Avuncular American

African Violence: On Screen, In Court, In the Streets

(Photo: "Sounds of Sand" website)

Today up the road in the Dutch capital, The Hague, the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone has resumed its trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor.  We will hear much about his role in trafficking "blood diamonds" with the Sierra Leone RUF rebels to finance the arms trade.

For different reasons, we recently rented the DVD of "Blood Diamond," the Edward Zwick film that we had missed when it came out over a year ago.  It has one of the best one-liners from a cynical journalist who imagines a headline "Government Bad; Rebels Worse" that could sum up many an African situation.  I had remembered reading this article in the New Statesman by veteran Africa observer Michela Wrong, where she lamented the assassination of a Congolese journalist friend, and contrasted African reality with the way the continent is portrayed on film:

It's true that Blood Diamond's creators, alert to the accusations of neocolonialism routinely leveled at westerners setting films in Africa, put a lot of thought into the role of Solomon Vandy, a fisherman who finds a giant diamond in a Sierra Leonean river. Presented in noble counterpoint to the racist white mercenary played by Leonardo DiCaprio, Solomon is a man of dignity and pride and his quest to reunite a family dispersed by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels serves as a key plot driver.  The problem was that every time Solomon opened his mouth, verisimilitude flew out of the window. Djimon Hounsou, the over six-foot tall Beninois playing him, must have groaned inwardly as he was obliged to speak lines no African villager would ever articulate. Take the scene where Solomon is scouring lists at a displaced people's camp in Freetown, searching for his family.  Ignoring the long queue, he storms to the aid official at its head, loudly demanding answers. He gets none, of course, but Solomon, we are supposed to think, is a real man, doing what real men do when crazed by anxiety: they demand a lot of attention.  Then there's a scene where he discovers his wife and children in a vast refugee camp in Conakry. When his wife tells him his eldest boy has been recruited by the RUF, Solomon sinks to his knees.  Shaking the wire fence convulsively, he bellows his despair to the heavens, shouting so loudly he brings the Guinean soldiers guarding the camp running.

I've visited plenty of African refugee camps in my time and I've never seen anyone behave like this. People whose villages have been raided, neighbours mutilated and relatives raped will do anything to avoid drawing the attention of the young men with guns.

Surviving the "young men with guns" is one of the major themes of a very different film about Africa that has made the rounds of European art cinemas, "Sounds of Sand" ("Si le vent souleve les sables," a Franco-Belgian production by director Marion Hansel), and which has been shown in several American film festivals.

I recommend "Sounds of Sand" to Michela Wrong and to anyone put off by the Hollywoodization of Africa - not only by "Blood Diamond," which we found to be a generally well made film, apart from the kind of departure from reality described by Ms. Wrong above - but by what has to be a mini-industry of recent years: Hotel Rwanda and Shooting Dogs on the Rwanda genocide; The Constant Gardener on the evils of big pharma in Kenya;  The Last King of Scotland on Idi Amin's Uganda; Goodbye Bafana on Nelson Mandela in apartheid South Africa - check IMDB and you'll find some 553 films going back to 1912 under the keyword "Africa."

In "Sounds of Sand" - rather a good take on the original French title, and evocative of a film where relatively little is said - Africans trek across the deserted wastes of an unidentified African country suffering from war and drought.  The film was shot in Djibouti, an interesting choice not often the scene of films, and features an African cast from across the continent (Carole Karemera from Rwanda is herself a genocide survivor).  Don't expect pyrotechnics: though there is latent and real violence in "Sounds of Sand," the violence is, just like the film, quiet, matter of fact, and entirely credible.  Contrast actor Isaka Sawadogo's (of Burkina Faso) portrayal of husband/father "Rahne" with that of Djimon Hounsou in "Blood Diamond."  No false heroics here, and he doesn't become a millionaire in the end, either.

