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THE JOURNAL TEAM

Vojtech Hons Editor-in-Chief

Atholl Macpherson Senior Editor

Dalva Barrere Senior Editor

Selen Akgun Editor and Fundraising

Jihenne E. Khiari Editor and Fundraising Officer

Margritt Clouzeau Editor and Events Officer

Tereza Rasochova Editor

Anisha Hira Creative Editor

Zoe Pot Editor

Maurice Kirschbaum Editor

Email: kingsstudentjournal@gmail.com

Twitter: @KSJournal_IAHR

Facebook: www.facebook.com/kcl.journal.hr

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EDITOR’S NOTE

It has been six months since the first issue was published. During that period, the publication has re-ceived almost a thousand reads from forty countries of the world, ranging from the United States, Al-bania all the way to Indonesia. Our primary aim, to amplify the voices of the students from King's, has been fulfilled. For the second issue, not only the contributors have changed, so did the editorial team. Old members now had the experience, new member brought in fresh ideas. As many new student media came out this year, including Human Writes, King's Amnesty Journal and Perspectives, we decided to take a step towards differentiating ourselves from the rest. The publication you are about to read differs from what you read in June. The number of articles has been cut down, as only about 40% of received proposals was included in the final product. The sources were reviewed to a greater extent than last year, and the average length of an article was ex-tended as well. Among the writers, there are two alumni, four Masters students, one Doctorate candidate and one undergraduate. More interestingly, however, no International Relations or Politics student has been published – in fact, we have received quality material from people with rather unexpected back-ground: two Global Ethics and Human Values Students, one Medical Ethics and Law, one Education and Professional Studies and undergraduate submission from a French and Classics student. The ex-pertise of the three others obtained at War Studies department was nevertheless equally appreciat-ed. We do not expect to gain an enormous increase of reads on the second issue. In fact, it might as well be the case that less people will now read a whole article. We do believe, however, that this was the main feature of the primary aim – to amplify the students' voices. The secondary, more challenging, but in our eyes more rewarding aim, to set up a platform for arti-cles written in academic style and depth, could only be achieved on the expense of longer pieces that might present greater challenge to a person without certain factual background knowledge. We nev-ertheless believe that this transformation makes sense and that it will eventually reach the same amount of readers. It will not be long until the work on the third issue will begin. Plenty ideas that have not been imple-mented now are begging to be realised, and your participation will therefore be needed again. It will be our pleasure to receive your emails, should you wish to suggest an idea or improvement, submit an article or even become member of the journal board. The fact that you have opened this publication, however, is already most appreciated, as it gives us, the editorial team, to carry on. Have a good read! Vojtech Hons Editor-in-chief

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MULTICULTURAL CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AS PREJUDICE REDUCING PEDAGOGICAL TOOL

5

DEMOCRATIC VIOLATION - IRELAND’S ABORTION CRISIS 13

DISMANTLING THE SYRIAN CHEMICAL ARSENAL: LESSONS LEARNED 18

EU: AN IMBALANCED POLITICAL AGENDA 22

“GLOCALISATION” AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN HUMAN RIGHTS IMPLEMENTATION

28

SHOULD WE RESPECT THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF TERRORISTS? 35

THE POLITICIZATION OF BOKO HARAM 40

JEOPARDIZED DIVERSITY - CONFESSIONAL TENSIONS IN THE AMORPHIC MIDDLE EAST

45

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ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF

MULTICULTURAL CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

AS PREJUDICE REDUCING PEDAGOGICAL

TOOL

MERSEDEH GHASSEMIEH

is currently studying for a doctorate in

education and professional studies.

Prejudice can be defined as the extension

of irreverent attitudes regarding a social group

to an individual, solely by the virtue of that

individual’s perceived membership in the social

group (Stephan & Stephan, 2001). The group

categories that these impertinent feelings are

based on encompass categories such as gender,

sexuality, social class, age, ability, religion,

ethnicity, and race. Prior to the 1950s, most

scholarly works concerning prejudice focused

almost exclusively on adults (Cameron, Rutland

& Brown, 2006). However, since then, a

significant volume of scholarship on prejudice

has been investigating the etiology of prejudice

development in children (Paluck & Green,

2009). It was an astonishing finding for

psychologists and educationalists alike when

they realized that children are capable of

identifying their own and others’ gender and

ethnicity from a very young age (Cameron,

Rutland & Brown, 2006). Currently, researchers

assert that the crucial period for development

of prejudice in children is from age three

through seven, when a child notices perceptible

racial differences such as skin colour,

differentiates between them, and starts to

understand that these attributes do not change

over time (Aboud, 1988; Brown, 1995; Nesdale,

2001). During this same period, children start

showing signs of being influenced by societal

biases and they even exhibit prejudiced

attitudes towards others on the basis of gender,

race or disability (Derman, 1989).

Although within the field of

developmental social psychology, extensive

volumes of research exist that confirm that

children as young as primary school age hold

prejudiced views (Aboud, 1988; Aboud &

Amato, 2001; Brown, 1995; Hirschfeld, 1997;

Katz, 1976; Rutland, Cameron, Milne &

McGeorge, 2005), there has not been enough

research on effectiveness of pedagogical tools

or interventions in prejudice reduction in

children (Aboud & Levy, 2000; Bigler, 1999;

Oskamp, 2000). My aim for this paper is to

examine what evidence there is to support the

claim that certain types of children’s literature

can provide the means for transformative

learning to reduce prejudice, and whether it can

empower children from an early age to embrace

tolerance and acceptance. In other words, I am

intrigued to find out whether children’s

literature can be used as an intervention to

challenge and deconstruct the whole process of

‘Otherizing’ and help children realise the

common humanity.

Transformative learning:

Transformative learning, which

developed from the work of Jack Mezirow

(1991), is the process of alteration in the

premises of our thoughts, feelings, and actions;

it is a change in our frame of reference that

occurs when our beliefs are transformed,

thereby changing our entire worldview.

According to Mezirow transformative learning

is the process by which we “transform our

taken-for-granted frames of reference to make

them more inclusive, open, emotionally capable

of change, and selective so that they may

generate beliefs and opinions that will prove

more true or justified to guide

action” (Mezirow, 2000, p.8). This theory is

about understanding human’s relations and

interactions with one another and the

underlying power structures that influence

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them.

Changing frames of references is a

crucial component of transformative learning

and happens as a result of critical reflection on

assumptions and viewpoints, and constant

redefining of the world that one inhabits.

Frames of reference are the framework of

assumptions and beliefs through which our

experiences are comprehended, signified, and

made coherent. “They selectively shape and

delimit our perception, cognition and feelings

by predisposing our intentions, beliefs,

expectations and purposes” (Mezirow, 2010,

92). ‘Habits of mind’ and ‘resulting points of

view’ are two integral dimensions of frame of

mind that I now turn to. We tend to have

particular habits of mind that are “broad,

abstract, orienting, habitual ways of thinking,

feeling and acting, influenced by assumptions

that constitute a set of codes. These codes or

canon may be cultural, social, linguistic,

educational, economic, political, psychological,

religious, aesthetic and others” (Mezirow, 2006,

p.26). Articulation of Habits of mind in a

particular point of view, which is “constellation

of belief, memory, value judgment, attitude and

feeling that shapes a particular

interpretation” (Mezirow, 2006, p.26).

Ethnic Prejudice as an example of habit of

mind and reflective points of view:

Habits of mind are rooted in historical

and social context, and are influenced by

institutional structures and practices. Ethnic

prejudice, as a tendency to regard one’s own in-

group’s normative cultural prescriptions as

superior to out-groups’ cultural norms, is an

example of habits of mind that is shaped,

moulded, and perpetuated by legal, social, and

educational policies (Bigler & Liben, 2007).

Based on a social learning approach, prejudicial

attitudes that are derived from stereotypes,

socio-cultural demarcations and categorisation

of “Others” are learned. When a child enters into

society, they are faced with already existing

processes that generate and perpetuate ethnic

categorisations and racial stigmas (Crandall &

Stangor 2005). Children are exposed to such

processes through various channels such as

family, media, school, and peer groups (Milner,

1983). Not only do children learn about the

stereotypes from their social environment but

they also learn about the emotional responses

associated with them (Katz, 1976; Vaughan,

1987).

Camicia also suggests that the

educational system is partly responsible for the

systemisation and perpetuation of prejudicial

“official” knowledge (Camicia, 2007; King,

1991). According to Camicia, treatment of

knowledge as culturally neutral in educational

curricula is a hegemonic practice that renders

students’ critical evaluation of “official”

knowledge challenging. Consequently, prejudice

is fortified, protracted, and sustained since

students are not invited to question the

perspective, source, or quality of “official”

knowledge. Depiction of Christopher Columbus

in educational curricula sheds light on the

points discussed above. When Columbus is

described as an inquisitive adventurer and

courageous explorer who “discovered” the

“New World” and established European

“settlements” there, then the explicit

mainstream message, the one that is on the

surface, easily detectable, and unambiguous, is

that Columbus was an exemplary fearless

visionary (Fanon 1963; Klein, 1985; Loewen,

1996; Love, 2011). Beneath this veneer, lies the

unspoken message that is embedded in

Eurocentrism and racism. First, by calling the

Americas the ‘New World’, not only is the

historical integrity and civilisational longevity of

the Americas prior to 1492 ignored but also the

rest of the world is considered on the periphery

of the centre that is Europe. Another message

that is also implicitly conveyed is the depiction

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of Europeans and their ways of life as the more

advanced, civilised, and sophisticated ones that

were easily able to conquer the “New World”.

Third, by intentionally choosing the word

“settlers” instead of colonisers, there is an

attempt to distort historical consciousness of

many Europeans as they reflect on their past

(Loewen, 1996; Love 2011). Absent from these

“official” accounts are null messages, a critical

reflection on mainstream and hidden messages.

Null messages are omitted or silenced so that the

systematic structure of domination, exploitation,

and privilege could stay intact. For example, the

view that Columbus brutally subjugated the

indigenous people of America, and his actions

were derived from the European mentality of the

time that was accepting of violent conquests,

enslavement, and mass killings, is never

represented.

A subsequent point of view of

aforementioned habits of mind is a complex web

of negative beliefs, attitudes, feelings, and

judgments that one might have in regards to

people of different ethnic or racial backgrounds.

An astonishing study, conducted by Bigler and

Liben (1993) on White-Americans’ negative

assumptions about African-Americans sheds

light on this matter. They asked 75 randomly

selected White-American elementary students to

attribute positive and negative characteristics to

only Black people, only White people, or both

White and Black people (Bigler & Liben, 2013).

They discovered that more than fifty percent of

the participants stated that “only Black people”

could be bad, dirty, stupid, cruel, mean, and ugly

(Bigler & Liben, 2013). Such discriminating

points of view are also seen among educators,

which is very alarming. Villenas et al. (1999),

analyzed seven ethnographic studies in United

States in order to explore Latino schooling and

family education. These ethnographic studies of

Latino schooling are rich with personal

experiences of Latin American families residing

in the United States that reveal and expose how,

and why, ‘raced’ children are disproportionately

subjected to certain disturbing trends in the

educational system. For instance, researchers

found out that Latino students are often placed

in low-performance classrooms in which they

receive ‘dull and boring’ lessons plans, and

teachers often have low expectations for these

students. Moreover, the experiences of Latino

parents reveal how they are often ‘kept out’ of

schools and not welcomed by discouraging

treatment and general indifference of schools’

administrators to Latin American cultural bases,

notwithstanding the constant insistence in the

educational system to involve parent in their

children’s education. This level of prejudicial

thinking within the educational system is

striking and indicates the urgent need for

intervention programs intended to reduce

prejudice and racial stereotyping among

students and school officials.

Prejudice reduction through the

transformative learning process:

Transformative learning is a kind of

learning that results in significant changes in our

belief system. It is a learning that gives meaning

to our experiences in life. The transformative

learning process is comprised of three main

components: experience, critical reflection, and

reflective discourse (Mezirow, 1990). The

process begins with an experience. The next step

is a cognitive process of critically reflecting on

an underlying set of beliefs and assumptions that

influence the way in which one interprets the

experience. According to Meziro, one aspect of

critical reflection is the ‘premise reflection’,

which is evaluating the new experience

according to long-held beliefs, values, and

assumptions (Mezirow, 1990). At this stage, the

individual is assessing whether or not the new

experience is compatible with her already

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existing belief system, or if a transformation of

mindset is necessary to accommodate the new

experience. This leads to the last stage of

transformative learning that is reflective

discourse. Reflective discourse is about

thorough understanding of the experience,

assessing new findings and arguments of

different points of view, being open to

alternative points of view or belief systems, and

finally making a judgment or adjustment at the

end of this process.

The idea that positive experience of

contact with an out-group member can reduce

prejudice is well tested and backed up by great

number of studies (Allport, 1953; Pettigrew &

Tropp, 2006). However, the Contact Hypothesis

(1954) is inherently limited due to limited

opportunities for contact and interaction among

different social groups. Restricted contact

among in-group and out-group stems from

various causes such as geography, prejudicial

and dogmatic mentalities, and state of war, to

name only a few. For example, in the United

States, an average, predominately white

neighbourhood has less than ten percent black

residents (Denton & Massey, 1991). Some

religious sects’ meditated preference to only

interact with the members of their own in-

group is another example. Places of conflict,

such as Gaza or the Korean demilitarized zone,

are the most extreme cases of segregation in

which opportunities for direct intergroup

contact is severely restricted. Yet these are

precisely the kind of environments in which

interactions among different social groups are

needed the most. Dadd (1997) argues that

imagining a positive contact with a member of

an out-group can have the same prejudice-

reducing effect as the actual participation in an

intergroup interaction (Dadd, 1997; Kosstyn,

2001). Since books are capable of creating

mental settings in which a positive contact can

be imagined, experienced, and lived; I will

discuss how children’s literatures can be used as

an intervention to reduce prejudice, in the

following section.

