theology, democracy, criminology, education and more. There is also both student and researcher exchange between the University of Oslo and its Japanese partners, and a substantial volume of co-authorship. There is thus a good basis for further developing joint research activity through a research scheme under the Tokyo Foundation umbrella.

Uppsala University, for its part, has appointed an associate professor who has been residing in Tokyo since April 2008 as an academic exchange delegate. This is a research professional working as a direct contact for Japan-Sweden academic exchange. Through this initiative, the university's enthusiasm for creating a substantial joint research scheme was strongly felt.

The Role of the Tokyo Foundation

Both universities seemed to have a keen desire to ride the wave of globalization and further expand and raise the quality of the education and research they conduct as institutes of higher learning. This can be attributed to the concept of the Bologna Declaration on the European Space for Higher Education, which was signed by 29 European countries in 1999. This is an attempt to raise the quality of education and improve the appeal of European universities by increasing compatibility and fluidity among institutes of higher learning in Europe and through competition among regional universities. The fierce competition unfolding globally has not bypassed the world of higher education, the future of which will depend to a good extent on how each institution can develop its characteristics and appeal.

The Tokyo Foundation conducted a questionnaire survey on globalization at the Sylff Program Administrators Meeting (at the University of Copenhagen) in January 2007. The responses from the 61 universities (from 42 countries) that participated in the meeting were of great interest in that they vividly portrayed their thinking and attitudes toward globalization. All of the universities responded that they are being affected by globalization. Many of their responses referred to positive effects, including the increased mobility of students and teachers and the greater diversity this engenders, higher academic standards, and the possibility of transnational alliances. On the other hand, increasingly fierce transnational competition and brain drain were among the negative impacts mentioned.

It does not seem easy to bring joint research with overseas partners to fruition. Common ways to attract research partners include: taking note of researchers whose works draw attention in academic journals and contacting them at international academic conferences and relying on them as liaisons in their countries to expand mutual partnership. This process often moves slowly due to difficulties in financing research and continuing joint research off-line. Cases are on the rise among young researchers in which experiments are conducted many times with colleagues whom they have actually never met, using IP telephones and the like. The process is a continuous trial and error among experts within their own fields.

These trends can be linked to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's publication in 2005 of the Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-border Higher Education. This can be seen as a step in the long-due standardization of the rapidly globalizing field of education.

The Tokyo Foundation has two pillar activities: policy research and scholarship programs. As such, we are seeking to be a bridge between overseas institutes of higher learning and research and Japanese counterparts in the field of the social sciences. Global issues are now closely interlinked with domestic policy. In this light, it is conceivable that the research reports and proposals that the Tokyo Foundation conducts for domestic policy may provide significant hints for overseas policies, with the reverse of this often being true as well.

If global competition among various policy research institutes contributes to making the world a better place, we are eager to help. Thus we are trying to assist overseas institutions that are seeking partnership with Japanese counterparts. It is in this spirit that we will continue our support for high-quality research and scholarship activities.

 

Message from the Tokyo Foundation:Why don't you write an article too?

“Voices from the Sylff Community” is a space showcasing the activities and opinions of Sylff fellows and faculty members. We have received contributions from fellows and faculty members all over the world.　We are looking forward to sharing YOUR voices with people around the world, including global issues with local perspective, grassroots issues requiring global attention, and your first-hand experience.
For further details, please click here

 

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Human Rights in the Middle East — A Voice from Palestine

July 15, 2008
By 19592

What I will do today will be to serve as a voice for a people whose heritage I share, with the hope that in articulating the suffering of that one group of people I will be shedding light on all types of suffering being experienced by human beings all around the world. I know very well that when I am addressing SYLFF fellows, I am actually addressing souls who are ardently debating issues in societies where the hum of human voices is, in fact, heard. I and others of my generation have the obligation to be the voice of our people because these people have lacked a voice, especially in the United States, and I believe that the current generation of young people around the globe who are like-minded need to be a collective voice for the oppressed wherever oppression occurs. Being a voice is important, but it is not enough. After giving rise to ideas and then articulating them in words, a person or group must recognize the need for action.

When formulating human-rights laws, four points should be kept in mind: (1) UN Charter Article 55 (the UN Bill of Rights, including universal respect for human rights), and making clear the relationship between peace and human rights; (2) These rights are universal; (3) World conferences on human rights issues help to raise awareness of these issues and how important they are; and (4) It is necessary to proliferate these rights by making them more precise and utilizing realistic implementation mechanisms.

I believe that my people have not had their human rights respected since being subject to Israeli occupation 40 years ago. Close your eyes and imagine with me. Imagine yourself tied to a pole with your hands cuffed behind your back and tied to that pole. Your feet also are tied to it. Your eyes are blindfolded and your mouth is taped shut. How would you feel? How would you feel being completely under the control of someone else, having no control of yourself or anything around you? How would you feel being so completely helpless? This is exactly what occupation has done to my people, who are not merely being controlled by the environment around them, but rather being subject to an invasion and control of their souls. This coercive control of the physical and spiritual elements of Palestinians individually and collectively has resulted in widespread violations of their human rights and also has failed to bring security to either the Israeli or Palestinian civilian populations.

That control has manifested itself in various forms, including:

    • Israel’s land grabbing and water grabbing by building the apartheid wall, confiscating arable land, and building and expanding settlements. The wall has created cultural and social divides between the Palestinian people such that a family cannot even get together for a social event.
    • The Israeli checkpoint system is another physical manifestation of the control. Around the West Bank there are about 500 checkpoints, manned by Israeli soldiers. Palestinian people are treated very badly at these checkpoints.
    • There are around 11,000 Palestinian soldiers being held in Israeli jails and detention centers. Some prisoners have been held in “administrative detention” (without being charged with crimes, and without legal recourse) for years. Some 200 female Palestinian prisoners are held inside Israeli jails, some of whom have had to give birth to their children while in captivity, with their children kept imprisoned with them until they are two years old.
    • Israeli settlements are an outrageous grab of Palestinian land and resources. There are 410,305 Israeli settlers living on occupied Palestinian land.
    • About 4,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers since the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000.
    • The Israeli practices and the current international boycott placed on the Palestinian people in the wake of the latest Palestinian elections for the legislative council have led to dire humanitarian conditions all over the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In order to deal with such grave violations of human rights, I believe that there is first a need for courage and vision. The mechanisms implemented by the international organizations—such as monitoring, state reporting, and treaty committees—are essential because they document such violations and raise the international community’s awareness of the violations. It is extremely important to hold countries to their commitments as enshrined in international and bilateral agreements, and such agreements should include clauses that respect and safeguard human rights. I wish to conclude by quoting the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who rightly said, “United … there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided … there is little we can do … for we dare not meet a powerful challenge, at odds, and split asunder.” Together we, SYLFF fellows and young leaders, can achieve a great deal in facing perpetrators of human-rights violations.

Thank you.

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The SYLFF Asia/Pacific Regional Forum: Reliving the Event

July 15, 2008
By 21158

Sherilyn Siy (standing), a member of the SYLFF Fellows Council, leading a workshop.

Sherilyn Siy (standing), a member of the SYLFF Fellows Council, leading a workshop.