Back to Michela Wrong, in an interview at the end of her book on Eritrea, "I Didn't Do It For You," when she was asked how writing about Africa affected her personally

Graham Greene once took exception to the term "Greeneland," which people used to refer to the disintegrating, shabby, disease-ridden parts of the world he wrote about.  Greene said: "Actually, this is the way most of humanity lives; it's just that my middle-class reviewers don't happen to live like this," and I completely endorse that.  I'm very aware of there being a Western enclave in which a tiny proportion of humanity lives in the assumption that ghastly things don't happen to them.  And if things go wrong, they get very angry and somebody has to compensate them.  Such a tiny percentage of humanity has those attitudes: everybody else expects terrible things to happen to them, has had terrible things happen and knows that life is grim, hard, and short.  That's a perspective living in Africa has given me.  If you can get through life without having too many really nasty things happen to the people you love, you're doing very well.

So next time you see the glimpses of shacks burning in post-electoral Nairobi, of Kikuyu hunted by Luo, or read about Charles Taylor supping with the hackers-of-limbs and kidnappers of children who become child soldiers, think of Michela Wrong's insight into life for the majority of the world which doesn't live in our Western cocoon.  And for a cinematic view of Africa that is anything but escapism, check out "Sounds of Sand."

Undiplomatic Diplomacy: Greener Than Thou

"EU told to be bolder on carbon emissions"

"The EU must be bolder in tackling carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from road transport if it wants to combat climate change, according to the US ambassador to the European Union."

The front page leader in the current Christmas/New Year's issue of European Voice, a Brussels-based weekly read by European Union officials and people who do business with the EU, must have made more than one reader sputter over their Belgian beer.  The Bush administration, which has been the world bad boy on establishing environmental norms ever since it said "hell-no-Ky-oto," has now found religion and is going to preach to the converted.

Ambassador C. Boyden Gray said that legislation just approved by the US Congress to improve vehicle fuel efficiency was more ambitious than European legislation. Referring to the Energy Independence and Security Act, which seeks to improve fuel efficiency by 40% by 2020, Gray said: “This is more aggressive than anything Europe has proposed.”

This is like the prodigal son, having been away for years living it up and spending the inheritance, returning to the fold and lecturing his siblings on the benefits of payroll savings and compound interest.

Gray was referring to Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, signed by President Bush on December 19, 2007, a week after the Bali Climate Change summit.  In Bali, the US delegation appeared set on diluting the substance of the agreement, then was welcomed back to the consensus fold, only to have the White House raise "concerns" over the agreement its delegation had just signed.  It was the climate change equivalent of a "signing statement."

My purpose here is not to trash the Energy Independence and Security Act, which appears to be the fruit of the Democratic Congress elected in November 2006, and has a number of worthwhile initiatives, with a view “to move the United States toward greater energy independence and security, to increase the production of clean renewable fuels, to protect consumers, to increase the efficiency of products, buildings, and vehicles, to promote research on and deploy greenhouse gas capture and storage options, and to improve the energy performance of the Federal Government.”

No, I am taking issue with the public diplomacy tone-deafness of this administration, which, ever since Inauguration Day 2001, has exhibited passive-aggressive attitudes towards the environmental policies adopted by large swaths of the world - and then has the gall to lecture our European partners on the need to be "bolder" when it is finally forced by a Democratic Congress to (belatedly) start to go in the right direction.

Referring to the Energy Independence and Security Act, which seeks to improve fuel efficiency by 40% by 2020, Gray said: “This is more aggressive than anything Europe has proposed.”

Look, 40% fuel efficiency improvement is fine in my book, but when the same sentence includes a date like 2020, that sounds like a lifetime away.  Here in Europe, everyone knows that a legacy-obsessed American president will try to get everything - from Israel/Palestine to energy/environment - jammed into the last year of a lamentable reign.  The follow-through - like the solution to US involvement in Iraq - falls to the next US president.

   

Europe Welcomes Obama Victory

Europe's morning newspapers generally came out before Iowa's results were complete, so it is with Friday's evening TV newscasts that Europeans first saw the smiling Obama family savoring victory.  It's probably safe to say that - apart from some racist right wing nuts in Europe's fringe parties - Europeans in general would welcome a Democrat in the White House, and especially a Democrat with the CV of Senator Barack Obama.