Extended Contact:

Extended Contact Hypothesis

emphasises the role of cross-group friendship as

an essential condition for improvement of

intergroup attitudes. Extended contact suggests

that reduced bias might result from vicarious

experiences of friendship, that is, knowledge of

in-group members having friendships with out-

group members (Wright et al., 1997). “Extended

contact effect” stems from the capacity of

individuals to “include other in the self” (Wright

et al., 59 97 ) which, in a sense, is the ability to

incorporate a member of “out-group” in one’s

own self-definition. It is fair to argue that

vicarious experiences of intergroup friendship

could be stimulated through narratives as well.

As Dadd (1997) noted, imagining a positive

contact with an out-group member produces the

same prejudice-reducing effect as the actual

contact. Since storybooks about intergroup

interaction can duplicate the actual sense of

interaction, they can be used as prejudice-

reducing intervention. Reading stories about

other ethnicities can help children to cultivate

new positive meaning schemes for them by

focusing on cross-group similarities. Vicarious

experiences of contact with out-groups

demonstrate to children that amid racial and

ethnic differences, there exist substantial

commonalties, making the “Other” less exotic,

strange, or different. Further, such experiences

invite children to critically reflect on their

already existing biased assumptions about out-

groups, such as out-group homogeneity.

Children are encouraged to compare and

contrast the new experience with their

previously held beliefs and subsequently they

assess the compatibility of the two.

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Consequently, literatures that underline the

common humanity in individuals regardless of

their ethnicity, gender, and socio-economical

status and focus on human experiences that are

universal in nature could play a significant role

in deconstructing prejudiced and

discriminatory mentalities.

It is imperative to acknowledge that not

all types of learning can be considered as

transformational. According to Mezirow, all

learning can be considered as change but not

all change constitutes transformation

(Mezirow, 1990). Sometimes even the mere

addition of a new piece of data to our already

existing pool of information is considered

change, which is far from transformation.

Mezirow argues that learning happens through

frames of reference via four different ways. The

first, and the most common type of learning, is

expansion and elaboration of the existing

frames of reference (Brown, 2013). It involves

extending, supplementing, and modifying

present body of knowledge wherein new

information is easily accommodated with what

we already believe. Acquiring new frames of

reference constitute the second way of learning

(Brown, 2013). This occurs by getting exposed

to new perspectives and points of view that do

not challenge the underlying premises of the

existing frames of reference and can be added

to with ease. The third way of learning takes

place as a result of altering points of view

(Mezirow, 1990). This happens because

attitudes or beliefs about a certain issue are

changed after a variety of different points of

view are contemplated. For example, a positive

experience in another culture might inspire us

to critically reflect on our misapprehensions

about that specific cultural group.

Consequently, we may even alter our point of

view about that particular group and become

more tolerant or accepting of members of the

out-group. In other words, a positive

interaction with one out-group may change a

prejudicial point of view, but this does not

necessarily translate to a change in one’s

prejudicial habits of mind regarding other out-

groups. Such an occurrence requires

transformation of habits of mind, which is also

the fourth way of learning. Transformation of

habits of mind involves more in-depth learning

and “requires a questioning or challenging of

underlying assumptions and premises on

which our beliefs are based, which causes a

shift in the codes that makes up a meaning

perspective and this will consequently disturb

the related points of view” (Brown, 2013, P.29).

Since our belief systems define who we are, and

are fairly rooted in our culture, and our history

it is not an easy task to modify or change them

altogether. Yet, in order for an individual’s

habits of mind to be transformed she must

embrace experiences that would challenge her

fundamental set of beliefs and value system, no

matter how overwhelming the ordeal is.

Knowledge Construction as a prejudice

reduction intervention:

Another form of prejudice-reducing

intervention through children’s literature,

which can be used in transformative learning,

is knowledge construction (Banks, 1999;

Camicia, 2007). Knowledge construction

interventions are based on the general idea

that the value system in any given society is in

accordance with the interests of the dominant

class. That leads one to believe that knowledge

and knowledge production processes conform

to interests, views, and values of the dominant

class; “knowledge becomes part of the general

consensus of reality” (Love, 2011, p. 102). That

being said, the nature of knowledge production

and its relation vis-a -vis power structures,

necessitate development of critical-thinking

faculty in students and the adoption of a

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questioning-stance towards handed down

knowledge. A major line of thought that has

inspired knowledge construction interventions

is Critical Race Theory. Critical Race Theory is

founded on the underlying premise that

prejudicial attitudes mostly continue to be

unrecognized because racism is so entrenched

in the society. Critical Race Theory invites

students to survey alternative narratives of out-

groups in order to “begin the deconstruction of

hegemonic mainstream narratives that

perpetuate social inequality” (Camicia, 2007,

p.222) In other words, “the process of

knowledge construction is simultaneously a

process of knowledge deconstruction”(Camicia,

2007, p.222). Understanding the links between

knowledge and power is at the heart of

transformative learning. According to the

transformative pedagogy, knowledge is varied,

rooted in cultures, and representative of the

value system of a society. And transformative

learning is not only about racial harmony, it’s

about inclusion as well.

Multicultural children’s literature that is

used as this form of intervention looks at the

socio-cultural processes that form our current

historical understandings from the standpoint of

the ‘Other’. The aim is to have an anti-bias and

more equitable education by giving children an

opportunity to get to know different

perspectives, through literature that is ‘against

the grain’. For instance, in subjects such as

history, students should have the opportunity to

listen to various voices recount history from a

multiple of perspectives. 1621: A New Look at

Thanksgiving (6001), by Margaret Bruchac is a

good example of such literature. In the collective

historical imagination of Americans,

Thanksgiving is a day that some courageous

peace-loving settlers showed their generosity to

a few uncivilised Indians with a turkey dinner.

However for Wampanoag people, this mythical

day is a reminder of treachery and carnage. By

taking into question what Americans regard as

historical “facts”, and by retrieving the vanished

voices of the Wampanoag people, this book

offers a different account of Americans’ shared

history. By turning the traditional curriculum

around so that students can “view concepts,

issues, events and themes from the perspective

of diverse ethnic and cultural groups” (Banks,

1999, p. 31) students develop the aptitude to

analyze discrepancies that sustain inequalities.

Banks (2002) writes, “By revealing and

articulating the inconsistency between the

democratic ideals within a society and its

practices, transformative knowledge becomes a

potential source for substantial change”(Bank,

2002, p.22). Critical reading of a story reminds

children that knowledge is never neutral and it

is derived from a person’s or a group’s

Standpoint (Love, 6455). Acknowledging this fact

compels the reader to be conscious of historical,

cultural, and social processes that produce

knowledge, construct our thoughts, and affect

the very production processes of knowledge as

well. The transformation of knowledge involves

asking different questions and re-evaluating the

‘official’ knowledge (Apple, 1990; Camicia

2007). Official knowledge demonstrates the

“elevation of mainstream narratives to the

status of being ‘truth,’ ‘normal’, or

‘natural’ (Camicia, 2007).

Hence, constant analysis of one’s position

vis-a -vis prevalent Cultural Capital and

structures of power would give rise to questions

such as; why things are the way they are, who is

the beneficiary of the status quo, and how can

we transform it to a more just and equitable

condition (Shannon, 1995; McDaniel, 2004).

Scholars such as Shannon (1995) argue that the

absence of such questions in educational

systems is mainly responsible for hegemonic

discourses of knowledge that contribute to the

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endurance of many social injustices, ethnic

prejudices and stigmas. Shannon’s concerns are

echoed by Kohl (1995), who is apprehensive

about the rarity of books, whether fiction or

nonfiction, which scrutinise underlying socio-

economic structures of our society and the

normative values that they promote. He is in

favour of authors crafting ‘radical’ (fundamental

change provoking) stories, which attempt to

break down artificial borders that construct ‘in-

group’ and ‘out-group’ and also call for a unified

effort to tackle problems of inequality,

‘Otherising’, marginalisation, and exclusion

(Kohl 1995 P.59). Lets consider the story of

Mona in Sitti’s secret by Naomi Nye (5998). Mona

travels with her father to their ancestral village

on the west bank in Palestine to visit her

grandmother for the first time. Not knowing

Arabic makes communication difficult with her

grandmother. But soon, Mona and her Sitti are

able to overcome this obstacle, and they find

other ways to understand each other. Upon her

return to U.S, after observing Sitti’s

predicaments, she decides to write a letter to the

President of the United States of America, in

which she expresses concerns for her

grandmother and the people “on the other side

of the world.” Also, she voices her desire for

peace; “I vote for peace, my grandmother votes

with me.” And Mona concludes; “If the people of

the United States could meet Sitti, they would

like her, for sure.” A mainstream message of

Sitti’s Secrets is about bonds that the essence of

common humanity forges between individuals

despite of language barriers, cultural differences,

and national borders. However, critical reading

of Mona’s story not only reveals hidden

messages regarding the role of United States in

the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also gives rise

to questions about the global structures of

power that permit the conflict to drag on for so

long. The story alludes to the fact that the

President of United States could take some

actions to ease the plight of Palestinian people

but none of them have done so in the past sixty

years. Are there any forces that prefer status quo

to an end to the conflict? Knowledge

construction intervention invites children to

question mainstream messages of “official”

knowledge, detect its hidden messages, and

critically reflect on them. By doing so, students

are incited to pursue knowledge rather than

receive it, and establish their own

understandings, rather than being on the

receiving end of normative judgments. The aim

is to assist students to liberate themselves from

installed habits of favouring institutional beliefs

and undervaluing their own thoughts and

reactions (Apol, 1998).

Moreover, multicultural children’s

literature that induce social actions in children

in forms of protesting against injustice,

questioning the power structures, and actively

participating in transforming their society into a

more inclusive and equitable one, embody

“radical” stories that Kohl has referred to. Spilled

Water (6004), a book by Sally Grindley, narrates

the story of 11-year-old Lu Si-Yan that leads a

lonely life of severe hardship as a child laborer in

a big city, in China. After she runs away from a

family that her uncle sold her to, when her father

passed away, she finds a job in a toy factory for a

trivial wage. Enduring inhuman working

conditions, she manages to “race, race, race” for

several months, working from very early

morning until late at night, until she collapses

one day. There is no happy ending to the

narrative, but by weaving real world issues of

inequality and social injustice into the fabrics of

Lu Si-Yan’s life story, it is quite possible that the

author has been successful to nurture social

imagination of 11 year olds in Europe or North

America, and has left some lingering questions

behind on their stream of consciousness. Critical

12

reading of Lu Si-Yan’s distressing

powerlessness and poverty could take into

question the footprints that high demand for

cheap toys in western countries leave on child

laborers’ lives in developing countries. What

can children of western countries do about the

plight of their counterparts in other side of the

world? Perhaps there are actions that they can

take, such as conveying their concerns and

disapproval to corporations, whose business

conducts, intentionally or unintentionally,

contribute to the practice of employing children

as laborers. These are some of the discussions

that could take place in classrooms in

conjunction with deliberate social actions in the

form of class projects.

Conclusion:

This paper discusses the possibilities of

children’s literature as an intervention for

transformative learning and prejudice

reduction. Prejudice-reducing Interventions are

intended to diminish negative attitudes toward

one social group and also dampen the ensuing

stereotypical, intolerant, and discriminatory

behaviours or feelings. In order to counter

prejudicial attitudes in children through

transformative learning, educational

curriculums need to ensure that children attain

critical understandings, proficiencies, and

dispositions for transformative learning.

Children need to be encouraged to challenge

their assumptions, examine alternative points

of view, alter previous ways of understanding,

and act on new perspectives.

The main aim of transformative

pedagogy is to include previously excluded

perspectives and silenced voices of

marginalized groups, in educational settings

(Sleeter, 1996; Love, 2011) by introducing the

literature of marginalized ethnic groups in

classrooms (Sims Bishop, 2007;

Gopalakrishnan, 2011). To do so, a critical

examination of the curriculums is necessary

since they tend to promote only the “official”

knowledge. Moreover, this examination is

essential for students’ deconstruction of

prejudicial knowledge and replacing it with

diverse perspectives. Although children’s

literatures as extended intergroup contact and

knowledge construction intervention appear

promising, a much more thorough and

comprehensive empirical assessment of

effectiveness of books as prejudice-reducing

intervention should be conducted.

13

DEMOCRATIC VIOLATION - IRELAND’S

ABORTION CRISIS

OLIVIA WILSON

is currently a second-year student of French and

Classics at King's.

The question of abortion is, and will

always be, a contentious issue. It is a question

which has been tackled by every civilisation and

which straddles every societal argument: ethical,

social, financial, religious and political. But there

are no countries which demonstrate the full

complexity of the issue like Ireland and Northern

Ireland. Over the past thirty years there have

been no fewer than 5 national referendums on

the subject yet each has offered little hope of real

legal change. However, since the death of Savita

Halappanavar in 2012, the debate has reached a

crisis point with the UN repeatedly expressing

the need for legal amendment and criticising

Ireland’s draconian legislation:

‘The Committee reiterates its previous

concern regarding the highly restrictive

circumstances under which women can

lawfully have an abortion in the state’.

Placed within the context of the rest of the

EU, abortion is only banned in one member state,

Malta, while Poland, which exercises the third

most restrictive abortion practice after Ireland,

allows abortion in cases of rape, incest, danger to

the mother and malformation of the foetus. In

every other state abortion is available for at least

ten weeks of pregnancy.

So why is Ireland’s stance so different

from the rest of Europe? Why is the issue of

abortion so contentious here?

First, we must assess the legal history of

Ireland and Northern Ireland and its vast

divergence from the path of its neighbouring

island, Great Britain. After obtaining

independence from the UK in 1922, both Ireland

and the British Northern Ireland retained the

1861 Offences against the Person Act which

states (after amendment) that any woman who

seeks an abortion ‘shall be guilty of [an offence],

and being convicted thereof shall be liable, ..., to

[imprisonment for a term not exceeding five

years]’

However, after much to-ing and fro-ing

between Fine Gael and the Labour party, in 2013

President Michael D. Higgins passed the

‘Protection of Life during Pregnancy Act’ which

states that a woman can receive abortion if her

life is at risk because of a physical illness or

suicide. It does not legalise abortion in the event

of rape or incest unless a possible risk of suicide

is present.