The summer of 2006 was passing as a usual Kolkata summer for us at Jadavpur University (JU). The heat and the dust were taking their toll on everybody, and occasional rainstorms brought only temporary relief. Each of us in the JU-SYLFF family was following his or her usual routine —research, teaching, association activities, reviews, and so on. Little did we know that very soon we would receive a big surprise and then be facing an even bigger challenge. Very soon we would be migrating from the local arena to the global domain, from the mundane to the unusual.

On one of those hot and dusty days, the JU-SYLFF project director, Prof. Joyashree Roy, called an emergency meeting of JU’s SYLFF fellows. Each one of us thought that the meeting would be another routine one at which we would have to inform her about the progress of the association’s activities. We had no reason to be apprehensive; we had meticulously charted our progress. But the meeting turned out to reveal a complete surprise for all of us.

At the meeting, Prof. Roy informed us that the Scholarship Division, in a letter to the vice chancellor of the university, had requested JU to host the SYLFF Asia/ Pacific Regional Forum in November 2007. Prof. Roy asked us what our reaction was to this proposal. We were spellbound. We knew that the scale of the program was very large, and we were not sure if we were prepared for it. At the same time, we were proud that our university had been asked to host this mega-event. It was a big honor—but an even bigger responsibility. Unanimously, we voiced our consent— knowing well that we were facing a big challenge. But each of us was determined to make the best effort to turn the event into a grand success.

Life was never the same thereafter. Days were spent making decisions about activities, responsibilities, deadlines, and teams. All of us knew that the planning had to be meticulous and that we must learn to work together. Since that summer of 2006, every member of the JU-SYLFF family made the maximum effort possible for the cause of the forum. The fellows not only worked overtime, but did so with determination and zeal that knew no bounds. The JU-SYLFF project director and the SYLFF steering committee members constantly worked as a guiding force —setting targets, regularly monitoring progress, and making critical decisions on a daily basis. We received unstinted support from numerous people at the university. There was a palpable enthusiasm within the university’s academic community regarding the theme of the forum: Human Rights and Creative Leadership. India, whose economy is one of the fastest-growing in the world, is faced with the critical task of guaranteeing human rights for its huge population. The social sciences faculty and their students wanted to learn from the experiences of other nations—a prospect that the forum assured. Also, the prospect for deliberating on the many facets of creative leadership in the context of human rights in various economies, in different phases of development, was extremely exciting to many in the JU academic community.

The support that we received from the Scholarship Division was tremendous. The tool kit that the division provided for organizing the forum made our work simpler than it otherwise would have been. The kit charted out the major activities and important timelines. Quick decisions, constructive suggestions, and timely reminders flowed constantly from the Scholarship Division, which always responded within 24 hours to our questions and concerns—whether it was a weekday or a weekend. And each response was filled with encouragement and enthusiastic support for our endeavors.

A lot of work had to be done— arranging the venue and accommodations for the guests, preparing the program schedule, arranging city tours and visits to sites for social action, and so on. The university extended its help to us, thereby facilitating our completion of these tasks. Soon after the local associations and the SYLFF institutions finalized the list of participants, we started working on the participants’ travel schedules. This involved coordinating with almost 60 people from different countries. Each participant was extremely cooperative, accommodating some odd requests from us and greatly easing our work. We constantly felt that we were working as part of one big family within which distance, geographical boundaries, or differences in languages did not matter; what mattered was the success of a common cause.

The forum was held November 20th–22nd, 2007, at JU. I was fortunate to participate in the forum. I wish to take this opportunity to thank all the members of the JU-SYLFF association who selected me as an official participant from JU. Participating in the forum was indeed a once-in-a-lifetime experience —meeting people from diverse cultures, interacting and exchanging ideas with members of a worldwide academic community, and most importantly, making friends with people from different countries.

The three days of the forum were characterized by intense discussions on the forum’s theme. The oral and poster presentations focused on the issue of human rights and how creative leadership can create and sustain an enabling environment for realizing human rights. The spirited keynote speech by Dr. Egla Martinez- Salazar (a SYLFF Prize winner) raised a critical question: Who benefits from the existing sociopolitical and legal structures and human rights activities? With this important question as a backdrop, the participants discussed the role of education, economic development, culture, politics, governance, and civil society as means for creating an environment that supports human rights. The discussions revealed that besides considering the fundamental human factors while embarking on any human rights related activity, it is also necessary to do a cost-benefit analysis of any strategy intended to ensure human rights. The discussions also brought forward the fact that creative leaders can exist in different spheres of an economy, society, and polity, and that each leader can contribute in her or his own ways (large or small) to strengthen the forces that are vital for realizing human rights. Case studies and reports of different countries’ experiences stressed the role of creative leaders as agents of change.

The discussions at the forum revealed that the concept of human rights has a trans-disciplinary dimension to it. This topic must be moved from the domain of lawyers to the realms of various disciplines, so that feasible and holistic solutions to human rights problems can be obtained. The forum was instrumental in reshaping the way that many of us think and act.

The forum also gave the participating fellows an opportunity to learn about networking. The coordinators, Ms. Jeanne Ing Lee and Ms. Sherilyn Siy, acting on behalf of the SYLFF Fellows Council, took great care to conduct memorable sessions where the participants learned how to build successful and effective networks. The fellows shared the best practices of their networks and the steps they have taken to promote team-building and collaboration. These best practices can become models for creating sustainable networks that are spirited and performing.

Starting in the summer of 2006, our journey to the SYLFF Asia/Pacific Regional Forum in the winter of 2007 was an extremely thrilling and rewarding experience. That journey taught us fundamental skills for organizing an international event. We have also benefited academically—through the rich discussions on economic, social, political, and cultural aspects of human rights.

As a result of that journey and the forum, the SYLFF fellows at JU hope to host another SYLFF regional forum sometime in the future.

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Report on an Indonesian Seminar on Community-based Disaster Management: “Developing Community Independence in Facing Natural Disasters”

July 15, 2008
By null

(The following is an excerpt from the SYLFF Newsletter No.17, Jan 2007)

Andri Rosadi and Jiah Fauziah

The great tsunami that hit Aceh, in Sumatra, Indonesia, and several other areas in the world on December 26th, 2004, and that killed hundreds of thousands of people, has been followed by many other natural disasters in Indonesia. Two months after the tsunami, Nias Island suffered from a big earthquake that also killed people and destroyed houses. Then on May 27, 2006, Yogyakarta, one of the most important cities in Java, was also shaken by a great earthquake from the south while people were anticipating the eruption of a volcano located north of the city. About two months later, a tsunami hit Pangandaran and some other southern areas of Java. Actually, during the above-mentioned time many more earthquakes occurred in other parts of Indonesia, but fortunately they did not cause much damage for people. Nonetheless, all these disasters made many Indonesian people aware that they live on moving lands that might experience many more such serious calamities.

The earthquake disaster that occurred in May 2006 in Yogyakarta, the city where our SYLFF institution, Gadjah Mada University is located, was the main inspiration for the seminar. That earthquake caused more than six thousand deaths and reduced thousands of houses to ruins. When responding to such a tragedy, one important thing to consider is how to develop the independence of the community for facing any future disaster it might experience. This was highlighted in the case of the aforementioned disaster because the victims had to rely on the local government of Yogyakarta, who were themselves too dependent on central government when it came to aiding victims. Moreover, although it is true that the victims needed assistance from all parts of society, when assistance from others is believed to be the only solution, the result is a mental dependence on the part of the victims, along with other consequences that negatively affect the post-disaster reconstruction process. It appears that such was the case in Yogyakarta. Several months after the great calamity, people still seem to be suffering and longing for help.