Though it is still very early days, I have not seen a single continental European comment - negative or positive - about the recent Beltway "scandal" over Obama's neglect of the Old Continent in his Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs.  Not one (though the Times of London Washington correspondent did report on the intra-Washington controversy).  On the other hand, I expect to see lots of favorable comment about racial barriers being overcome (though some may remember that Jesse Jackson won several primaries in '84 and '88 - and went exactly nowhere politically thereafter).

Obama's softly softly approach - "I will talk to ______[insert name of rogue state leader] in my first week of Presidency" - should appeal to Europeans weary of (and frightened by) eight years of Bush unilateralism.  Bill Clinton still attracts favorable comment and the mere sight of him makes Europeans (and many Americans) pine for the old pre-September 11, pre-Iraq world, when the dollar was strong, the US respected, and the world still in a post-Cold War era of relative peace.  Hillary Clinton would be able to capitalize on that nostalgia, but her stance on Iraq might alienate some Europeans, who thought it was a very bad idea way before Hillary started to waver on her initial support for Bush.

And then there is the Clinton entourage.  Last night in Iowa, standing behind Senator Clinton, was a Clinton One lineup of heavy hitters in the foreign policy world: Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark, and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.  Clark is still remembered for the NATO war in Kosovo, and that conflict's unfinished business may very soon be re-ignited when the Serbian province declares independence.  Madeleine Albright, who called the United States "the indispensable nation," once dreamed of an American role in the European Union.  Europeans might therefore welcome a clean slate with Obama, Subcommittee visits or not.

Meanwhile, Europeans don't know quite what to make of former Governor Huckabee, other than replaying the video of his guitar jam session.  They have less trouble pronoucing "Barack Obama" than they do "Mike Huckabee."  Clips of campaigners fervently praying with joined hands and closed eyes don't help here either - showing your religious beliefs is generally a no-no in European politics.  Then again, seeing Chuck Norris smiling over Huckabee's shoulder could endear him to the European martial-arts-film crowd.

Parallel History, 3 Jan 2003: When Baghdad Was Iraqi...

... And When "Quagmire" Only Referred to Vietnam.

(Photo The White House: President Bush at Fort Hood, Texas, January 3, 2003)

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you for your warm welcome, and thank you for this jacket.
AUDIENCE: Hooah!
THE PRESIDENT: I'm proud to wear it.
AUDIENCE: Hooah!

For readers who haven't experienced the joys of hearing a room full of soldiers in "BDUs" (Battle Dress Uniforms, American for camouflage) shout "HOOAH," the helpful White House link above has video and audio versions along with the text of the President's pep rally.

With this post, I borrow a title and an idea from a great TV program that ran from 1989 to 2001 on Arte, the Franco-German public service channel that is a lifesaver for those who miss the likes of PBS in the States.  "Histoire Parallele" traced the week's news from exactly 50 years before, i.e. the lead up to war, the years of World War, and the early Cold War.  No shortage of B&W Allied and Axis newsreel footage, of course, put into context by international experts and host Marc Ferro, a great French historian.

My focus over the next months will not be as ambitious as that of the Arte program, since I'll only be reaching back five years.  2008 - 5 = 2003: the year of Operation Iraqi Freedom.  I thought a nice round figure like five years to be an appropriate marker, given that many of the "players" - George W. Bush and Richard Cheney, primarily - are still very much in office.  Others - Saddam Hussein, Tony Blair, Hans Blix - have moved on, so to speak.  It is also tonic to reflect that as of five years ago today, things might have gone differently.  Counterfactual historians may one day put their imaginations to "what if" scenarios of alternative realities ("What if Saddam Hussein had never invaded Kuwait in 1990?"  "What if George W. Bush had won a clear, landslide popular victory in 2000, instead of entering the White House via the Supreme Court?").  I will try to steer clear of such exercises, which are best left to the historians of 2050.

Five years ago today, President Bush had none of the uncertainties that plague today's politicians:

The Iraqi regime is a grave threat to the United States. The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American and to threats who are friends of America.  Why do I say that? Well, first of all, the leader in Iraq has publicly proclaimed his hatred for our country and what we stand for. The Iraqi regime has a record -- a record of torturing their own people, a brutal record and a record of reckless aggression against those in their neighborhood.  The Iraqi regime has used weapons of mass destruction. They not only had weapons of mass destruction, they used weapons of mass destruction. They used weapons of mass destruction on people in other countries, they have used weapons of mass destruction on their own people. That's why I say Iraq is a threat, a real threat.