This blatantly contravenes the treaty of

the ‘Convention on the Elimination of all Forms

of Discrimination against Women’ adopted by

the UN in 1979. Forcing a woman to have a child

is a form of gender discrimination as men placed

in the same situation would not have to go

through the same ordeal simply due to

differences in the reproductive organs. ‘Any

distinction, exclusion or restriction’, which must

include forced conception, goes against the

terms of this treaty: a treaty which both Ireland

and the United Kingdom (including Northern

Ireland) have signed.

Even when a risk of suicide is present the

amendment is not always observed as in the case

of ‘Miss Y’ which is currently being investigated

by the Health Service Executive in Ireland. ‘Miss

Y’, a foreign national who was raped in her home

country, after coming to Ireland and discovering

that she was eight weeks pregnant, decided to

pursue abortion. After the risk of suicide was

ratified by two psychiatrists, she was delivered

of her baby via caesarean section after going on

hunger strike. In other words, the amendment

was not adhered to despite the support of the

psychiatrists after performing their invasive

examination of confirming the claimant’s risk of

14

suicide.

Indeed, Ireland’s modern history has

been punctuated by many of these pivotal cases

of violation and inequality of rights, and yet very

little seems to have changed. The slight

amendment mentioned above coincided with

two of the biggest recent Irish scandals: the

death of Savita Halappanavar and the Catholic

Church abuse scandals. These two events are

absolutely essential to an understanding of

Ireland’s difficult relationship to abortion: the

influence and authority of Christianity in

Ireland, north and south.

This influence revealed itself most

prominently in the recent case of Ms

Halappanaver. In 2012, Savita Halappanavar, an

Indian dentist, died of septicaemia and organ

failure after suffering a miscarriage having being

denied an abortion when she was 17 weeks

pregnant at University Hospital, Galway.

Halappanavar repeatedly requested an abortion,

but as her foetus still had a heartbeat, and the

patient seemed to be at no risk of death, her

pleas were denied. When she did not

understand the reason for her request’s refusal,

she was told, ‘it was the law, that this is a

Catholic country’. In the inquest, the coroner

found that the refusal of abortion and, thus,

confusion about the legality of an abortion in

this instance, was a key causal factor in the

death of the patient:

‘The investigation team is satisfied that

concern about the law, whether clear or not,

impacted on the exercise of clinical professional

judgement.’

Indeed, the consultant, in reply to the

patient and her husband’s desire to induce

labour with medication if the pregnancy was

going to terminate in inevitable miscarriage,

stated her/his lack of understanding of the Irish

law: “If there is a threat to the mothers’ life you

can terminate. If there is a potential major

hazard to the mothers’ life the law is not clear….

There are no guidelines for inevitable

miscarriages”. It was this very lack of

understanding and uncertainty of the law which

led to an ‘over-emphasis on the need not to

intervene until the foetal heart stopped together

with an under-emphasis on the need to focus

appropriate attention on monitoring for and

managing the risk of infection and sepsis in the

mother.’

This ‘under-emphasis’ on the health and

well-being of the mother points to the real

difficulty in Ireland’s management of abortion.

The mental and physical well-being of the

woman are seen as being of secondary

importance to that of a foetus as seen in the

cases of Mrs Halappanavar and ‘Miss Y’. These

cases demonstrate how both the mental and

physical well-being of Irish women is held

subordinate to that of a foetus. The Irish

government believes that the well-being of an

unconscious foetus are of a much greater

importance than the well-being of a full Irish

citizen. As Human Rights Committee chairman

Nigel Rodley said, ‘recognition of the primary

right to life of the woman has to prevail over

that of the unborn child’. Irish law treats raped

women as ‘a vessel and nothing more’.

As shown by the words of Ms

Halappanavar’s nurse, religion, abortion and

legal policy are very closely linked. In the

Republic, the Catholic Church was granted

‘special recognition’ in the Constitution of

Ireland while both the Catholic and Protestant

religions continue to play a particularly

prominent role in Northern Irish politics.

Particularly in the north, but also in the south,

the barrier between the public sphere of politics

and the private sphere of religion has, as

Professor John Brewer from Queen’s University

Belfast said, ‘collapsed’. The influence of religion

in the south waned in the 1990s due to the very

15

public scandal of the Catholic Church’s

institutional abuse of women and children.

1,500 complaints of child abuse were

documented in Church-run institutions in

Ireland in the Ryan commission while the UN

Committee on the ‘Rights of the Child and the

Committee Against Torture’ had made repeated

requests for the victims of the Magdalen

Asylums to be compensated. Yet, despite this

very public affirmation of the Church’s role in

the violation of women and children, it still

exerts an abiding influence over ‘moral’ legal

issues like abortion and divorce. Indeed,

divorce was only legalised in the Constitution of

Ireland as late as 1996 while Christianity still

has a very profound institutional role in

Northern Irish education. Religion and policy-

making are, thus, intertwined serving to create

an incredibly cloudy moral landscape from

which to create and consistently apply policies

on essentially ethical issues like abortion.

This dissolution of the public/private

sphere of religion and state in Northern Ireland

leaves it in an odd position in relation the rest

of the United Kingdom. As Alastair Campbell

famously declared, UK politics ‘[doesn’t] do

God’. Religion is rarely seen as a common agent

in British politics so where does that leave

Northern Irish/religious discussion over

abortion in its position as a country within the

non-religious climate of UK politics? Inequality:

unequal rights for British/Northern Irish

women and British/non-Northern Irish women.

This is exemplified by London’s High Court

recent decision that Northern Irish women

would not be eligible for an abortion on the

NHS if they travelled to Britain despite being

UK tax-payers.

There is an obvious question of unity

and consistency here: how can the United

Kingdom be called united if it has such varied

legal options for its residents which cause such

adversely different effects, like abortion?

The case of A & Ahor, R v Secretary of

State for Health broached this question head

on. The claimant here stated that their country

of domicile was used as a ‘personal

characteristic or status’ and that by using this

characteristic to deny her a state-funded

abortion this was an act of discrimination. She

claimed that had she been characterised as a

resident of any other UK country she would

have been eligible. However, the conclusion

drawn was that ‘there is no suggestion in the

case–law of the European Court of Human

Rights that the State is required to fund

abortion services’ and that ‘in general the NHS

should not fund services for residents of

Northern Ireland which the Northern Ireland

assembly has deliberately decided not to

legislate to provide, and which would be

unlawful if provided in Northern Ireland'.

Thus, we can see that the options for

Irish and Northern Irish women are incredibly

limited, especially for those that do not have

access to the finances needed to undergo an

abortion abroad. The Abortion Support

Network estimates that women who travel for

an abortion often spend four hundred to two

thousand pounds on travel costs, lodging and

the added burden of non-state-funded

abortions. This, therefore, creates the

additional financial barrier to abortion for Irish

women along with the trauma of travelling and,

of course, the universal feelings of confusion,

isolation, and trauma which accompany all

cases of abortion. So, again this further clarifies

the depth of the inequality for Irish women,

both in relation to other women within the EU

and men.

However, is there, in fact, a major desire

for change in both Ireland and Northern Ireland

or is this simply the desire of a small minority

of unfortunate women?

16

If we start by simply looking at the

numbers of women from Ireland who have

received abortions in England we can see that

this is no small minority. 3,679 women listed as

having an Irish address, and 802 from a

Northern Irish address, obtained abortions in

England in 2013, but the real number is thought

to be higher. The sexual health charity FPA

believes that the number of Northern Irish

women travelling to England for an abortion to

be around 2000, as many women will provide

another address to avoid social stigma or in

order to obtain a state-funded abortion.

Between 1980 and 2013 at least 158,252 Irish

woman travelled to England and Wales for

abortions and this discounts those women who

travelled to the Netherlands or elsewhere.

But what does the rest of Ireland think?

In Northern Ireland, the public case of

Sarah Ewart brought the issue of abortion in

cases of foetal abnormality to the fore of the

public consciousness. The case involved Ms

Ewart having to travel to England in order to

abort a foetus which had no chance of survival.

The abortion was proscribed in Northern

Ireland as there was no risk to the mother and,

thus, no grounds for a legal termination. The

significant media attention around this event

has sparked a public consultation on two

aspects of abortion law in Northern Ireland: in

cases of lethal abnormality, and in cases of

pregnancy as a consequence of rape or incest.

This marks an important stage in the new

emphasis on the mother and on the public’s role

in talks about abortion in Northern Ireland. It is

also a new stage in integrating the views of

women in talks concerning women’s interests.

In short, this is an important turning point in the

democratic liberty of Northern Ireland in a topic

which has traditionally united the ecclesiastical

authorities, Catholic and Protestant, and their

communities in their opposition to it. Now, the

power of the people themselves, removed from

the omnipotent moral judgement of the

Christian churches, is manifest in this

consultation’s emergence Yet, while we should

be thankful that this public consultation exists, it

does not offer women autonomy over their own

bodies: it does not offer women freedom, but

only a way out from a handful of specific

horrible situations. There is still much more to

be done.

No such public consultation has taken

place in the Republic not even over abortion in

cases of rape, incest or foetal anomaly. Yet, a

September 2014 Sunday Independent/Millward

Brown poll found that 56% of voters were in

favour of holding a referendum to repeal the

Eighth Amendment to the Constitution and 69%

approved that victims of rape should be allowed

to have an abortion. Meanwhile, an October

2014 Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll found that

68% were in favour of having a referendum on

whether abortion should be granted in cases of

rape or fatal foetal anomaly.

This shows that this is clearly a subject

on which a democratic majority wishes to vote.

The previous referendums on the issue in 1992

and 2002 concerned further tightening of the

abortion law, not less. In both of these

referendums the public voted against further

tightening. This is not where the problem lies

and so public authorities are still ignoring the

major issue. There is continued proof of a

consistent desire for the Irish people to vote on

this issue, not about restricting the issue still

further but making it more flexible and

pertinent to women’s and modern society’s

needs. This is, then, clearly a violation of

democratic freedom: that ‘[t]he will of the

people shall be the basis of the authority of

government’.

It is clear that the Irish people want to

liberalise the abortion system, to make it more

17

flexible to the needs of its women. Yet,

government in Ireland seems deaf to the desires

of its people. In Ireland, both in the north and

the south, there is a clear need to separate

religion and state: to distinguish between a

democracy governed by the people for the

interests of the people and that of an Ireland

run by a Church which forces policies which the

people do not want.

Public outrage and pressure at Irish

law’s treatment of its women has acted as a

catalyst for the imperfect but promising

creation of the Protection of Life during

Pregnancy act and the Northern Irish public

consultation. Yet, Fine Gael and Ireland’s Labour

Party have ruled out a referendum on abortion

and we must wait and see what Northern

Ireland’s consultation yields in January of next

year. However, with the increased pressure of

the UN’s open and vehement criticism to, and a

continued public resistance of, Ireland’s legal

situation, Ireland’s draconian abortion laws can

only concede to modernisation and

liberalisation. Thus, Ireland will, finally, begin to

make its slow, tenuous steps towards the

modern world and into a more democratic

future.

18

DISMANTLING THE SYRIAN CHEMICAL

ARSENAL: LESSONS LEARNED

FRANCESCA CAPANO

holds a Master's degree Terrorism, Security and

Society at King’s

On the 21st of August 2013 Ghoutha areas

around Damascus were attacked with chemical

weapons by the Syrian regime forces. Since the

U.S. and Russia reached an agreement for the

destruction of the Syrian chemical arsenal, the

handover of Syria’s chemical weapons has

justifiably received worldwide media attention.

After missing the deadline of April 2014 for the

final handover, the remaining 7.2% of the

chemical agents were loaded onto a Norwegian

ship in the port of Latakia on the 23rd June, from

where they were transported to the port of Gioia

Tauro in Southern Italy. As the agreement

established, once in Italian waters 600 tons of

the 1,300-ton stockpile of chemical agents were

transferred to an American vessel, the Cape Ray.

While it assumed charge of neutralizing these

agents far from Italy’s shores within 60 days, the

rest were sent to European facilities for

destruction. Having completed the operation of

transshipment without announced problems the

American ship left the port on the 2nd of July. On

the 18th of August the United States announced

that the destruction had been completed.

While international opinion has been

focused for months on Syria’s failures in

handing over its materials, little attention has

been paid to the details of the agreement. In

particular, there has been very little discussion

on the reasons behind the Italian participation

in the operation. Now that the process has been

successfully accomplished, it is worth

considering what lessons can be drawn. It

appears that for Italy this was a political choice

made from the highest levels of the foreign

ministry, in which the considerations of the local

communities were trumped by the wider

international interests of Italy’s foreign policy:

mainly that of avoiding military strikes against

Syria, and fostering diplomatic channels of

communication between the regional and

international actors involved in the Syrian crisis.

The announcement of the choice of Gioia

Tauro, as the port for transshipment of part of

the chemical materials, generated reactions of

anxiety and anger among the locals of the area.

As an attempt to reassure local communities, the

Italian Ministers for the Infrastructures and

Foreign Affairs, alongside the director-general of

the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical

Weapons (OPCW), explained to the Italian

Parliament that beyond considerations of

economic advantages for its activities brought

by the operation, Gioia Tauro is also one of the

few ports of the Mediterranean region whose

depth can welcome container-ships of such

large dimensions. However, this explanation

was not enough.

The unanswered question remained

therefore why the port of Gioia Tauro, a small

southern Italian town in the administrative

region of Calabria, was chosen. Active since

1995, the importance of the port sharply

increased in the last decade to the extent that it

is currently one of the main commercial

container terminals in the Mediterranean Sea.

As a consequence of its growing economic

importance, the port has also attracted the

attention of the local mafia, the ‘Ndrangheta, to

the point that it is labeled “The Cathedral of the

Mafia”. Besides imposing bribes on the

companies working there and controlling the

process of hiring personnel, the ‘Ndrangheta has

also managed to exploit the port for its illicit

activities. 80% of the entire cocaine flow from

South America and intended to reach Europe is

believed to pass through this port. Several

investigations on the site have resulted in huge

19

seizures of cocaine and the arrests of numerous

members of the organized criminal group: one of

the last episodes on the 28th of July 2014, when

85 kilos of cocaine was seized by the Italian

officials, meant the total amount of cocaine

found in the port’s containers since the

beginning of 2014 has increased to 945 kg. The

2008 Report of the Anti-Mafia Committee of the

Italian Parliament concluded that the

‘Ndrangheta is in fact controlling the majority of

the economic activities occurring there, included

customs controls and taxes.