Based on this reality, the SYLFF Fellows Association of Gadjah Mada University held the aforementioned seminar regarding the problem. It is expected that the seminar results will be used as input for various relevant segments of society. The association invited two speakers to the seminar: Dr. P. M. Laksono, an anthropologist and lecturer in the Faculty of Cultural Sciences at Gadjah Mada University, and Ms. Estuning Tyas, a current SYLFF fellow and graduate student at Gadjah Mada University, specializing in disaster management.

In his talk, Dr. Laksono commented on the slow reaction of both local and central government in responding to the disaster. The local government relied on the central one, whereas in this case, disaster response was mainly the responsibility of the local government, because the impact of the May 2006 disaster was regional, in contrast to the case of the tsunami that hit Aceh, causing a disaster that was national in scope. In this situation, according to Laksono, the factor that ended up playing the most important role was the media. Thanks to their nationwide and worldwide networks, they succeeded in raising public awareness and support on a widespread level, resulting in the huge amount of help received. Nevertheless, Laksono also criticized the media for their tendency to present the news in a way that created bias and adversely influenced how people regarded the disaster.

Besides the media, there are several other elements of the community that play important roles in responding to disasters. These elements are informal and outside the governmental structure, usually offering help spontaneously and based solely on humanitarianism. Their weakness lies in lack of organizational management, which often results in many obstacles to their being able to help effectively. One of the obstacles is corruption or deviousness on the part of some parties that use the disaster situation for their own benefit.

Nonetheless, the effectiveness of certain groups in the community has proved to significantly contribute to assisting the disaster victims and lessening their suffering. Based on this fact, what needs to be done in the future is to further develop such community-based disaster response measures and to learn from past problems.

In regard to community-based disaster response measures, one thing that must be emphasized in advance is the empowerment of the overall society in the handling of a disaster. This must be based on the ability and potential of the society. The main obstacle in this regard is that a society usually breaks apart when a disaster occurs, making it impossible for the full ability and potential of the society to be utilized to solve problems. Another obstacle is that the people tend to forget the disaster very quickly, so that they do not anticipate future disasters. If disasters are experienced so frequently, a society should realize that it needs to formulate a model for handling disasters in ways that rely mostly on the society’s own capabilities and potential. However, this is still yet to happen.

The other speaker, Estuning Tyas, emphasized the need to socialize disaster knowledge in the community. It is a fact that people in Indonesian villages, who generally have a low level of education, do not have enough knowledge about disasters. This limits both their view of disasters and their ability to handle their own problems in a disaster situation.

To increase the ability of a community to handle a disaster, Estuning discussed several steps that Eko Teguh Paripurno, a disaster-relief/crisis-management expert, has suggested: (1) Identify potential disaster areas; (2) Map these disaster areas; (3) Identify specific danger-areas and the possible risks associated with them; (4) Identify the socio-cultural characteristics of the communities in the danger-areas; (5) Formulate procedures and identify steps to be taken in dealing with the disasters; (6) Develop the social systems to help people to learn how to anticipate and handle disasters, based on the potential and strengths of their community; and (7) Develop natural-disaster prevention and response technologies. In order to make all these steps community based, they must include the involvement of the community: together by and for the members of the community, not only by experts and the government.

An additional important point to be considered here is that disaster education is still not included in schools’ curricula in Indonesia. Similarly, at the family level, children have not been taught to recognize, understand, and deal with disasters. Therefore, the first and most important step to implement all the following steps, is to educate people, especially villagers, to make them aware of the socio-geographical condition of their locales in regard to possible disasters. To be effective, this educational model must use many kinds of engaging media, such as films, to deliver the message.

In brief, both Estuning Tyas and Laksono emphasized the need for disaster education in order for a community to increase awareness of its own strengths and weaknesses so that it can handle its own problems if a disaster occurs. As a follow-up to the discussion, the SYLFF Fellows Association of Gadjah Mada University plans to organize some social action projects aimed at educating people in villages around Yogyakarta so that they can recognize their own potential for handling any disasters that might befall them. Fortunately, the SYLFF fellows of Gadjah Mada University have different academic backgrounds: economics, cultural studies, political science, geography, and conflict resolution. Such a combination of multi-disciplinary backgrounds holds great potential for engaging in a variety of actions reflecting different approaches.

The actions are planned to involve formal and informal measures. Formally, the association will provide disaster education in schools and for some small community groups. Informally, it will hold some community entertainment programs that will indirectly educate a larger number of people. It is hoped that these actions will greatly contribute to the communities’ ability to effectively deal with disasters.

 

Andri Rosadi

Andri Rosadi

Andri graduated with a major in Islamic civilization from the University of Al-Azhar, Cairo, in 2003, and received an MA in anthropology from Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, in 2006, in which he was supported by a SYLFF Fellowship. He has worked in several organizations, including Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslim Indonesia and Muhammadiyah Student, both based in Cairo, as a coordinator. He was a teacher in Medan, North Sumatra, in 1996, in Kediri, East Java, in 1997, and in Yogyakarta, in 2003–04. Since 2004, he has been involved in community development work in Ngaglik Village, Sleman, Yogyakarta.

 

Jiah Fauziah

Jiah Fauziah

Jiah graduated with a major in English from Gadjah Mada University in 1999, and earned a master’s degree in linguistics from the same university, for which she was awarded a SYLFF Fellowship. 

 

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SYLFF Goes to Mindanao

July 15, 2008
By 21162

An art workshop involving young adults and teens from various indigenous people’s (IP) groups from different provinces in Mindanao, the island group at the southern part of the Philippines, was held on January 26-27, 2008 in Cagayan de Oro City, Misamis Oriental, Philippines, in partnership with the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, Inc. Lumads, or indigenous people, are native to Mindanao and are neither Christians nor Muslims. 1　26 participants were taught basic principles and techniques in art by Errol Balcos of the Oro Art Guild CDO, which they were able to apply to their own artworks when they were later given the chance to work on them.

Aside from the art session, there were lots of other activities that allowed the participants to share their identity and aspirations to one another. There was a sharing session, wherein the participants were able to name the IP organization they belonged to, the difficulties and concerns of their tribe, and their personal dreams for themselves and their communities.

There was also a cultural/solidarity night, where each IP group performed their native dances and songs. Other groups also recited poetry. Many of these presentations reflected the participants’ hopes and dreams; some chronicled their tribe’s history whereas others described the oppression and injustice they have suffered from.

There were also icebreakers that allowed the participants to explore the open areas of the venue and at the same time cooperate with each other in a fun, physical activity.