"The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American and to threats who are friends of America" [sic].  Despite the grammatical stumbling, we get the message.  It is still three months away from "Shock and Awe," but the Commander in Chief is pumping the troops.  When they cross the desert berm into Iraq a few months later, according to longtime BBC Baghdad correspondent Andrew North who accompanied them as an "embedded" journalist, the Administration's umpteen pretexts (WMD, human rights, harboring Al Qaeda... anything but the fact that Iraq floated on a sea of oil) for preemptive war mattered little.  According to North, the troops he accompanied were out for revenge, against a regime, they had been told, that carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks.  Ironically, their jump-off points in the Gulf had provided the lion's share of Al Qaeda suicide crews of 9/11 - none were Iraqi, as was well known but conveniently unmentioned.

Since this is parallel history, I should also give the floor to the Iraqis of the day, quoted in the New York Times of January 3, 2003

"The inspectors did not find any prohibited activities nor any prohibited items in those 230 sites visited up until now," Lt. Gen. Hussam Muhammad Amin, the chief Iraqi liaison to the inspectors, told a weekly news conference.   "All those activities proved that the Iraqi declarations are credible and the American allegations and claims are baseless," General Amin said.  In his remarks, General Amin echoed comments by Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister, who complained earlier in the day about troop buildups in the region, saying that the United States and Britain were forging ahead toward war despite the presence of the inspectors in Iraq.

"The American administration is trying to create some pretexts to attack Iraq, to exercise their aggression against Iraq," he said.

Today's NYT indicates that in election year America "Iraq War Taking Back Seat To Domestic Issues."

The article is illustrated by a photo of a soldier, no longer in BDUs, holding a sign "Back From Iraq."  He is campaigning in Iowa for Hillary Clinton.

Parallel history to be continued...

2008, Year of Human Rights, Human Security, & Reclaiming America's Reputation?

Despite my best efforts to nominate "Americans Against Torture" for Persons of the Year 2007, Time Magazine went ahead and named lame duck Russian President Vladimir Putin instead.  Oh well, I guess I was a year too early: it's December 10, 2008 that will be the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, when the United States deemed the occasion important enough to be represented by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.  Maybe Time will find this year a more auspicious moment to honor those Americans who know that the United States will never reclaim its reputation until it repudiates torture.

Helena Cobban, the former Middle East correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor, whose blog "Just World News" is one of the best sources of informed comment on the region, has proposed that 2008 be declared the Year of "Human Security"

one of the main reasons why military power does not suffice is that it neglects-- and indeed, it also directly undercuts-- the main component of security in the 21st century, that is, the security of actual human persons.

Cobban, who has seen more than her share of conflict over the years, comes from the Quaker tradition of non-violence, though she is proud of being "perhaps the only Quaker who is a member of the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies."  Her understanding of strategy goes far beyond simple application of military power.

It is high time to move beyond the simplistic "national security" approach to international relations, where diplomats negotiate until negotiations lead nowhere, then soldiers shoot until (if you're lucky) the "enemy" "surrenders" (quotes indicate quaintness of this version of warfare).  Then you send in the post conflict development people, and you let them deal with the sorry aftermath.  The problem is, this model can't really be applied to problems like climate change, or development of renewable energy, or massive refugee/migrant flows.  And hasn't been working that well for shooting wars, either.

"Human security" is a term that helps us ease away from the political-military tunnel vision, just as the term "eco-security" suggests that no national security apparatus worth its salt can ignore the century's massive environmental, energy, and demographic challenges and say that it is doing its job.  In very simple terms, Cobban shows why "human security" should be compelling

So in 2008, let's all of us come back to this powerful idea of human security. It is the idea that my country will be more secure if the citizens of other countries near and far also feel secure -- secure, that is, in what counts to us all, as humans. And conversely, that if citizens of other countries feel insecure, that will make my country more insecure, too.

Hard to argue with that.

(Photo source: State Department)