The United States are well-aware of both

the threatening power exercised by the

‘Ndrangheta, which is included in the FBI’s list of

the most dangerous transnational criminal

groups, and its economic influence over the port.

The Italian magazine “L’Espresso” refers to

some diplomatic American cables, made public

by Wikileaks, to explain it. As a criminal

organization that understands the economic

value of unconventional materials to make huge

profits, the most feared scenario is that

members of the group could let unconventional

materials pass undisturbed through the port and

reach its destination in the hands of terrorist or

criminal groups. The outstanding ability of the

‘Ndrangheta to corrupt officials by means of

severe threats proved to be a major asset in

gaining and successfully maintaining the control

of the port to carry out its illicit trafficking.

Consequently, the exercise of a significant

amount of pressure on the personnel of the port

makes this scenario more plausible than it

would seem.

Historically, there have been a number of

incidents on Italian soil involving Russian

nuclear materials that were supposed to reach

the Middle East in the 1990s: two plots aimed at

illicitly trafficking nuclear materials were

disrupted in 1995 and 1998. At a time when

many radioactive substances had reached

European countries, due to the low security

controls in Soviet nuclear plants and following

the collapse of the USSR, a barter exchange had

been set between the Italians and the Russians.

From this some groups of the Italian mafia

received uranium from Russian groups in

exchange for counterfeit goods. In 1998, other

members of the Italians were caught red-handed

while completing a deal involving low enriched

uranium (LEU), which was believed to originate

from a reactor in the Democratic Republic of

Congo. Finally, an investigation into toxic

residues made the picture more worrisome,

whereby the ‘Ndrangheta itself was found to be

responsible for the illicit dismantling of

radiological waste, including uranium, strontium

and ceasium, in the maritime environment of

Italy and Somalia throughout the 1980s and the

1990s.

After 9/11 a stable American presence

has been established at the port of Gioia Tauro

under the ‘Container Security Initiative’ (CSI)

project, whose aim is to control containers

directed to the United States in order to avoid

terrorists from exploiting the total control of the

‘Ndrangheta over the port to ship

unconventional weapons (WMD) or materials

usable to attack the American soil. In 2008,

40,466 shipments had been controlled by CSI

officials. However, due to the severe situation of

the organized crime at the port, the security

standards provided by the CSI appeared to be

not sufficient. In Genova, Italy, a container from

Gioia Tauro had been found transporting

Cobaltium 60, a radioactive isotope of cobaltium,

while 7 tonnes of explosives have been seized in

Gioia Tauro itself. According to the American

cables, despite strict security measures ensured

by the CSI presence, the port is still vulnerable to

becoming an entry point for dangerous

materials: it is a given that the control over the

port by the ‘Ndrangheta is total, covering both

20

legal and illegal activities. The dangerousness

of the situation led the United States to

establish a new initiative, ‘Megaport’, in 2010,

whose aim is the scan of as many containers as

possible, irrespective of their destinations, with

specially advanced detectors.

Given the high criminal record of the

area, astonishment arose after the

announcement of Gioia Tauro as the chosen

port for the transshipment of dangerous

chemical weapons. However, overlooking the

role of Italy in international politics at that time

easily clarifies the decision. The majority of

experts suggest that Italy was the only country

willing to bear the responsibility of these

operations. In particular, the very reason for

that seems to lie in international diplomacy.

Recalling the declarations of Italy’s Foreign

Minister at the time, Emma Bonino, during a

regional conference of international think tanks

in Rome in September 2013, an expert points

out that once Russia declared its intentions to

put Syrian chemical weapons under

international controls, Ms. Bonino welcomed it

as “a window of opportunity for [the success of]

diplomacy”. In fact, she had explicitly opposed

military strikes against Syria since the very

beginning and was intimately engaged in the

diplomatic process surrounding the political

agreement between the U.S., Russia and Syria

that eventually avoided such an attack.

Consequently, when events called on Italy to

grant access to a port facility crucial for the

success of the agreement, she was not in the

position to draw back.

In this sense the choice of the port for

the dismantling of the Syrian chemical weapons

can be defined as a political decision, further

facilitated by the established American

presence on the site. The air of secrecy that has

subsequently surrounded the choice of Goia

Tauro, especially in the Italian domestic setting,

seems to validate this hypothesis.

Looking at a lower level of analysis,

however, that secrecy acted as a double-edged

sword by prejudicing the relationship of trust

between the local community and the State.

The Italian central authorities should have

better engaged with the local administration

before the decision as to the port was made. It

would have facilitated a better understanding

of the local concerns and may even have helped

to better deal with the public, in the context of

an international operation that attracted

worldwide attention. Secondly, the Italian

authorities could have exploited the

opportunity to increase international – and

more importantly domestic - awareness of the

menaces faced in this region because of

widespread presence of organized crime.

According to Nicola Gratteri, the front-line anti-

mafia prosecutor of the region, secrecy is what

mostly facilitates the growth of highly

sophisticated organized crime, such as the

Mafia. The American cables also recognize that

the fight against the Calabrian Mafia needs

public and international attention. Without

complete national and international awareness,

a transnational group takes advantage of the

lack of recognition of its existence. This has

already happened in Germany, where the

authorities officially admitted the presence of

the ‘Ndrangheta only after having a feud in

their own territory in 2007, despite persistent

warnings from the Italian authorities.

The secrecy and lack of attention around

the choice of the major southern European

drug smuggling hub for handling the Syrian

chemical weapons caused the proliferation of

protests and worsened the already deep divide

between the Italian state and those local

communities. Dangerously, this divide calls to

attention the original reason of the emergence

21

and success of the Italian Mafia, which presents

itself as a provider of security where the State is

absent – albeit at great cost.

In conclusion, the episode points towards

the need for an open public debate between the

locals, the administration and the government to

engage with each other. Such a debate needs to

be carried out, especially when international

diplomacy and politics enter the domain of

sensitive territories where the organized crime

is strictly intertwined with the social fabric of

the community.

22

EU: AN IMBALANCED POLITICAL

AGENDA

YIANNIS KOURIS

is a postgraduate student at Kings College

London, undertaking MA Global Ethics and

Human Values

Introduction

The initial creation of the EU was an

attempt to unite counties, in an area that was

characterized by frequent warfare between its

nations in the past, economically. This ambitious

integration effort was enhanced gradually by a

common political framework and goals. The

current collective European unity is based on

core values such as democracy, human rights and

economic prosperity. The recent financial crisis

has led EU into a deep economic recession that

gave birth to wide range of socioeconomic

problems. The recession was viewed by some

euro-sceptics as a good enough reason to dissolve

the union or a good reason for nations to

abandon the EU. At the time of writing no nation

has left the European Union or seems likely to do

so in the near future. During the attempts of

economic recovery from the debt crisis, the

political volition of the EU nation’s leaders was at

the least potent. The preferred economic solution

was a heavy austerity programme for the

indebted nations. If this was the correct

economical remedy is beyond the scope of this

paper.

Countries such as Greece, Cyprus, Portugal

and Ireland received conditional loans (as they

could not loan in the open market at the time)

from the IMF and the EU and in exchange passed

austerity measure bills in their respective

parliaments. The ferocity of political will,

coordination and cooperation between national

governments, the IMF but more importantly the

EU was palpable. Many of these measures caused

extensive anti-austerity movements and public

protests in the region of the European South

(Greece, Portugal, and Spain) but the political

course of action at the time was set. It seems that

the political volition distribution between the

three previously mentioned core values of the EU,

namely democracy, human rights and economic

prosperity leans to favour greatly the latter. The

political integration- which has embedded in it

certain constitutional liberties- component of the

union seems to be subordinate to every respect of

the economic part.

The ferocity with which these economical

remedies were introduced and maintained during

the past few years is not present in issues

regarding the human rights and democratic

procedures violations that are increasing in the

EU area.

Violations of Human Rights in the EU

The economic recession may have a

correlation with the increased sentiment of most

forms of extreme intolerance in Europe at the

moment, but this is something to be examined

latter in this paper.

The European Union agency for

fundamental rights published a report in May

2014 presenting that 47% of the LGBT

respondents reported experiencing

discrimination or harassment in the previous

twelve months, while the same survey reports

that 21% of the Jewish respondents had

experienced anti-Semitic insults or harassments

in previous twelve months (FRA, May 2014).

Croatia is a member that was added in the

European Union amidst the financial crisis (2013)

while she was facing human rights concerns.

According to world report for the European

Union from the Human Rights Watch, stateless

Roma experience difficulties in obtaining state

services including education, social help and

health care (HRW, World Report, EU 2014).

According to the same report, an implementation

of a 2011 deinstitutionalization plan for those

with mental or intellectual disabilities progressed

slowly, with two projects targeting around 400

23

individuals launched in May, while almost 9,000

remain institutionalized (HRW, World Report,

EU 2014).

The European Roma Rights Centre and

the Human Rights League reported in January

that the French authorities forcibly evicted more

than 21.537 Romani migrants in 2013, more

than double the total for 6456 (ERRC, 6458).

While the Human Rights Watch reports that a 14

-year-old lost an eye by a flashball fired by the

French police during riots that started after the

police stopped a woman wearing a full-face veil

(HRW, World Report EU 2014). The German

Institute of Human Rights reported that the

German police is using racial profiling, an issue

picked up by Deutsce Welle in a recent article

(Naomi Conrad, 2013). These events are

indicative of the fact that even “key players” in

EU such as Germany and France are facing

human rights issues that are most likely not

directly correlated with the recent financial

crisis.

For Greece that faces the most extreme

bail out conditions in the EU, human rights

concerns are even bigger. Greece will serve as a

good example for the argument brought forth in

this article in due course. The sudden forced

closure of the public television raised serious

media freedom concerns last year and

subsequently weakened the existing

government at the time (one party out of three

departed from the government coalition).

Furthermore a NGO network recorded 104

attacks against migrants and asylum seekers by

the end of August (HRW, World Report, EU

2014). In April three superintendents shot at

200 strawberry pickers demanding unpaid

wages (Daniel Howden, 2014). While the United

Nations Human Rights expressed concerns

about the arbitrary detentions of migrants and

asylum seekers as well as their detention

conditions and their limited access to legal

assistance (UN Working Group on Arbitrary

Detention, January 2013). While the Convention

in the elimination of all forms of discrimination

against women, states that the financial crisis

had detrimental effects for women in all spheres

of life in Greece (CEDAW, March 2013).

The overly broad detention practice is

common also in Hungary for asylum seekers,

according to UN Working Group on Arbitrary

Detention that urge the government to take

measures to prevent arbitrary detention (UN

Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, 2013).

In September a rather extreme bill was passed

in the Hungarian parliament that criminalized

homelessness with the legal consequences

ranging from fines to prison time (Minley,

2013).

The purpose of this section of the article

is not to state one by one all the human rights

violations that occur in the euro area. If the

reader is interested there are numerous reports

by human rights NGO’s that do excellent and

thorough research on the field. Reading through

these reports one would understand that the

above mentioned cases are some isolated

examples in a long series of recent human rights

violations from the EU nations.

Rather the function of this section is to

establish that a sentiment of intolerance in its

extreme forms is increasing inside the European

Union. Human rights are experiencing a steep

negative trend in the EU area after the debt

crisis. According to an article published in the

Guardian human rights violations in EU

countries doubled in a five year period between

2007 and 2012 (Bowcott, 2012). While the

Council of Europe state in a report that the

continent is currently facing the worst human

rights crisis after the Cold War (Heibling, 2014).

This increase is further depicted in the post-

crisis legislation of various EU member states in

my view. The bill that criminalizes

homelessness in Hungary, the ban of the full-

face veil in France and the failure of legislature

24

body of Greece to pass a bill that sanctions hate

speech can function as good examples. Not

surprisingly this negative trend has not escaped

the attention of the various organisations in the

field. It seems though that it takes at the most a

back seat role in the political agenda of the EU

member state leaders and officials.

The recent rise of nationalist parties in the

EU

The recent proliferation of forms of

intolerance in the EU area can be portrayed in

the increase of political power of- extreme or

not so extreme- nationalist parties. The views of

these parties vary in respect to their extremity

but they all have some element of intolerance

present in their official political thesis. The most

notorious example of this rise is Greece’s ultra-

nationalist party Golden Dawn. In 1996, Golden

Dawn received a total of 4,537 votes in Greek

parliamentary elections, while in 2012, they

received 440,000 in the country’s May elections

(Wight, 2014).

While in Hungary, the ultra-nationalist

party Jobbik faction increased its percentage

from 16.67% in 2010 to 21% in the recent

elections in July (Sokol, 2014). According to the

same source the results indicated that the

Jobbik faction cemented its place as Hungary’s

third largest party during parliamentary

elections in July, worrying the country’s local

Jewish community (Sokol, 2014).

The recent EU elections are depicting

this recent growth of nationalist movements

and parties across the EU political landscape.

The Front National in France, the UKIP in

Britain and the Danish People’s Party in

Denmark recorded significant electoral success

(Wight, 2014). This swell of nationalist

sentiment may be argued that is correlated with

a perceived failure of the political mainstream in

the EU to rectify the adverse conditions that

resulted from the financial crisis.

I am not arguing that nationalism, in the

sense of patriotism, is something bad in itself.