In order to maximize exposure to the living conditions and experiences of fellow Filipinos in the southern part of the Philippines, the SYLFF fellows visited the community of farmers in Sumilao, Bukidnon who participated in a historic walk from Bukidnon to Manila to pressure the Philippine government to bestow upon them ownership of a disputed 144-hectare land in Bukidnon, appropriately called the “144.” 2 This exposure trip was implemented in cooperation with Balay Alternative Legal Advocates for Development in Mindanaw, Inc. (BALAOD Mindanaw). The fellows listened to the farmers’ stories about their experiences during the Sumilao Walk, their struggle for ownership of 144, their dreams and plans for when the land is bestowed upon them, and their steadfast determination to implement more actions consistent with their goal. The fellows also had a chance to visit a camp that the Sumilao farmers had erected outside the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Regional Office in Cagayan de Oro City, with the goal of imposing their presence and objectives upon the agency as a ubiquitous reminder that the latter has yet to fulfill their duty in relation to the said quandary. Here, the fellows witnessed and heard first-hand the difficulties that the farmers had to bear during this protest such as the foul smell emanating from the drainage on top of which they pitched their tent, the extreme heat at noon, the occasional rain, mosquitoes and other insects, the resulting diseases, separation from their families for at least one week, and the inability to till their lands.

    1. The participants of the art workshop are indigenous people known in the Philippines as Lumads. The term "Lumad" is a collective term for all the indigenous people in the Mindanao island group. Therefore there are many different indigenous groups referred to using the umbrella-term "Lumad" (e.g., Manobo, T'boli, etc.). Indigenous people are those who inhabit specific geographic regions in which they have the earliest historical and cultural connection with. One of the biggest issues they face concerns their ancestral lands, which they struggle to protect from logging and mining companies, and multinational corporations.
    1. The Lumad Higaonon tribe farmers of Sumilao, Bukidnon in Mindanao, walked all the way from Bukidnon to Manila (yes, all 1,700 kilometers on foot!) to petition the government to get their 144 hectares of land back. The large corporation ‘San Miguel Foods, Inc.’ had claimed the land and wanted to convert it into a hog farm.

       

      It took the farmers 2 months to walk from Bukidnon to reach Manila. Last year, in December 2007, ownership of this land was granted to them.

 

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“Global and Local Encounters” Seminar Organized by SYLFF Association at Helsinki University

July 15, 2008
By null

On a very beautiful autumn day at the end of September 2008, the SYLFF Association at Helsinki University organised a one-day-seminar, “Global and Local Encounters.” It was co-organised with the Confucius Institute at the University.

 

Global and local processes are multilayered and interrelated. Particular cultures, traditions, languages, and histories are in a continuous dialogue. Post-colonial theories look beyond the local-global dichotomy, emphasizing change and continuity. In order to understand global and local encounters a multidisciplinary research is necessary. Thus, different interpretations of global processes at local levels and impacts of local on global flows are needed. Many political, economical and cultural processes are parts of global transformations, but they are connected to local differences that bring new elements to global interconnected processes. This conference sought to gather scholars from different academic disciplines to engage in discussions on the constructions of local and global identities, as well as gender and minority issues linked with shared global spaces. In addition to neo-liberal globalization, the aim was to address the impacts of global political and cultural transformations at local levels. Since both “local” and “global” have been mystified and objectified, papers on the topic of how local and global processes take places in various ways in different places were also encouraged. Understanding contemporary interrelated global and local issues requires an analysis of geographical, cultural, and historical differences linked with spatial distribution of power relations.

 

Professor Kauko Laitinen, the Director of Confucius Institute and the coordinator of SYLFF programmes at the University, opened the seminar.

Dr. Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen, the chairperson of the SYLFF Association at Helsinki University, thanked the Tokyo Foundation and the Confucius Institute for their kind support to make this seminar come true. She also warmly welcomed the audience.

 

All six presenters were SYLFF fellows. The paper presentations were made on the following topics:

 

    • Negotiating Human Rights-Based Approach and Charity-Based Approach: Development Cooperation and Experiences of Deaf Women in Uganda (by Hisayo Katsui)

 

    • Secularization in Contemporary Tibet - Critical Remarks (by Mitra Härkönen)
    • Tibetan Refugee Settlement Thobgyal Sarpa: the Only Tibetan Bonpo Community in India (by Thupten K. Lunch)

 

    • Global Encounters in Indigenous Education (by Tuija Veintie)

 

    • Global Youth Cultures and Amazonian Native Adolescence (by Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen)

 

    • “Partnership” between Northern NGOs and Vietnamese Counterpart Organisations (by Minna Hakkarainen and Hisayo Katsui)

 

 

Each paper received great attention and constructive comments for further improvement of the research. Throughout the day, we had a lively discussion on the set theme of global and local encounters, especially on the topics of whose terms the norms are set, who were represented in the negotiation of encounters, and identity of those who are exposed to both local and global phenomenon, among others. Even though fellows were from different disciplinary backgrounds, we found many interesting aspects in common.

 

At the very end of the seminar, the presenters discussed the seminar proceedings. Our association will be publishing a book with the presented papers under the great leadership of Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen, the chairperson of the association. Pirjo and Tuija Veintie volunteered for the role of editors for the book. The book will be published in the Renvall Publication Series of the University early next year.

 

SYLFF related publications were displayed on one table at the seminar to widely share our activities.

 

Now, I am still excited that we had such a fruitful seminar. We would like to thank the Tokyo Foundation and the Confucius Institute for their moral and financial support in making this activity come true.

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Daily Life in Tanzania Improved by JIP Promotion

July 14, 2008
By null

Millions of low-income families in developing countries do not have adequate access to energy, such as electricity, and they must rely on biomass fuels (like wood) to meet their household energy needs.

An estimated 90% of rural people in developing countries rely on biomass fuels as the primary or exclusive source of household energy. Moreover, access to these resources is more difficult in the cities because urban residents, unlike their rural counterparts, cannot hand-collect fuel, and they are too poor to purchase it.

 

A Community Energy Center in Tanzania

Recent studies completed by the Tanzanian NGO Women Development for Science and Technology (WODSTA; see http://www.wodsta.org) and University College of London have shown that poor households in Northern Tanzania spend on average between 20% and 30% of their household budget on biomass fuels (any fuel that comes from biodegradable matter, such as firewood, charcoal, agricultural products, or kerosene) for cooking and lighting - a share significantly higher than comparable high-income households (DPU/CDTI, 2003/04). Although clean and efficient energy sources are available to save money and time while meeting daily energy needs (such as biogas or solar appliances), poor households in the district lack the income needed to access them.

Four Sylff fellows (one each from Kenya and Italy, and two from the United States) joined people from WODSTA in analyzing this problem and developing possible solutions. With funding from the Tokyo Foundation's Joint Initiative Program (JIP), we implemented a community energy initiatives project to address the problem of inadequate access to energy faced by one poor urban population in some wards in Sombetini-Sokoni One, just south of Arusha, in northern Tanzania, East Africa.

The project was designed by the JIP team and WODSTA in order to provide women with energy alternatives in order to help lower spending for household fuel, to improve family health, and to reduce environmental degradation. Primary to the success of the project was the installation of a Community Energy Resources Center (hereinafter "Center") in Sombetini-Sokoni One. The Center is located near a cluster of dukas (shops) on the main dirt road, a place where most villagers pass daily.

The Community Energy Resource Center in Sombetini-Sokoni One.

WODSTA conducted day-to-day project activities at the Center, while the Sylff fellows offered technical support, such as training, helping in assessments, conducting analyses, and conducting monitoring visits of the Center's progress.

Our project is noteworthy because many of the ideas came from the community members themselves. The Center provides a space that residents can visit and where they can watch demonstrations, attend workshops and training programs, and access literature on alternative sources of energy. Among the technologies being promoted are passive solar food dryers and cookers, plant-oil candles and lamps, fuel-less insulated cooking baskets, energy-efficient stoves, and biogas.