Nor my argument is that aggressive ultra-

nationalist parties’ action should be equated

with other significantly less extreme nationalist

movements. Rather my argument is that to a

certain degree, an overlapping consensus on

some forms of intolerance between the

aforesaid movements exists. This consensus is

portrayed in the theses of populist nationalistic

and ultra-nationalistic rhetoric. These theses

vary from discrete xenophobia to blatant

racism, both sides of the spectrum classified as

forms of intolerance. The appeal of these forms

of intolerance to the European electoral body

can lead to a deterioration of human rights

condition- especially the rights of immigrants-

in the EU area. While in the case of extreme

aggressive nationalist chauvinism can lead to a

deterioration of the democratic system as a

whole. This augmentation of forms of

intolerance depicted across the EU area is

incompatible with the initial political aim of

unity. In any case it is opposite to any effort for

integration and stability in the EU and

compromises in some cases core values of the

union such as human rights and democratic

values. The growth of intolerant sentiment

depicted in the aforementioned surge has failed

to attract significant political volition and

competence from EU member state leaders and

officials in order to establish a less fertile

political landscape for populist (ultra)

nationalistic rhetoric.

Erosion of Democracy in the EU

The phenomenon of decrease in

democratic values has been characterized by

Paul Krugman as “a siege in

democracy” (Wheeler,2012). The loss of

democratic freedoms after the financial crisis is

evident in the democracy index published by the

intelligent unit of the Economist. Many EU

25

member states have been demoted from full

democracies to flawed democracies in the same

five year period (2007-2012) mentioned in the

violations of human rights section (Economist,

2012). The list of flawed democratic states in

the EU is not restricted- after the demotion- only

in countries that were directly affected by the

austerity measures such as Greece, Portugal and

Italy but is expanded to include even France

(Economist, 2012). According to the same

source the decline of democratic scores of EU

member states was caused by the thinning of

sovereignty and democratic accountability

linked with the effects of and remedies to the

euro zone crisis (Economist, 2012).

More precisely two EU member states

(Italy and Greece) replaced their democratically

elected leaders with technocrats in order to

efficiently implement their Economic

Adjustment Programmes (Economist, 2012).

Additionally, a wide spread deterioration in

media freedom in EU members was recorded in

the period between 2006 and 2012 (Economist,

2012). This decline is present in all countries

that were directly affected by the crisis but is

not limited to them. It is important to note that

even Germany and France experienced a

significant decline in their media freedom score.

Public polls indicate that confidence in public

institutions has declined across Europe after the

financial crisis, with the levels of public trust

being exceptionally low in the eastern area of

the continent (Economist, 2012).

The human rights condition corrosion in

the post-crisis era has produced a decline in

minority protection rights, which I believe, is

supported by the statistics in the human rights

violation section of the paper. Systematic

research conducted on the field supports that

there is an erosion of democracy in the EU

especially after the financial crisis. EU member

states and officials have not yet addressed this

important issue efficiently, while one may argue

that they currently neglect incorporating

appropriate remedies in their political schemes.

Policy implication and distribution of

political volition

It can be claimed that the bailout

conditions of EU member nations of the

European South have detrimental effects on the

human rights and democratic spheres of those

nations. Greece is a prime example for this

argument. After the bailout programme was

implemented human rights violations rapidly

increased. The first and second Economic

Adjustment Programmes of 2010 and 2012,

respectively, have provided bailout funds from

the Euro area and International Monetary Fund

(IMF) under a framework of strict

conditionality. The austerity measures imposed

have resulted in a protracted economic

recession, a sharp rise in economic inequality,

alongside the compromising of certain liberties

and constitutional rights. The crisis has, in turn,

served as a catalyst for a dramatic change in the

political landscape of Greece, including the

insipient growth of the extreme forms of

intolerance portrayed in the rights violations

mentioned above.

This argument, even though it seems

sound, is superfluous for the case I am trying to

make. Let us assume for arguments sake that it

did not have a direct effect on human rights

conditions in the euro area. The human right

violations, stated above, supported by various

reports and fines are in fact increasing. The

current increase in the forms of intolerance in

the EU zone seems to be evident and raises

concern in all relevant organizations. The

erosion of democracy in the EU is supported by

relevant research. This aspect of the EU crisis

seems to be neglected, in the collective attempts

for stability in the union. The triptych of core

values of the EU –democracy, economic

26

prosperity, human rights- translates into a

possible economic recovery that ignores all social

problems produced by the crisis. The unity and

intensity displayed for the implementation of

those policies are exclusive to economic benefit.

One may argue that the triptych is

arbitrary and the selection of values is

incorrect. Many other values could be added I

agree, but I do not think that we can exclude

democracy and human rights. The west,

including the EU, is self-proclaimed advocates

of democracy and human rights to the extent of

reaching armed conflict in order to establish

these conditions to foreign nations. Given that

these values are so important for the EU, the

lack of strong initiative by the EU is lacking an

excuse at the moment. While one could argue

that the current course of action of the EU is

favouring economic recovery in the expense of

human rights and some democratic values.

A common counterargument for this is

that it compromises a member’s nation

sovereignty. The EU cannot force rules on

national level regarding these issues. In the case

of economic recovery and in the interest of

economic integration EU certainly displayed a

force of will. If it did not force the strict

conditions for the loans, EU along with the IMF

pressured enough in order to succeed, the

implementation and maintenance of the

austerity measures. This in turn produced a

wide range of social issues that seem to

undermine the importance of democratic

procedure and established rights.

If the EU had as a sole objective the

economic stability and growth of its member

states the argument would be invalid. As I

mentioned earlier in this paper though the EU

prides itself for the core values of the union

even goes to the extent of supporting armed

conflict to establish them in certain nations.

This begs the question why the EU political

volition is distributed so unevenly in favour of

economic stability? One may extent this

question by asking is an economical doctrine so

important to be followed even if it has so

adverse consequences on core values of the EU

such as democratic procedures and human

rights?

I am not necessarily suggesting that the

EU/IMF bailout programmes are not

compatible with a wider gamut of social policies

that could benefit the areas of interest. Human

right and democratic liberties violations are

ignored though in all the agreements, bills and

reforms that was introduced in order for

countries and the EU to recover economically.

An interesting suggestion would be to have a

trade-off between economic measures and

social ones. In this case, if such policy is

accomplishable, the human rights and

democratic procedure violation will stop

spiralling out of control in the EU while possible

economic recovery could be achieved at the

same time. Surely the conditions prevailing at

the time of writing do not suggest that this

would be a potential future move.

In the case that the economic doctrine

prevailing in the EU at the moment is not

compatible with reforms that counterbalance

the adverse effects on social aspects, then the

EU should contemplate how important those

core values are. In my view their importance

call for the intense political volition,

coordination and cooperation exhibited by all

concerning parties in the economic policy

implementation. Even if adapting to the current

condition requires deviations from an economic

paradigm, in order to bring the EU nations back

to equilibrium.

A possible objection to this line of

thought is that these types of socioeconomic

issues were historically present in all regions

adversely affected by economic crises

27

irrespective of economic remedies. I admit that

there is a difficulty in establishing a robust

causal relationship between the economic

remedies and the decline in human rights and

democratic values. The culpability of EU officials

does not lie in the initial decision of

implementing these economic remedies. Rather

it lies, in my opinion, in the absence of political

initiative to collectively rectify the evident

deterioration of human rights and democratic

values. The fact that we can spot similar

tensions in seemingly alike historical situations,

does not justify political inertia in these core

areas. In other words, we cannot excuse the lack

of political initiative due to alleged inevitability

of economic crisis consequences.

Conclusions

The recent financial crisis has sent EU

into a helix of economic recession that gave

birth to wide range of socioeconomic problems.

The political will, coordination and cooperation

of all concerning parties (EU-IMF-member

states) concerning the economic recovery was

unprecedented. Partially as a result of the

financial crisis a sentiment of intolerance in its

extreme forms is increasing inside the European

Union, with many documented incidents

supporting this. In these cases political volition

to rectify these inflicted core values of the EU is

significantly less, at the least, than the intensity

of the economic policy implementation.

The critique in this article is meant to be

constructive, concerning the next collective

steps of the EU. Given that human rights and

democratic procedures are core values of the

EU, a recovery of the European Union would be

incomplete if the severe problems of these areas

where not resolved. These values are

interrelated but there is not a hierarchical

system, that I am aware of, that constitutes one

more important than the other. The call for

significant EU political will and cooperation in

these areas is urgent. An EU that would have

regained the economic stability of the past but

have lost along the way these liberties would be

short by far from the vision of European unity

and integration.

28

“GLOCALISATION” AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN

HUMAN RIGHTS IMPLEMENTATION

JASMINE ELLIOTT

is a postgraduate student completing the MA in

Global Ethics and Human Values

Why did we as students from all over the

world decide to study and live in London? As an

international student, some reasons that come

to my mind are the vast amount of educational

resources at our fingertips, the exciting diversity

at every corner and the unparalleled amount of

opportunities that are concentrated in one of the

strongest economic and political forces in the

United Kingdom and the world at large. We can

translate these sentiments to other global cities

to explain in small part why two thirds of the

European population have lived in urban spaces

since 2011 (“Cities of Tomorrow,” III). People

popularly dream of cities as beacons of

inspiration and innovation in an increasing

international world.

Yet, cities also drastically highlight the

societal issues that we currently face. Studying

the microcosm of a city gives attention to issues

like rising economic and social inequality due in

part to a lack of access to basic living needs like

affordable housing, employment, and security.

Furthermore, city governments generally have

one of the most direct hands in the provision of

social goods to the local community and could

be the most reactive source in fighting inequality

but have been ill equipped in handling this

strain of local resources. This stark reality

jarringly juxtaposes with the romantic picture of

cities mentioned above, yet they represent both

the opportunities and the obstacles that cities

have to face.

While the promotion of human rights for

the most part has been handled at the

supranational level, a strong critique of this

approach is that these international initiatives

have not necessarily trickled down to change the

daily lives of most people. As Mary Robinson,

former UN High Commissioner for Human

Rights, said when considering “the results of

fifty years of human rights mechanisms, thirty

years of multi-billion-dollar development

programmes and endless high-level rhetoric,”

the global impact of human rights initiatives has

been a “failure of implementation on a scale

which shames us all” (25). The use of the word

“implementation” is key here; it gives weight to

the idea that we should question the approach

human rights organisations and governments in

general have when trying to promote change in

the lives of their target community. Looking

towards which level of government generally

has the most direct access to people’s lives,

human rights organisations have increasingly

begun to focus how to best incorporate and

implement human rights at the local level.

Amnesty International Netherland’s recent

report, The Future of Human Rights in an Urban

World: Exploring Opportunities, Threats and

Challenges, is one of the most recent pieces of

research that emphasise cities’ potential to be

innovators in the promotion of human rights

globally or further the chasm between human

rights ideals and implementation based on how

they create local policy. Seeing cities as direct

access points to some of the most basic human

rights is important to understand how to most

effectively implement international human

rights and social justice goals locally. Ultimately,

more research and support should be given to

cities and their role as social catalysts of change

to further advance human rights worldwide.

Cities as Access Points to Human Rights

Issues

With the increasing trend of urbanisation

in major cities across the world, the idea of

glocalisation permeates the development and

marketing strategies of international business

29

and relations. Based on the Oxford English

Dictionary definition, glocalisation refers to the

connection between globalisation and

localisation with consideration as to how to

make global trends or markets work within the

context of regional or local culture. While people

are more familiar with the term glocalisation in a

business context (i.e. how international

businesses like McDonalds adapt their products

to the tastes of local preferences),

nongovernmental organisations have begun to

adopt this idea to relate to global initiatives like

human rights. “In order to be effective and

meaningful [in] a world in which by 2050 two

thirds of the world’s population lives in cities,”

human rights organisations must “anticipate”

the best strategies to further promote and

protect human rights in people’s daily lives (van

Lindert and Lettinga, 7). By incorporating a

glocal perspective into international human

rights initiatives that aim to change public

policy, human rights advocates can adapt to the

increasingly urbanised, global society and more

effectively implement human rights policies that

fit within the local context.

Furthermore, local governments can and

should take a more active role in promoting

human rights within their cities in order to

compete as an international power. Edward

Glaeser, a prominent professor of urban

economics, stresses the importance of fostering

cities as economic powers in his book, Triumph

of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us

Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier.

He argues that due to “the global decline in

transport costs” and the ability for business to

move to places to that will appeal to a

productive workforce, “attractive cities like

London also entice enterprises and

entrepreneurs by their quality of life.” (118).

While this argument is in part meant to prove

that the community and social allure of cities

will still be relevant as companies move towards

telecommunications, Glaeser’s point still relates

the economic prosperity of the city to its ability

to provide its citizens the grounds for a good life,

both in the provision of basic goods and services

and in recognition and tolerance of various

cultures and lifestyles. Making a strong

commitment to using human rights as a standard

for local policy, while valuable in its own right,

would also show a commitment to values that

would entice people to live and work there. A

city could also benefit from an international

perspective through a potentially enhanced

status or collaboration with other cities around

the world. In a report by Columbia Law School, it

is argued that local governments “could reap the

diplomatic and economic benefits” of

globalisation “by grounding policy in human

rights terms” (Kamuf Ward, 5). The exchange

among a global community of cities dedicated to

human rights could foster innovative ideas about

how to handle global problems that could garner

influence at the national and international levels.

This interplay between the local and the global is

a connection that can be reinforced by human

rights implementation, and it would be in a city’s

best interest to engage with these global issues

in order to show itself as a true international

force.

Local governments should also be a key

focus in the implementation of international

human rights issues because they are the most

direct access point to changing policies that will

affect the daily lives of their constituents. As

shown in a number of articles within the

Amnesty International Netherlands report,

issues like housing, public employment, policing,

and providing basic social needs generally fall

under the local domain of resource allocation.