Our team focused on mobilizing women and girls, primarily because in a family the females are generally responsible for many of the household activities, such as housekeeping and cooking, that use energy. The project activities centered on educating, involving, empowering, and building capabilities among females, including local leaders, students, and residents. We wanted to increase the confidence of these poor, often underprivileged women, while providing them access to and knowledge about a wide range of energy alternatives.

 

Local Volunteers: The Heart of the Center

During the project's first quarter (April-June 2007), WODSTA conducted a baseline survey, a local volunteer energy committee was elected, and the Community Energy Resource Center was officially opened. The second and third quarters (July-December 2007) saw extensive training coupled with hands-on practice in technology construction by the energy committee (which also serves as the Center's managing board). Each female committee member gained experience and confidence and now serves as an in-house expert regarding one type of energy-saving appliance or alternative fuel.

Community members at a hands-on stove-construction workshop.

The project emphasized outreach to the larger community and building a larger knowledge base concerning the use and availability of appropriate technologies. The outreach included conducting two market studies and extensive student interaction in the community. During the third quarter (October-December 2007), we focused on training the local people in business skills and on ensuring that the Center's sale of appliances and fuels generated a profit, thus enabling the Center to sustain itself beyond the project-funding period.

In the fourth quarter (January-March 2008), we focused on other business-related skills needed by the energy committee to sustain the Center after the JIP project will have ended. The energy committee has gained significant experience, even authoring a constitution for the Center, registering the Center with Tanzania's Office of the Registrar General, and opening a bank account in which the Center's funds are kept.

BASELINE STUDY, MARCH 2007: We began the project by conducting a baseline survey, intending to measure energy usage, community awareness, and acceptance of energy-saving technologies.

The project's aim for the first six months was to increase awareness in Sombetini-Sokoni One of energy-saving technologies and energy-saving fuels. The project succeeded in raising awareness by executing nine public demonstrations, distributing almost 1,000 informational pamphlets and brochures, holding 12 workshops and seminars on the construction and use of energy-saving devices and on gender norms, and by establishing a public space where women and community members can visit to purchase or simply learn about energy-saving technologies.

We subsequently conducted follow-up surveys to determine how attitudes and outcomes had changed since the baseline survey conducted at the beginning of the JIP project. The answers to the questions that were aimed at measuring community awareness of energy alternatives show that during the project implementation period the percentage of community members who were aware of the Center's activities and energy-saving technologies increased substantially. The share of households having awareness of energy-saving technologies rose from 11% at the beginning of the project to 68% at the project's mid-point and 98% by the end of the project year.

MARKET STUDY, SEPTEMBER 2007: During the project's second quarter, we conducted a market study to determine local people's willingness to purchase different technologies at specified prices. The survey helped the Center's leaders determine which technologies and fuels to focus on based on profit margins and demand. The market study also covered existing shops that sold various types of fuels and stoves. With this information, the Center's leaders determined the best locations for advertising and technology-sales activities and sought commitments from owners of specific shops to promote the Center's products.

The study revealed that 41% of the households indicated they were ready to purchase a technology or fuel at the price presented, and 74% of the respondents indicated that they wished to learn more about how the technologies and fuels worked and that they would visit the Center to learn more, while 39% of the respondents saw the technologies as being too expensive compared to traditional fuels.

EFFICACY STUDY, JANUARY 2008: We also measured significant reductions in household budget expenditures and time used for cooking and fuel-collection after new technologies - namely improved stoves - were adopted by families.

The average saving per day when using an energy-saving stove was equal to US$0.25 (a significant amount in a country where the average person lives on US$2.00 per day). As Figure 1 shows, the percent reduction in household money spent on fuel by the families studied was between 21% and 47%, depending on the type of food cooked.

 

Results of the Project

This JIP-sponsored project successfully implemented the Community Energy Resources Center that is still providing energy alternatives to poor urban women and their families. At the end of the project year (April 2008), our JIP team met or exceeded 90% of the project's initial goals. This work has improved our understanding of the barriers that face poor urban families in accessing clean, efficient, and affordable sources of energy. However, we found that two of the project's aims - increasing the percentage of women involved in energy-related decision making, and creating a more-equitable balance in the division of domestic workloads - were difficult to measure quantitatively.

These two aims relate to a sensitive social issue that relates to the cultural and social lifestyle in Tanzania. Although the women we spoke with preferred a greater balance between the genders as regards decision making and domestic roles, these types of social changes might take much longer than one year to achieve. Lacking data, we found that one local mama (woman) did the best job of evaluating the project in relation to the nature of social change within Tanzania's cultural norms:

At the end, the project provided a concrete solution to the problem of energy accessibility in poor urban neighborhoods. It created a place where people can purchase and construct affordable, clean, and efficient technologies. It directly improves both the health of the women who are responsible for cooking and the local and regional environments. The localization of clean-technology production brings a huge benefit to northern Tanzania, because it reduces the cost of technology production and provides accessible energy alternatives to even the poorest households.

Average Amount of Fuel Used for Cooking

Graham, Stuart

Sylff Fellow
Stuart Graham is the Kauffman Foundation Fellow in Law and Social Science at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, and is an assistant professor of strategic management in the College of Management, Georgia Institute of Technology.

Mutiso, Stephen

Sylff Fellow
Stephen Mutiso is a program officer with the international donor agency Trocaire in Nairobi, Kenya.

Oursler, Anna

Sylff JIP project member
Anna Oursler is a student in the Department of Environmental and Urban Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, currently working with Women Development for Science and Technology (WODSTA) in Arusha, Tanzania, East Africa

 

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Can Aid Change Burma?

July 14, 2008
By 21164

Susan Banki received a Sylff fellowship between 1999 and 2002 while attending the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She has written numerous articles on Burma. This article, written in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, was originally featured in the May 2008 issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review (Vol. 171, No. 4) and has been posted here by courtesy of FEER.

Activists who promote political reform in Burma have, for years, debated the advisability of allowing international aid into the country. Many groups have argued that Burma's military junta selectively distributes all aid through government channels and hence only strengthens the authoritarian regime. But in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, which has killed as many as 140,000 and displaced as many as 2.5 million, there is a general consensus among even the most strident supporters of aid sanctions that Burma urgently needs international assistance.

It's a bitter irony, then, that when the country needs it the most, Burma's generals have been slow to allow humanitarian aid to enter. While intense pressure from the international community has improved the flow of aid somewhat, only a fraction of international assistance has yet entered the country, and Burma continues to block visas for humanitarian workers.

There is no question that Burma needs more aid. That is the first priority. But some ways of giving aid will be more effective than others, and some even have the potential to induce political transformation in Burma, as the 2004 tsunami served as a catalyst for reconciliation in the Indonesian province of Aceh.

While Aceh and Burma are dissimilar in many ways (foremost among them that the secessionist movement in Aceh was in the process of discussing a peace agreement when the tsunami hit, while the recent referendum in Burma excluded much of the opposition), if the international community can draw on some of the lessons learned in Aceh, it will increase the likelihood of political reform in Burma. Thus, here are some strategies for maximizing the effectiveness of aid immediately and encouraging the possibility of reconciliation in the intermediate term.