Van Lindert and Lettinga summarise common

trends within these sectors in major cities that

have seen a sharp rise in inequality by

30

concluding that urbanisation “accompanied

with… non-existent or ineffective distributive

policies… has been associated with poverty and

an increasing gap…not only in terms of income

but also in social, cultural, spatial, and political

forms” (9). Social scientists and public policy

practitioners alike have commented on the stark

inequality that can be seen in the small space of

a city, and local governments in major cities, like

New York, have publically committed to work

towards lessening this divide. Gardner, in her

post “Cities Are Taking the Lead on Inequality,”

warns that the concerns over inequality that

have become overwhelming in major cities in

the United States “translate easily to a European

context” with over 70% of Europeans living in

urban areas today. She goes on to argue that a

solution should not “stymie urban regeneration

policies and investment…Rather urban leaders

must recognize that the benefits of development

are not evenly felt.” (Gardner, Cities Are Taking

the Lead on Inequality,”). It is important to note

that innovative local policies that will help the

lowest in society attain a reasonable standard of

life should go hand in hand with economic

growth and urban investment; they do not

necessarily have to compete with each other. To

further bring this warning home, Diane Abbott

MP argues for a stronger presence in

policymaking from the Mayor and the greater

city of London in issues related to immigration,

housing, health and equal educational and

economic opportunity (Abbott). She aptly titles

her lecture “A Tale of Two Cities,” which harks

back to the first line of Dickens’ novel and more

recently to the mayor of New York’s 2013

speech for his mayoral campaign kick off. This

phrase is recurring in a number of popular

pieces that focus on urban inequality as it

instantly summarises the socially segregated life

that two people can have in the same city. This

phrase evokes the idea that cities are at a

turning point. They can either continue on the

path of rising inequality and potentially

festering instability, or incorporate economic

and social inclusion in public policy to promote

growth and opportunity. If cities implemented

policies with a human rights perspective

towards economic and social standards, they

could potentially reverse the trend of inequality

and be places for innovation and collaboration

that would directly affect the lives of its

community.

Cities as Innovators of Human Rights

Implementation

The concept of incorporating human

rights at the local level and promoting the role of

cities in human rights implementation started to

gain traction in the late 1990s with the idea of

the “Human Rights City.” Van der Berg, in her

contribution to the Amnesty International

Netherlands report, outlines the growth of this

city status and methodology from the People’s

Movement for Human Rights Learning (PDHRE),

an international non-profit organisation that

aims to promote the education and

incorporation of human rights in people’s daily

lives. The goal for their initiative for the

methodology of a “human rights city” was to

create a “local learning community, including

citizens, local civil society, local governments

and professionals…with human rights as guiding

principles” (van der Berg, 13). The standard of

PDHRE’s approach to its methodology that van

der Berg highlights is a focus on education, a

steering group of community stake holders to

foster collaboration, action plans for human

rights initiatives, and evaluation of progress

with regards to these initiatives (13). PDHRE’s

approach to local human rights initiatives is a

progressive standard in the way that it focuses

on cooperation among a number of different

sectors of society and requires that cities

actively engage with the issue of how to

31

implement human rights in their community

through reflective action plans instead of solely

paying lip service to the concept. The first

established “human rights city” was Rosario,

Argentina, but there are now seventeen cities

across the world that have adapted PDHRE

methodology to human rights implementation

in countries like India, Kenya, Canada, Taiwan,

Bosnia and Brazil (“Human Rights Cities”). The

concept of a “human rights city” as presented by

PDHRE is an engaging way for cities to show a

commitment to human rights at the local level,

and its international methodology interestingly

brings in the idea of glocalisation in its ability to

adapt to a broad sweep of local cultures

spanning the globe.

While PDHRE gives a comprehensive

approach to how cities can involve themselves

in human rights implementation, cities can also

more informally declare their commitment to

various human rights initiatives and use

international human rights standards to

approach public policy. Cities like Barcelona,

San Francisco and York have taken it upon

themselves to publically commit to various

international protocols involving

discrimination, the environment and human

rights which their respective nations might not

have ratified or implemented. While these

proclamations are technically not legally

binding, these public messages for local

governments push their own agenda and “offer

an opportunity to articulate the valuable role of

state and local government in this work and to

emphasize local priorities” (Kamuf Ward, 7).

The commitment to various international

standards at the local level is a stand for local

governments to be able to go a step further than

their countries might be willing to and also

potentially influence a national push to ratify

and abide by these declarations as well. There

are also a number of examples of cities actively

incorporating a human rights perspective into

their policymaking regardless of the national

rhetoric surrounding that issue. For example,

immigration and migrants’ rights are commonly

and endlessly debated at the national level, but

major cities like New York and London have

started to take action to incorporate migrants

into the civic community. Parag Khanna, an

academic expert on global system change with a

particular interest in cities, cites how cities are

“already experimenting not only with urban

visa but also with granting undocumented

migrants some civil rights, such as the right to

participate in urban referenda, ” and through

these “open immigration policies and their

lobbying capacity,” cities could potentially have

an effect on the national debate surrounding

issues like immigration (van Lindert, 25-26).

Benjamin Barber, a political theorist known for

writing If Mayors Ruled the World and

advocating for a Global Parliament of Mayors,

also takes migrants rights as an example of how

cities can be more effective than national

governments at policymaking for multinational

or international issues. With regards to

migrants’ rights, he argues that “unlike the state

(which both condemns and ignores

[undocumented migrants]), [the city] chooses to

treat them as human beings with human rights

deserving of recognition; and as a practical

reality… which must be recognized and

addressed” (Barber, 19). Both Barber and

Khanna argue via examples related to

immigration, the environment and social

inequality for the effectiveness that a city has to

react to a global issue to which a national

government has become unresponsive. This

idea is not meant to completely undermine

power at the national level; it provides an

opportunity for the city and the nation to work

more adeptly as partners to tackle major human

rights issues that currently seem to be at a

32

standstill of implementation. Cities proactively

taking a more engaged role in an

acknowledgement and incorporation of human

rights in policymaking could be a more efficient

way in dealing with issues that impact the daily

lives of people in various communities as well as

a way to provoke change or productive

attention to certain human rights issues at the

national level.

Advancing “Glocality” in Human Rights

Implementation

To create an environment where cities

feel empowered and have the opportunity to

help take the lead on human rights initiatives

internationally, there are three areas of focus

that advocates of this perspective should

advance- education at the local level of way that

they can engage with human rights in

policymaking, strong collaboration among the

local government and communities of

constituents, and federal support for these local

initiatives. These three areas, as further outlined

in Columbia Law School’s report, Bringing

Rights Home, work in a glocal way by

encouraging the local to think globally and the

global to think locally. Taking the first focus,

advocates of local human rights implementation

should raise awareness at the international level

regarding how cities can integrate human rights

into local policy. Whether it be through working

to adapt methodologies like PDHRE’s approach

into policymaking, proclaiming a commitment to

international standards, participating in

international communities of cities that want to

collaborate on solutions for human rights issues,

or “engaging the periodic human rights treaty

reporting process to assess their own

compliance with human rights principles,” there

are a number of ways that local governments

can use policymaking to promote human rights

(Kamuf Ward, 7). Human rights advocates can

disseminate these examples and work to further

connect international standards to the local

community in their advocacy. More academic

research from a human rights perspective also

needs to be accumulated on the successes and

lessons learned from international

organisations that have taken advocacy to a

local context and from cities that are working on

solutions to combat inequality and other human

rights related issues. For example, the United

Nations Human Rights Council has started to

seriously consider local governments and their

role in human rights and, in 2013,

commissioned a report to gather evidence of

best practices and obstacles that cities face in

human rights implementation. The report is in

the process of surveying a wide variety of stake

holders related to this issue via questionnaires

that can be found on their website (“Local

Government”).

In order to be effective human rights

advocates, local governments or advocates

working in a local context need to create strong

partnerships between them and the

communities within a city. This critical

relationship between key stakeholders in the

community needs to be activated to gain the

most comprehensive picture of how various

policies can help or hurt certain communities

within the local constituency. The Joseph

Rowntree Foundation supports this idea within

the context of local authorities reaching out to

groups from different ethnicities to help reduce

poverty in their community through their recent

report, Why Ethnicity Matters for Local

Authority Action on Poverty. They emphasize that

“by understanding what community, voluntary

and faith groups are doing to tackle poverty,

local authorities can build on their efforts,

energy and ideas,” and that local officials can

“share reliable advice and information about

services and jobs” through these community

groups (Nicholl and Naidoo, 11-12). This

33

argument highlights that including stakeholders

from the community can be a means of

disseminating information and sharing progress

among various initiatives as well as a way of

developing critical debate and discussion around

policies. The evidence found in this report should

be broadened outside the realm of ethnicity

when considering human rights implementation,

and local governments or advocacy should create

committees that are as diverse and

representative as possible in order to truly

understand the local context of an issue and

provide a effective solution.

Finally, to create an environment for cities

to engage in global human rights issues, they

need to have the resources to do so. While cites

may be large, they are normally lacking in

resources and manpower to maintain basic

services within their own borders. The federal

government as the level of government that is

“ultimately responsible for ensuring [human

rights] compliance on an international level… has

a key role to play in coordinating and

facilitating… local efforts.” (Kamuf Ward, 25).

The national government should more

proactively recognize the role that cities could

play in fostering human rights and social justice

within the state and therefore help to fund locally

driven initiatives. The state should also be

considered a potential stakeholder at the local

level as well when considering what kind of

initiative to pursue. Glaeser also points out that

“a far better and more practical approach would

be for higher levels of government to distribute

funds in a way that offsets the added costs of

poverty” (259). He argues that leaving cities to

fund human rights and poverty alleviation

initiatives has historically led to a flight from the

city, reducing the ability for the city to raise

enough resources to combat these issues. Cities

should not be left on their own to combat global

trends, and a stronger partnership between the

local and the national in terms of resources could

help to relieve this restraint.

* * * * *

Through the examples of cities as direct

access points to effective human rights

implementation and as innovators in human

rights adaptation, the concept of glocalisation can

be translated to a human rights perspective and

used to sway the way international organisations

and local governments see cities’ role in

international human rights promotion. By taking

steps to foster a space where cities feel

empowered to take on global human rights

issues, cities can directly have an impact on

society within their boundaries and promote

their diplomatic status (as well as the nation’s

diplomatic status) on the international level.

While this paper focuses on how local

governments can relate to supranational human

rights standards through public policy, more

research could be done incorporating this

concept of glocalisation and human rights with

relation to the local influence of business and

corporations. Another interesting perspective

that could further be delved into would be a

glocal approach to the advances in technology

and telecommunications that have increasingly

pushed local human rights issues into the global

sphere. This paper aims to be an introduction or

summarisation of how various groups advocate

for glocal human rights in the public sphere with

the goal of being a springboard for others to

apply these concepts to other sectors of society

to promote human rights internationally.

Parag Khanna succinctly illustrates the

role of cities by calling them “the world’s

experimental laboratories and thus a metaphor

for an uncertain age…From climate change to

poverty and inequality, cities are the problem-

and the solution.” (van Lindert, 28). This quote

once again epitomises the dual face of the city as

either a beacon of prosperity and toleration or

the incubator for inequality and instability. With

34

the recent rise in global urbanism, major cities

around the world are realising that the we could

be at a historical fork in road between what face

we want to see in our cities, what we want to

allow our cities to become. To end on a more

positive note, Glaeser commits to the fortitude

and adaptability of a city by saying that “to face

these challenges, humanity needs all the strength

it can muster, and that strength resides in the

connecting corridors of dense urban

areas.” (249). By furthering the approach that

cities can actively and effectively commit to and

implement human rights at the local level, we are

taking a stand to promote the inspirational tale

of the city as a place of collaboration, protection,

and growth- the tale that inspires many of us to

come to international cities like London in the

first place.

35

SHOULD WE RESPECT THE HUMAN

RIGHTS OF TERRORISTS?

MERLIN STEWART

is studying for a MA in Intelligence and

International Security in the KCL War Studies

department, with a focus on intelligence

collection ethics and open source intelligence

There is a classic thought experiment used in interrogational torture ethics known at the ticking bomb scenario. It imagines a terrorist in the hands of the authorities, who is known to have planted a bomb that is about to go off, that will kill hundreds of innocent civilians. The authorities believe that torture is the only way to make the terrorist reveal the bomb's whereabouts in time. Should they torture the terrorist? Such a scenario is not entirely confined to the realm of thought experiments. The 2002 case of Magnus Gafgen (Bernstein, 2003) who was threatened with torture by German police in order to reveal the whereabouts of the child he had kidnapped and hidden demonstrates that the conclusion we reach here can have real-world consequences. More generally, in this age of extraordinary renditions as a tool in the War on Terror, one could argue it has never been more important for members of a society to reach a consensus on what degree of personal risk they are willing to accept in order to safeguard their society’s founding principles. It is against the ticking bomb scenario that this article will consider whether it would be right to torture such a terrorist.

In order to do this, this article first attempts to establish the definition and effectiveness of torture. It then explores the phenomenon of there being no universally agreed upon foundations on which societies build their understanding of human rights on. It discovers that not all of our supposed human rights are equally inviolable - one's actions affect which rights one is entitled to. As a result, one could argue under certain (consequentialist) conceptions of human rights, that the terrorist should be tortured to save his innocent victims. However, by following in Avishai Margalit's footsteps one finds that we need not turn to a deontological conception of human rights to find that torture is never permissible. Society must 'ring-fence' the right

not to be tortured as it ought to particularly value human dignity and autonomy. We must reluctantly accept that there is high price to be paid for striving to be a decent society.

Interrogational torture is torture conducted with the aim of coercing the subject to divulge information they are otherwise unwilling to give up. Reaching an acceptable definition of what torture itself is proves more problematic. A lack of standardisation of practice, limits or oversight makes establishing a widely acceptable practical definition of torture impossible. The problem is that torture “cannot be administered professionally, scientifically, or precisely” (Rejali, 2007, p. 576). Science has yet to find a way of accurately gauging levels of pain outside of an MRI machine and unsurprisingly, detainees being tortured are unlikely to cooperate with requests to lie still. If gauging physical pain is subjective, that is nothing compared to trying to gauge the emotional suffering the interrogator is inflicting. Many academic accounts of torture discuss the lifelong psychological scars it can leave (Cobain, 2012; Primoratz, 2011). Most thought experiments on the temporary use of graduated increases of pain till a confession is achieved1 tend not to consider these long-term effects when calculating that it is better to suffer for a short time than to die. I would offer this fact as a challenge to the arguments of those like Alan Dershowitz’s which propose that torture is an inevitability, so states might as well bring it within the law and use warrants to control it (2002). Only on wholly consequentialist grounds, where the level of pain inflicted is irrelevant if pursuit of a good outcome, could you justify legalising torture. The legalisation of inflicting certain degrees of pain is too technically problematic as it is impossible to judge those levels; with the interrogator’s zeal likely erring on the side of inflicting more pain in the hopes of a confession.2 “To think that professionalism is a guard against causing

1 See Kamm (2011, pp.7-9) for a thought experiment on the use of specifically gradated pain as being a distin-guishing feature of torture. 2 The British intelligence agencies’ interrogation policy

suggests officers “balance ‘the level of mistreatment antic-

ipated’ against ‘the operational imperative’ of seeking

information from prisoners held in foreign torture cham-

bers” (Cobain, 2012, p.306). The ethical problem here is

that the policy is an attempt to standardise a practice by

relying entirely on subjective judgement.