First, the international community must continue to push for more aid to enter the country. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's visit to Burma this week is an encouraging sign, and the fact that 10 U.N. helicopters were allowed to fly aid into the country, is hopefully a sign that the junta is loosening its grip. While reliable reports indicate that some aid is being sold on the black market in the capital, Rangoon, the need continues to be so great that whatever aid makes it into the country will improve the lives of some of Burma's terribly impoverished citizens.

Second, aid agencies should get their foot in the door as soon as possible, even if it means compromising the humanitarian principle of independence in the short term. Burma's military-security apparatus is only so large, and the hope is that as aid enters in mass quantities, it literally overwhelms the control of Burma's generals. Thus far, the junta has proved quite resistant to influence, but now that ASEAN has agreed to handle the influx of foreign aid, more agencies may find ways to enter Burma.

Third, and related, agencies should continue to push to place more humanitarian workers on the ground. Any attempt to airdrop aid without obtaining the regime's permission is a poor substitute for the entrance of humanitarian workers. Burma needs more foreign workers not because there aren't enough logisticians and disaster experts in-country at present, as some have claimed, but rather, because foreign workers represent the best possibility of opening up Burma to the outside world. This is precisely what the regime fears, and why it continues to insist that few foreign workers be permitted to enter. Humanitarian workers from India and China, both of which have recently been permitted, is a start, but agencies should continue to lobby for access for as many foreign workers as possible.

Fourth, journalists should continue their attempts to enter Burma so they can deliver firsthand reports and keep Burma in the news. Aceh only gained attention in the international media about 10 days after the 2004 tsunami, when between 300 to 500 journalists finally were able to file onsite reports. If Burma's generals believe that media reports will make the rest of the world more sympathetic to the tragedy, and more willing to help, then they may permit some journalists to enter.

Fifth, agencies should, whenever possible, find unofficial means to work with civil society groups and Buddhist monks to distribute aid. This suggestion will prove difficult since the regime has banned monks from assisting others, has instructed citizens not to seek shelter in monasteries, and insists that all aid go through government channels. But opportunities to bypass official channels will present themselves, particularly in light of the fact some Burmese officials ignored orders to remain in the capital and instead went AWOL in search of family members. Other Burmese officials are rumored to be greatly frustrated by commands from the top that they cease helping villagers in need. These examples represent a breakdown in the military's strict hierarchy and could be a lever for incremental change.

Sixth, agencies should make attempts to build pathways for future longer-term development aid. For example, the timely prevention of cholera would be best accomplished by effective water-sanitation systems, which aid workers should try to introduce as part of their relief provisions. A caveat, however: the Burmese generals are insisting that the disaster relief phase is over and that all aid should now be focused on rehabilitation and reconstruction. Its request for 11 billion dollars must not be separated from the current relief effort, but must instead be linked to it. Linking emergency relief with development aid has two possible positive consequences: first, it sets the stage for a more robust post-emergency phase in which recipients of aid are better off, and second, it will lengthen the "window of opportunity"—the post-disaster phase when the regime is at its most vulnerable and political transformation is most possible.

Finally, all parties to the ongoing conflict in Burma should encourage dialogue and communication among opposing parties in the name of rebuilding Burma. It has been argued that one of the key catalysts for peace in Aceh was the commitment to a ceasefire by the insurgent forces, a move that made the Indonesian military more willing to permit aid into the country. In Burma, a parallel concession by opposition parties would be to refrain from pointing fingers of blame at the junta.

Responses to natural disasters in the context of conflict can initiate phases of cooperation and reconciliation, as occurred in Aceh. Alternatively, and more commonly, disaster responses can entrench current power structures and foster further conflict. This latest tragedy in Burma, must, somehow, be turned into a possibility for political transformation, by using aid carefully and effectively. Through it, the international community can create the opening that the people of Burma deserve.

Ms. Banki is a research fellow at the Institute for Ethics, Governance and Law at Griffith University in Australia. She has written numerous articles on Burmese refugees and migrants, political mobilization directed toward Burma, and aid to Burma.

This article was originally featured in the May 2008 issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review (Vol. 171, No. 4) and has been posted here by courtesy of FEER.

 

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A War-Torn Land Finds a Road to Peace

July 14, 2008
By 20889

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has endured two wars in the last ten years. A peace treaty has been signed, however, and the first free election in more than 40 years has given the country hope.

 

Africa’s First World War

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has seen two wars in the last 10 years, dubbed “the first African world war.” The wars, which were essentially foreign yet fought on Congolese soil, saw military leaders choose violent solutions for seeking control, letting poverty and democratic governance fall by the wayside.

The wars also saw an emergence of international organized crime cells seeking to traffic arms and strategic minerals such as Colombo-tantalite ore, diamond, copper, cobalt, and gold. The cost of human life, as a direct or indirect result of the world war, has been scandalously high.

However, conflicts in central Africa still exist often as the result of poor governance, a characteristic of the condition of postcolonial African states. From the independence period, these states were supported by northern regimes that underestimated the consequences of corruption, human rights abuses, lack of the rule of law, and state and electoral fraud.

A quick look at the current state of Africa shows that the continent is in turmoil:

  • In the east: The conflict in the horn of Africa between Ethiopia and Eritrea has hardly come to an end. It is still going on through a third party in Somalia today.
  • In the north-east: The conflict in Darfur reminds us that Sudan has not yet put an end to its long-standing wars despite some remarkable progress made by the government of Khartoum and the rebel movement in southern Sudan. The extension of this conflict to Chad and the insecurity it brings about in the Central African Republic is a threat to the whole regional peace process.
  • In the south: The question of land ownership in Zimbabwe makes stability precarious in South Africa, which has similar issues. In Angola, the wounds of a long-lasting civil war will still require more time to be healed.
  • In the north-west: The conflict in Western Sahara, which has been forgotten by many countries, and the extremism in Algeria require a rapid solution, or peace will be threatened in this region.
  • In the west: The slow and painful peace building process in the Ivory Coast reminds us that the conflicts in Sierra Leone and Liberia were not isolated cases.
  • Sporadic fighting between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria and the conflict in the Niger Delta region are a constant cause for concern.

Studies suggest that the main causes of conflicts in Africa are related to the following main points: poor governance, tension around natural resources, ethnic differences, and nationalism.

With regard to governance, studies suggest that the colonial heritage in Africa is one of the primary reasons for the endemic instability on the continent, while the partitioning of Africa at the end of the nineteenth century proved to have had some of the most damaging outcomes.

Post colonial adjustments followed by the Cold War caused flimsy governance structures, with the superpowers worrying more about their own interests rather than those of the African states themselves. Today, the former colonists have become “the international community.” This international community provided means and political support to its allies but considered such issues as corruption, human rights abuses, lack of a rule of law, and state and electoral fraud as trivial matters.

For example, in 1972, genocide against Hutu intellectuals in Burundi was intentionally ignored by the international community. Rwanda saw the Tutsi victims massacred in the name of the so-called social revolution (1959), which was also ignored. In the DRC, Mobutu was never prosecuted for being a dictator, kleptomaniac, or human rights abuser until the 1990s. It was only when Rwanda and Uganda fought in 2001 in Kisangani for control of the diamond trade that the United Nations Security Council took action on the issue.

In the 1990s this situation led to the explosion or breakdown of existing political alliances. The holders of dictatorial power found they could not control the opposition,, the revolts, or the internal rebel forces because the international community had stopped protecting and financially supporting them.

The DRC has been through two successive wars since 1996. The first one started in September 1996 and ended on May 17, 1998. The second broke out on August 2, 1998, and is still going on today, particularly in the eastern part of the country. It is one of the worst conflicts seen in the world since World War II. The 1996 war killed 200,000 people, and the 1998 war saw 3.5 million dead and 2.5 million displaced, among them more than 400,000 children. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports that the percentage of malnourished people has increased from 35 percent in 1990-1992 to 64 percent in 1997-1999. This situation has made DRC one of the poorest countries in the world. In 2001, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that 16 million Congolese people were under the minimum level of nourishment for survival.

The first war in the DRC involved foreign armies from more than nine countries, including Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, and South Africa. The stated objective of this coalition was to overthrow the dictator Mobutu, but apart from this common goal, each country involved had its own agenda, such as changing the borders of the DRC as inherited from the colonial period.

As a meeting of different wars on Congolese soil, some political observers consider the conflicts in the DRC to have been the first African world war.

 

Roadmap to Peace

We contributed to this fragile peace-building process by investing in protecting human rights, civic education, and popular participation. We also helped realize the first free election in the DRC in more than 40 years. However, elections do not always mean democracy, and the way forward still remains a challenge. After 32 years of dictatorship and 10 years of war, my country is yet to be rebuilt.

In January 2008, a peace conference was held in Kivu in northern DRC. The conference had the objective of initiating peace, stability, and development and putting an end to the war in North and South Kivu province.

The conference requested that the Rwandan and Burundian refugees return to their respective countries, as well as calling for disarmament and the repatriation of foreign arms groups still on DRC territory. After three weeks of work, the armed groups and the government signed, in the presence of the international community, an act of engagement for peace, known as the Amani Program or Peace Program.

The DRC is now run by an elected government under a prime minister, Antoine Gizenga, elected and appointed by the presidential majority party. We have a parliament with 2 chambers, 11 provincial parliaments, and 11 provincial governments. All these institutions are under the constitutional control of an elected president.

Although there had been a rebel group after the elections, the Amani peace conference convinced this last rebellion to recognize the authority of the state founded on the elections.

Today, we should put much emphasis on the reconstruction. This means organizing a system of good governance where all significant social bodies are represented at the political, economic, and military levels, promoting capacity building in administration, and judicial services, and achieving a regime without political army that is devoted to the people and not to the leaders. We will also promote a regional approach to conflict resolutions, understanding the major causes of wars at both the national and sub-regional levels, combat poverty through common programs of development, transform war economies to integrated trade, and implement common measures of conflict prevention similar to the methods of the AU (African Union) and UN.

 

Outstanding Leadership

The Second Sylff (The Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund) Prize was recently awarded to Rigobert Minani-Bihuzo, 47, a leader in promoting human rights and civic education in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa. Rigobert is the founder and representative of Groupe Jérémie, an nongovernmental organization actively engaged in these fields in the DRC and the African Great Lake region.

Overseeing the coordination of the first free election in the DRC in more than 40 years, he helped organize the Cadre de Concertation de la Société Civile pour l'Observation des Élections (CDCE), an association of 22 NGOs for election observation. Rigobert directed the activities of some 50,000 national observers and 125 international observers sent from the European Network for Central Africa (EurAc), a network of European NGOs. He has also been involved in various governmental efforts for cease-fires and reconciliation in war-stricken DRC.

Rigobert was invited to Japan for two weeks in January 2007 to receive the Sylff Prize and to establish contact with individuals and organizations—both governmental and non-governmental—for future collaboration.

 

About Sylff

Sylff (The Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund) is a fellowship program established in 1987 to support promising graduate students in the fields of the social sciences and humanities. This program tries to nurture leaders of tomorrow who are willing to address issues of global concern and effect changes by proactively tackling them. The Sylff program is a collaborative program by The Nippon Foundation and The Tokyo Foundation with the former donating the endowment of US$1 million each to each selected institution, and the latter being responsible for administering and promoting the network within and beyond the Sylff community. As of now, endowments have been established at 68 institutions in 44 countries, and over 10,000 graduate students have received the Sylff fellowship.

Rigobert received a Sylff fellowship in 1995–1997 for his DEA (diploma of advanced studies) in political science at the Institute of Political Education “Pedro Arrupe” in Italy.

 

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Kenya’s Post-Election Violence

July 14, 2008
By 19741

Have colonial ghosts come back to haunt Kenya? Taking a look at the recent violence that spread across what was one of the most politically stable countries in Africa, and asking why such a steady country faced such sudden tremulous times, a Kenyan anthropologist, engaged in human rights issues, gives us his perspective.

Kenya, one of the most politically stable countries in Africa, is found on the east horn of the African continent. The country gained its independence from the British in 1963 after years of armed struggle and diplomatic negotiations led by a generation of leaders who are still in active politics today. Diverse interests that have accumulated over time, especially in businesses, have continued to control the country’s politics, and when a motley crew of younger opposition politicians upstaged them in elections last year, the old leaders just dug in and refused to leave. Widespread violence followed. The government, for a time, continued to play truant and refused to enter into any meaningful form of power sharing agreement with the opposition, even amidst talks chaired by former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan and backed by the international community, in particular the European Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom. This essay attempts to put this story into perspective.

 

Kenya’s Post-Election Violence

For the better part of the first two months of the year, Kenya’s political situation remained fluid, tense and unpredictable. The country was not holding, and a bloodbath loomed after weeks of ethnic violence precipitated by a suspected electoral fraud that returned President Mwai Kibaki of the Party of National Unity to power. As wide sections of the population tottered from the consequences of internal strife, a nebulous search for peace began in Nairobi: the National Dialogue and Mediation forum, chaired by Kofi Annan, with the assistance of a panel of preeminent African leaders.

At the talks the opposition party, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), first decamped from its earlier radical position to press for the resignation of President Kibaki to allow for fresh presidential elections, opening the way for the negotiations. The ODM had refused to recognize Kibaki as the president, and during the first few statements from him at the start of the talks, the ODM threw tantrums and almost boycotted the parley after Kibaki referred to himself as the duly elected president of Kenya. The ruling party dodged the reconciliation spirit of the talks and failed to read the intensity of local and international pressure to work on a solution to the impasse. It required the intervention of African Union Chairman and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who warned the parties of dire consequences if the peace processes were to be derailed. The big stick wielded by the two seemed to have worked, as a new peace accord has now been reached between the warring parties and Kenya will soon have a premier and a president, with both sharing executive powers. The grand coalition agreement will be constitutionalized.

A host of local and international observers in the polls, including the European Union observation team and the Commonwealth, agreed in their reports that the December 2007 elections, particularly the presidential vote tallying, was marred with incompetence and spurious tallying. In a multiethnic society of about 40 distinct ethnic groups, Kenya was firmly jolted by the disputes. At the Annan talks it was also agreed to form a review committee to establish the facts behind the election fiasco, as well as to create a Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission to help in reconciling Kenyans and addressing historical grievances that were partly the reasons for the conflicts.

The electoral differences have been very costly for the country: About 1,500 Kenyans died in the post-electoral skirmishes, 350,000 people were displaced from their homes, and many continue to live as internally displaced refugees in temporary camps across the country. Businesses have been stalled, moreover, and by local estimates over US$2 billion losses to businesses have been counted. Any more dithering on the peace talks, and the impatience and war-mongering culture that was beginning to take root in the country would have led Kenya to an eventual paralysis and even collapse. But how did Kenya get to that point in the first place?