36

excessive pain is an illusion... torture breaks down professionalism” (Rejali, 2007, p.454). Torturing breaks down the torturer’s ability to see people as moral beings, as can be found in the account of a confessed South African apartheid-era torturer: "I can't say I am sorry because then I am lying. At that stage... [the detainee] was an object and we had to extract information out of him and we would do it to the best of our ability” (Townsend, 2005).

I am for once, entirely in agreement with Michael Ignatieff that though there is certainly a difference between physical interrogation and torture, the distinction between the two breaks down very quickly in practice.

“I accept that a slap is not the same thing

as a beating, but... I cannot see how to prevent the occasional slap deteriorating into a regular practice of beating.... I cannot see any clear way to manage coercive interrogation institutionally so that it does not degenerate into torture” (Ignatieff, 2005, p.22).

Another important point to keep in mind

during an interrogational torture debate is the highly contested presumption that torture yields reliable intelligence. Whilst being tortured, detainees are not necessarily likely to tell the truth to make the torture end; they are likely to say whatever they think the torturer wants to hear to make the torture end. Famously, torture opponents argue that tortured detainees will say the sky is green and the grass blue if that is what they think the torturer wants to hear confirmed. Former U.S. Army officer Phillip Carter suggests that there are far more cases of torture failing in this respect than succeeding: “a vast body of literature on the subject indicates that, on the contrary, coercive interrogations tend to elicit unreliable intelligence more than they do useful information” (2004). Stephen Budiansky corroborates with Carter’s account noting that many in the military “have pointed out that abusing prisoners is not simply illegal and immoral; it is also remarkably ineffective” (Budiansky, in Evans, 2007, pp.57-58). Ali Soufan, a former FBI special agent adds that it is often the case that detainees are presumed to know more than they do and so are tortured for information they simply cannot give.

One of the most contentious points about

interrogational torture for policy makers mindful of re-election is over the line where ‘justifiable’ interrogational methods end and torture begins. The line between these two is obscure at best and rests on an infinitely slippery slope of technical definitions. Both Britain and the United States, as indeed many other countries have, signed the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 5 quite clearly and empathically states “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. The Declaration is but one example of the many such treaties banning torture these states have signed up to. Samantha Power argues the reason for doing so is that “Every regime on earth recognizes at least the need to be seen to respect human rights” (Power, 2006, p.xiiv). Consequently, the Declaration has become “the holy writ to which all pay homage, even if sometimes the homage of hypocrisy” (Henkin, in Power, 2006, p.11). While it seems clear that in reality we cannot rely on the assumption that interrogational torture is usually successful, for the purposes of our thought experiment we must presume it could be.

Human Rights are commonly held to exist and yet there are no universally held proofs for their existence. To understand why it is immoral to violate human rights we must first understand why we are said to have them at all. As a concept, human rights have existed since antiquity when the stoics proposed that nobody was naturally a slave, it was an imposed condition. Lists of our human rights are not always identical but there are some rights more commonly cited than others. These include a right to life, to liberty, to the preservation of one’s dignity, to justice, to the respect for one’s autonomy and to not be harmed in body or mind. To this list, deontologists would add Kant’s Second Formulation that no one should be treated as a means to another’s end. According to Lynn Hunt (2007, pp.81-82) the establishment of human rights as we know them today occurred largely in the 18th century when the cultural and philosophical developments of the Enlightenment saw their rapid promulgation, or the very least, widespread recognition. The French Enlightenment writer Denis Diderot wrote that the recognition of the human rights of another was based on an “interior feeling... common both to the

37

philosopher and to the man who has not reflected at all” (Hunt, 2007, p.26). Essential to this change was a shift in attitudes about one’s moral relationship to those of other social groups. People of other classes, races and religions were now understood as being as essentially human as oneself, moreover, as moral equals. Haig Khatchadourian, being a notable modern proponent of this position, claims “the only absolute human right not susceptible to being overridden is the right to be treated as a moral being...with respect... [and] not to be treated as a thing or an object” (in Banks, 2009, pp.273-274). Mutual respect for human rights forms the foundations and fabric of a society. Any act that violates human rights tears the fabric that holds together any “community through consent” (Hunt, 2007, p.31). If the states of the world today really do follow Philip Bobbitt’s market-state model in favouring opportunities for over the safety of their citizens (2008, pp.521-522), then the first duty of every state is to ensure human rights are upheld by all parties, for there can be no opportunities without their security. National security must not come at the cost of anyone’s basic human rights. A prevalent theme throughout Bobbitt’s works is a caution that the aim of the twenty-first century market-state must be to achieve the security of those rights by uniting the state’s laws with its war strategies (2008, p.529). States must fight to secure access to those opportunities not just fight for the security of its citizens.

Frances Kamm argues that our most basic human rights exist independently of recognition by anyone or from the foundations of law. There are two ways to understand these rights:

“(1) All that is needed in order to come to

have certain rights is that one be a human or (6) all this is needed in order to come to have and continue certain rights is that one be a human person. While there may be some rights that satisfy (6), most rights that are now considered human rights do not satisfy it. They only satisfy (1). For example, the right to free movement, the right not to be killed, and the right to free speech may all be forfeited in virtue of one’s conduct” (2006, p.238).

The emphasis of the fact that one’s actions

may, by their nature, necessarily forfeit one’s

previously held human rights is Kamm’s greatest contribution to this debate. There are two ways to see interrogational torture under Kamm’s model. (1) A terrorist act is immoral. Terrorists seriously violate the human rights of others in a way that is absolutely, even definitionally, unjustifiable. So much so that in addition to their losing the right to freedom and all the other rights a criminal would do, the terrorist loses the right not to be tortured. Any Human right, even the right not to be tortured may be forfeited by the degree of immorality of one’s actions. (2) A terrorist act is immoral. However, so is torture. Regardless of the terrorist’s actions, his right not to be tortured remains inviolable. This right therefore would appear to exist at a higher level of human rights than the right to freedom. The right not to be tortured would appear to be ‘ring-fenced’. It would seem certain human rights remain independently of the agent’s actions. According to (1) there are ‘mechanisms’ or formulas whereby your rights are forfeited according to your actions. I will now outline one such mechanism that is grounded in notions of fair play.

All human beings are born with certain rights which are inviolable, at the very least, inviolable without just cause. A terrorist, even though he plans to harm innocent civilians, has the human right not to be tortured per se. That is to say it would be wrong to torture a detained terrorist for medical experiments that might save other, innocent civilians. However, we may be able to torture him for information which will save the lives of those he intends to harm. Consider the following case: Terrorist T plans on violating innocent civilian C’s human right not to be killed. C cannot defend himself, he is by definition a non-combatant. The state’s role is to defend non-combatants. C is a member of the state. Ordinarily it would be wrong for the state to violate T’s right not to be tortured. However, it could be argued that T no longer has that right with respect to C. A sense of fair play suggests that if T plans to violate C’s human right to life, C should be able to violate one of T’s rights. T chose which right of C’s to violate – C’s right as an innocent civilian not to be harmed. Why should T get to choose which rights of his can or cannot be violated when he did not afford C that privilege? Ignoring arguments about proportionality and degrees of evil that might prejudice judgement, it seems there is a fair play

38

justification for using interrogational torture if it will protect C. The state must act on behalf of citizen C. The state itself is not violating T’s right not to be tortured so much as it is acting on behalf of C’s interests. T has no right not to be tortured with respect to C. Torture here is permissible.

Historically, there have been many other types of mechanisms put forwards to explain how one loses certain rights. These include loss by social consensus, by convention, by the logic of a particular ethical framework or divine law. All these mechanisms will work in accordingly different ways and it is impossible to argue one that any one is definitively correct as they are all ultimately subjective value systems. If one argues for positions (2), interrogational torture is always ethically unjustifiable as it violates certain ring-fenced rights. I am inclined towards position (2) in this instance. I believe we ought to ring-fence the right not to be tortured as we ought to particularly value human dignity and autonomy. They are the foundational qualities of a just society (Margalit, 1996, pp.281-286). States ought to incarcerate detainees in such a way that their liberty is removed but not their dignity. There is a difference between putting someone in a jail and putting them in the stocks for public humiliation. As Avishai Margalit notes, a society is only “decent” (1996, p.1) if its institutions do not humiliate. As free moral agents our moral standing depends on the conscious decisions we make. Torture breaks down the detainee’s will, violating his autonomy by causing pain so severe that his rational thought is overridden by his powerful survival instincts and so he divulges information he would otherwise choose not to. To erode the value of autonomy is to erode the value of ownership of actions, be they good or evil. The right to our own minds is absolutely essential to any non-hypocritical standard of human rights.

While it is never deontologically permissible to use torture to interrogate the terrorist, we must consider the consequentialist argument that it could be justified as the lesser of two evils. Ignatieff is notable champion of a restrained lesser evil model:

“the use of coercive force in a liberal

democracy... is regarded as a lesser evil. This particular view of democracy does not prohibit emergency suspensions of rights in times of terror.

But it imposes an obligation on government to justify such measures publicly, to submit them to judicial review, and to circumscribe them with sunset clauses so that they do not become permanent” (Ignatieff, 2004, pp.vii-viii).

Ignatieff’s emphasis one judicial

accountability is noteworthy here. If a state feels it has genuine cause to do something that would be ordinarily unjustifiable, it must explain to its citizens why a particular case was extraordinary. Even if, on the grounds of security, the judicial review is carried out in closed or limited courts that is still better than the alternative – torturers operating on the assumption they will only have to justify themselves to equally secretive superiors and only then if they fail to extract intelligence from a detainee. In an age of the Snowden revelations, attempts to hide such practices are doomed to fail; and such attempts once public will instantly dash a state’s slowly and arduously built reputation as a human rights champion.

I accept that there could be some good outcomes from interrogational torture. Furthermore, that the bad consequences of interrogational torture do not directly negate these good outcomes. However the lesser evil justification depends on an overall good outcomes and I do not believe interrogational torture brings them about. Yotman Feldman (2013) suggests we turn to Eyal Weizman for a noteworthy attack on lesser evil justifications. Weizman argues that the institutionalisation of a practice is often irreversible. It is a tragic irony that what is considered permissible in extreme cases may become common practice. “In a gradual process of legitimation, the benchmark of legitimacy shifts – what was considered immoral and excessive before is now normalised” (Yotman, 2013, p.51). The acceptation of exceptional cases as a justification for interrogational torture could lead to a retreat of our standards of morality. For those who would argue that terrorists forfeit fair treatment through the immorality of their actions, one should reply “It is the very nature of a democracy that it not only does, but should, fight with one hand tied behind its back” (Ignatieff, 2004, p.24). In short, “A society that ignores due process in responding to a terrorist attack “ends up being a rogue society bent on meting out what it thinks is justice when in fact it is simply

39

reacting out of self-interested egoistic, self-serving emotion”” (David Corlett in Banks, 2009, p.274).

What I have argued against here is the legitimisation of the use of torture as a tactic against terrorists. Against this, all the threshold deontologist need do in riposte is to simply increase the number of hypothetical victims until this probation against torture seems irresponsible. The best response I can offer for is that ticking bomb scenario itself if flawed. There can never be a scenario where torture is most effective response. There is compelling evidence that torture is not only ineffective but actually counterproductive for two reasons in particular. Firstly, it is clear that torture, especially when conducted in a routinized way, often yields unreliable information. Secondly, in the long term, state-sponsored torture will do more damage to the society than that the bomb itself.

40

THE POLITICIZATION OF BOKO HARAM

FEMI OWOLADE

is a Medical Ethics and Law Master's Student and

also an Associate of King's College (AKC)

Student.

Introduction

There is a division among scholars in the

study of terrorism on the clink between political

parties and terrorist groups. The lack of a

universal definition of terrorism has certainly

not helped. While Australian Philosopher C. A. J.

Coady suggests that there are over 100 modern

definitions of terrorism, Law Professor George

Fletcher mentions only dozens, concluding that

no one categorization of this phenomenon is

definitive. That being said, one thing that seems

to be certain is the existence of a relationship

between terrorism and politics. According to a

leading authority in the study of Terrorism-

Professor Max Abrahms- the narrow and most

simplified definition of the word states

‘terrorism is the select use of violence against

civilians for putative political gain.’ In this article,

I will explore the connection between political

parties and terrorist groups, the nature of this

connection and then attempt to apply it in

determining the relationship between Nigerian

terrorist group Boko Haram and Nigeria’s main

opposition party.

Relationship between Terrorism and Politics

The roots of modern day politicisation of

terrorism trace back to revolutionary author,

Karl Heinzen’s 1849 essay “Murder” which

produced a rationale and justification for

political killing based on the ancient idea of

tyrannicide coupled with the assertion that

government from time immemorial have used

violence against those under their control.

That said, this somewhat implicit match

seem to has evolved over the years. In their

acclaimed book on Political parties and Terrorist

groups, renowned Political Authors Leonard

Weinburg and Ami Pedauhzar concluded that

‘the notion of a common tie between terrorist

groups and political parties transcends a mere

’‘historical or political curiosity’’. A

methodological study carried out by the authors

revealed a three explicit types of association

between political parties and terrorist groups

namely by similarity of ideology, defection of

political faction or political parties directly

endorsing terrorist groups.