Sworn in on a wheelchair after a near-tragic road crash at the height of the 2002 general election campaigns, President Kibaki owed much to his coalition partners for the National Rainbow Coalition euphoria and sense of unity that won him the victory. His last weeks of campaigning found him confined to a wheelchair, but an amalgamated league of campaigners from the coalition’s leading party stalwarts—then known as the Summit—crisscrossed the country on a platform of change.

With the Kenya African National Union’s trouble-free concession of defeat, Kenya’s had been an exemplary political transition in Africa. But that was then. Kibaki faced his reelection against a strong opposition coalition headed by the man who ironically is credited for his presidency, Raila Odinga, and an array of his former ministers.

At his inauguration in 2002, Kibaki and his government promised a new constitution and an end to official corruption, political patronage, and nepotism. It would be these pledges, on the political front, rather than promises of economic revitalization that would dog the Kibaki administration over the coming years. In effect, the Kibaki regime would defend its reelection plan on account of a healthy economy, with a growth rate of 8 percent up from the tottering levels of 2002. However, it had not fulfilled most of the political pledges, particularly those to draw up a new constitution and end high-level corruption. Worse still, the Kibaki administration seemed to have come to revolve around a cabal of ethnic state operators who apparently convinced him to rubbish the preelection Memorandum of Understanding on a power-sharing agreement with his former colleagues.

 

A Tight Race?

Although a tight election was developing and many pollsters pointed to a close finish, in the minds of many Kenyans it was never to be as contentious and as bloody as it became. Both the Party of National Unity and the ODM attracted huge support across the country. In the end, the Electoral Commission of Kenya released the results of only 209 constituencies (following nullification of the results in 3 constituencies), indicating that the president had won with about 200,000 votes ahead of the ODM presidential candidate, Raila Odinga, and inviting instant dispute. By this time, live broadcasting of the vote tallying process by the media had been banned, and Nairobi was reduced to a police state with heightened security patrols and closures of certain roads. What, then, led to the vicious post-electoral violence in the country?

According to the prediction of former president Moi, multipartyism was bound to bring about tribal tensions and deepen regional divisions in the country. The former president was himself an expert in divide-and-rule tactics of administration. At the height of fervent campaigns for political reforms in Kenya in the 1980s, he opposed political pluralism on the claim that the country was not cohesive enough. Multiparty democracy was finally reintroduced in Kenya in 1991, but early elections in 1992 and 1997 saw poll violence, especially in the Rift Valley parts of western Kenya and the coast of Kenya.

In Kenya’s politics, the capture of safe votes is often strengthened by filial connections between the contestants and electorate. Politicians of the above communities found it expedient to throw out voters from the immigrant settler population so that their declarations of “party zones” would be realized. The Rift Valley was declared a Kenya African National Union zone, and other parties were warned against venturing into the area. Accordingly, this occurrence also fulfilled Moi’s prophecy on political pluralism. In 1997 these conditions were repeated with varying tactics and consequences. Official coverups and impunity often followed state involvement in the clashes. In 1993, though a parliamentary select committee to investigate and make recommendations on the clashes was set up in Kenya, nothing followed. Another Judicial Commission on Tribal Clashes finished its work in 1999, but neither the Moi administration nor the Kibaki administration implemented its recommendations.

 

Colonial hangover or ethnic complexity?

The divide-and-rule administration tactics, although a legacy of the British colonial administration in Kenya, were polished under the Kenya African National Union regime. State appointments, budgetary allocations, and a distribution of public goodies appear to strictly follow the beacons of ethnic loyalty and closeness to state power. This manner of distributing the national cake is a major cause of the ethnic discontentment and, with the imperial powers of Kenya’s presidency, can be a harbinger for chaos. Figuratively speaking, communities that find themselves at the periphery of power mobilize against the status quo on the basis that it wants the plate to go around. “It is our turn to eat” is an oft-quoted maxim in Kenya’s campaigns.

The communities feeling displaced and marginalized from the center of power by the Kibaki administration bandied together in the ODM against the government. When it lost the opportunity to stage a takeover, therefore, this was going to be painful and frustrating. If it had been through an illegitimate loss in the polls as has been alleged, the violence could only have been expected as a logical consequence of anger and frustration. Deep-seated anger against the Kikuyus, seen to have dominated power and the consumption of the national cake since Kenya’s independence in 1963, can no doubt be blamed for this eventuality. Although the Mau Mau war of independence was related to the Kikuyu uprising against the colonialists for their loss of land, the departing crown bequeathed a shamelessly exploitative and divisive state machinery to the new power elite under Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyu. With a relatively more educated working class and a better physical infrastructure inherited from the white administrators, Kenyatta capitalized on these advantages to make the Kikuyu a powerful and envied community in the country’s post-independence economic takeoff.

After the declaration of the state of emergency in Kenya in 1952, the British government followed with a land rationalization plan known as the Swynnerton Plan. Under the plan, the British would encourage the newly independent Kenya money to buy back the “White highlands” formerly settled by the colonialists. When the colonial farmers departed, an expansive swathe of land was left uninhabited in a region previously owned by the Kalenjin and Maasai. However, the pastoralist Maasai had in any case lost their claim to a large part of the Rift Valley land through the 1904 and 1911 agreements with the British colonial administration. On the part of the Kalenjins, they witnessed their supposed ancestral land annexed by the independent government and dished out to mainly Kikuyu settlers after independence. This Kikuyu resettlement plan was backed only by a section of the Kalenjin politicians. By 1971, over half of all arable land in the Northern Rift Valley, settled by Kalenjins, were in the hands of new Kikuyu buyers. Without any solution to this historical grievance, Kalenjin-Kikuyu clashes in these areas are bound to recur.

Like the celebrated Mau Mau episode in Kikuyu nationalism, the Kalenjins treasure their brave history too. The community of the Kalenjins was at the forefront in opposing colonialism. When the East African Railway line reached the region, it sparked off the Nandi resistance led by the legendary Orkoiyot Koitalel Arap Samoei from 1905 to 1911. This nationalism has stayed alive in the whole Kalenjin community and political tradition.

But the media culture cannot escape censure. Although the country has a fairly credible independent and free press, Kenya’s media took sides, perceivably to serve ethnic interests in the campaigns. Camouflages of such ethnic interests abet serious frustrations and can spread hate propaganda and falsehoods or become a war-mongering tool. Kenya’s ethnic media stations remained culpable for stroking negative ethnic emotions throughout this period.

It is now important that durable solutions are found to avert a repetition of similar scenes in Kenya’s future. The suggestion to deal with matters of transitional justice, encapsulated in the need for a justice, truth, and reconciliation organ, is still necessary and urgent. This will help to understand and prescribe solutions to Kenya’s enduring pains and grievances. In the near future, emphasis on the return to lasting peace is important, but to seriously address it, constitutional and legislative agreements for power sharing and other solutions to mass poverty are imperative. Finally, for justice to prevail, Kenya’s legislative institutions must attend to the inadequacies in the law instruments and the judicial institutions that adjudicate them. What makes public leaders hesitate to use legal channels to address grievances will only set the stage for bigger chaos.


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