The authors further embarked on a

comprehensive research into ideologies and

types of relationship between terrorist groups

and political parties. Their findings revealed that

the left-wing political parties, or factions within

them give rise to terrorist groups far more

commonly than do other kinds of parties.

Early Islamism in Nigeria and the legacy of

the Sokoto Caliphate

Islamism or Political Islam is a movement

within Islam that adheres to the belief that ‘Islam

should guide social and political as well as

personal life’ Even though the spread of Islam in

the geographical space now regarded as Nigeria

date back to the 11th century, the rise of

political Islam came about much later between

1600s-1800s.

Early Islam in Nigeria was spread by both

peaceful religious and cultural means and by the

Islamic culture’s appeal to traditional Africans.

However, the early 1800s- which marked a new

era of Islam in Nigeria- saw the creation and

expansion of the Sokoto Caliphate and the

beginning of a violent spread of Islam by Jihad

(holy war).

The Sokoto Caliphate grew out of the

Jihad of Usman Dan Fodio and was the political

expression of the desire to establish a proper

Islamic society in the region of Northern Nigeria.

The year 1903 marked the end of the Caliphate

when the Sultan of Sokoto was overthrown by

British Colonial authorities. That being said, it

has been argued that the advent of Colonial rule

41

did not change the authority structure of the

Sokoto Caliphate.

According to an Historian in the field, the

system of Colonial rule shows that:

‘While the British conquerors replaced the

Sultan and those Emirs who refused to submit,

they retained the existing system of authority

and administration, which eventually became

the model for the system of indirect rule. Under

this system, the emirates were renamed “Native

Authorities” and utilised by the British as the

basic unit of local and regional administration’.

During the latter years of Colonisation,

political parties in Northern Nigeria drew

inspiration from the Sokoto Caliphate. The two

dominant parties, the conservative Northern

People’s Congress (NPC) and the radical

Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU),

held different views regarding the nature and

value of the aforementioned Native Authority

system. The NPC, a party formed by a band of

elitists who were also part of the Colonial native

authority system, were keen to maintain the

existing political arrangement which would

enable them to monopolise power in the region.

The NEPU, on the other hand, was characterised

by radicalism and often accused the Colonial

Native Authority system- which was at the time

reflective in NPC’s politics- of being corrupt

oppressors of the talakawas i.e. the common

people.

Even though both parties presented its

own version of the significance of the Sokoto

Caliphate on its policies, religious justifications

for Jihad expressed by Shehu Dan Fodio- the

founder of the Sokoto Caliphate- tended to be

much more detailed in NEPU’s political

discussions than what was found in the

literature of the NPC.

In the years leading to Nigeria's

independence in 1960, the ‘Talakawa’ movement

-represented by NEPU- became a symbol for

dissatisfaction with colonial rule and a radical

alternative to the NPC. Talakawa had as its

driving force a distaste for Western influence or

Moderate Islam, and planned to use politics and

religion to create a "Northern Nigerian Society of

Social Justice, Economic Prosperity and

Fairness". A study on the government of

Northern Nigeria from 1350-1950 shows that

many Talakawas (commoners) in Kano State

supported that message to demonstrate

disapproval with what they perceived as an

unrepresentative government composed of a

selected few.

It is argued that this division caused by

Colonisation’s Native authority system played a

significant role in proliferation of radical Islamic

thought among the oppressed commoners and

led to the emergence of Islamist radical group-

Boko Haram.

Boko Haram’s systematic assaults on

symbolic entities of the Nigerian State

After the election of Goodluck Ebele

Jonathan, a Christian Southerner, as the

President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in

2010, there was an increase in violent activities

by the Boko Haram sect, who began to wage war

on the new government led by President

Jonathan, who has often been criticized for

indulging in ethnic factionalism and favouring

the Ijaw ethnic group situated in Southern

Nigeria.

Before the bombing of the United Nations

building in Nigeria's capital of Abuja on August

16th 2011, the most daring activity of Boko

Haram had been the group's June 7, 2011

bombing of Abuja's police headquarters. That

attack appeared to specifically target the

Inspector General of Police, Hafiz Ringim.

On July 10, 2011, a Christian Fellowship

Church in Suleja, Niger State, in the "Middle Belt"

part of Nigeria, was bombed. The next day the

University of Maiduguri, in the Northern part of

42

Nigeria, closed on the order of the University

Authority, citing security concerns.

Boko Haram has made it known by way of

public announcements, backed by terrorist

actions which strategy is to undermine Nigerian

governmental authority. Boko Haram's video

clips -- which can be viewed on YouTube --

featuring the group's leader, Abubakar Shekau,

stress disdain for the Southern-dominated

government. Apart from video footage, the

Shekau, has underlined his anti-government

position in official statements.

Apart from countless attacks on civilians,

other attacks have been carried out showing

direct opposition to the Nigerian government. In

September 7, 2010 attack, members of Boko

Haram set free over 700 inmates from a prison

in Bauchi State. In Borno State, Boko Haram's

violence has killed approximately 800 people,

including relatives of high-ranking state officials.

In 2013, Boko Haram took control of the

local governments of Marte, Mobbar, Gubio,

Guzamala, Abadam, Kukawa, Kala-Balge and

Gamboru Ngala, in Borno State, chasing out

government officials, taken over government

buildings and imposing Sharia law.

All Progressives Congress (APC) and Boko

Haram

Following Boko Haram’s kidnapping of

276 school girls from Chibok in Borno State-

Nigeria, the terrorist group garnered

unprecedented attention from the western world

who previously knew little about its terrorism in

Nigeria. Questions alleging a link between the

opposition political party in Nigeria and Boko

Haram were forwarded by a British

Parliamentarian to the UK foreign secretary on

July 8, 2014. The questions, listed under “notices

for written answer,” were published on the

website of the UK parliament.

Questions related to Boko Haram and

asked by Parliamentarian Andrew Rosindell

follow below:

“To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and

Commonwealth Affairs, if he will commission an

inquiry into the international support network

for Boko Haram in Nigeria and Cameroon; and if

he will make a statement. (Notice no. 204402)

“To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and

Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions (a) he

and (b) other Ministers in his Department have

had with leading members of the Nigerian

opposition party, the All Progressive Congress;

and if he will make a statement. (204401)

“To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and

Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has

made of the rise in Islamic terrorism in Nigeria.

(204387)

“To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and

Commonwealth Affairs, what support his

Department plans to offer to Nigeria in tackling

the threat of Boko Haram. (204388)”

The All Progressives Congress (APC),

formed on February 6, 2013 in anticipation of

the 2015 General elections, is predominantly a

left-winged party and currently serves the

leading opposition party in Nigeria. Its main

objective is to take on the biggest Political party

in Nigeria, a Christian-led Peoples Democratic

Party (PDP).

The popularity of the APC is partly linked

to the collective failures of leaders of the ruling

party (the PDP) to develop poverty-stricken

Muslim-dominated Northern states. Writing for

Chatham House on Politics and influence in

Northern Nigeria, African Scholar Dr. Leena

Hoffmann found that, “In 2010, nine of the 19

northern states had the highest levels of

unemployment in Nigeria – some as high as 40

per cent – with young northerners being

overwhelmingly more likely to be jobless.”

43

She further stated, “The worsening

challenges with poverty, youth unemployment,

poor infrastructure, illiteracy and insecurity are

inherently systemic, and a consequence of the

collective failure of leaders at all tiers of

government to properly deliver public goods and

services or to accountably manage public funds.”

These findings colour disappointing

statistics, such as the literacy rate in the

Northeastern state of Borno, the stronghold of the

Boko Haram insurgency, which is fewer than

15%.

An unprecedented number of Islamic

leaders Islamic are represented in the majority of

the APC party. Even though Nigeria is a secular

country with a Christian majority, this

disproportionate level of Islamic representation

in the party’s leadership has led many to suspect

an Islamic agenda officially unfolding in the

country.

Chief Femi Fani Kayode, a Cambridge

University-educated former Minister of Aviation

of the Federation, who was a Prominent member

of the APC, recently severed all ties with the

political party due to the its alleged involvement

with Boko Haram. In an interview on Channels TV

dated June 30 2014, Kayode compared APC’s

relationship with Boko Haram and Sinn Fein’s

relationship with the IRA.

“If you compare what is happening in Nigeria to

what happened in Ireland some years ago,” he

said, “you had Sinn Fein on the one hand and then

you had the IRA on the other. The IRA was the

armed wing of Sinn Fein and as far as I'm

concerned, Boko Haram could well be described

as the armed wing of the opposition today.”

When asked by the panellists to

substantiate these allegations, he referred to

statements credited to prominent members of

APC. He stated that General Muhammadu Buhari,

the APC’s potential Candidate in next year’s

Presidential election, who had openly attempted

to spread Sharia to all the states of the federation,

“Said just last year that Boko Haram should be

granted amnesty and treated like kids gloves.”

Speaking of Alhaji Lai Mohammad, the

official National Publicity Secretary of APC, Chief

Fani Kayode said, “he protested about and

opposed the proscription of Boko Haram by the

federal government in various newspapers on

June 10, 2013 and he described such proscription

as being unconstitutional and/or extra-

constitutional and wrong in various newspapers...

[He also] opposed the idea of Boko Haram being

labelled as a terrorist organisation by the United

States of America throughout last year. As

shameful as it is, this was his position and that of

his party.”

The Armed winged analogy referred to by

Chief Fani Kayode was used by Political scientists

Ilana Kass and Bard O'Neill to describe Hamas’s

relationship with Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigade

and Sinn Fein’s relationship with the Irish

Republican Army. The findings of the authors

revealed the endorsement example of the

political party and terrorist groups’ relationship

where the terrorist group serves as a Military

wing of the Political party. In this discreet

relationship, the terrorist group separates its

duties and operations from that of the political

party. Quoting a senior Hamas official, the

authors revealed: ‘The Izz al-Din al-Qassam

Brigade is a separate armed military wing, which

has its own leaders who do not take orders [from

Hamas] and do not tell us of their plans in

advance’.

Hamas itself was founded in 1987 as an

offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood -- founded in

1928 -- in theory, to muscle out secular

Palestinian rivals. One of the Brotherhood's

stated aims is to create a state ruled by Islamic

law [Sharia] with a worldwide slogan of "Islam is

the solution."

The Muslim Brotherhood’s philosophy of

political Islam and belief that the woes of the

Muslim world spring from a lack of Islamic

44

devotion tally with views held by the de facto

leader of the APC, General Muhammadu Buhari.

He has been vocal about the spread of Sharia

jurisprudence, which he views as an antidote to

corruption. This has been a source of discomfort

to many Christian voters, who remain anxious

that a radical Islamic agenda is unfolding in the

country.

The recent failure of Boko Haram’s

alleged ceasefire and its impact on the credibility

of President Goodluck Jonathan shows a

significant example illustrating the importance of

Boko Haram as a political force. Nigeria's general

elections are expected to be held in February and

there is every indication that the process will be

bloody if it goes ahead in the north-eastern

states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe, where Boko

Haram and the APC have strongholds. It appears

unlikely that civilians there will be convinced to

cast their votes in a democratic system that is

antithetical to Boko Haram's central objective -

to introduce the Sharia Law, an objective which

has parallels with that of the Leader of the APC -

General Muhammadu Buhari.

Conclusion

The above has used the armed wing

model to establish a link between left winged

political parties and terrorist organisations.

Although the relationship between Boko Haram

and Nigeria’s left wing party, APC seem to be

implicit at this stage, APC’s victory -which could

see General Muhammadu Buhari appropriate on

his wish of spreading Sharia Law in Nigeria-

could provide some answers to the questions

tendered by Andrew Rosindell MP. The foreign

secretary’s response to those questions have

been delayed since William Hague’s resignation.

Nevertheless, the latter’s replacement –Phillip

Hammond- is mandated to formally respond to

Rosindell’s questions on behalf of the British

government. It is almost certain that Hammond’s

response will lead to an enquiry which may shed

more light on this issue.

45

JEOPARDIZED DIVERSITY - CONFESSIONAL

TENSIONS IN THE AMORPHIC MIDDLE EAST

SEBASTIAN MAIER

holds an Master’s Degree in Intelligence &

International Security from the Department of

War Studies, King's College London. He currently

works at the Embassy of Canada to Germany.

As much as the surge of the so-

called Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham well into

2014 continues to amplify the overall mayhem in

the Middle East, ISIS’s sudden emergence and

the pace at which it has been gaining ground

caught the international community off-guard.

Yet, putting the latest events into broader

historic perspective highlights a rather

continuous pattern: with the millenniums-old

mosaic of confessional diversity being

jeopardized, a subtle erosion of one of the

region’s crucial characteristics seems to be in full

swing.

To begin with, such a narrative does

indeed underscore the more recent alarming

signals implying that the Fertile Crescent,

arching from the Nile valley over northern Syria

into Mesopotamia, is being challenged by a

widening religious schism.

At the same time, two major regional

phenomena have aggravated the topical

developments in the region. Firstly, nationalism

as a concept to stipulate pan-Arab ambitions

across the region seems to have come to an end.

Secondly, Ba’athist minority rule in Hafez al-

Assad’s Syria and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq

discriminated cardinally against their respective

adversely perceived Sunni or Shi’ite Muslim

population. With this in mind, the disintegration

of state entities in Iraq since 2003 and in Syria as

of 2011 provided an opportunity to those who

were formerly oppressed: in the slipstream of

the decline of state entities along the Euphrates,

the polarization at the extreme ends of the

confessional spectrum brought forth deepened

radicalism. This has dire consequences, as the

level of violence is not only creating a major rift

among Muslim communities, but it also casts a

cloud over the security of various Middle Eastern

ethno-religious minority groups.

Exodus from Iraq

On the last day of October 2010, gunmen

of a certain Sunni Islamist group under the then-

moniker Islamic State of Iraq raided Baghdad’s

Sayidat al-Nejat Syriac Catholic Cathedral and

massacred at least 58 worshippers. The

intruders demanded the release of Al Qaeda-

affiliated prisoners in Iraq and Egypt. This

incident tragically confirmed what the Synod of

Bishops for the Middle East had been bewailing

only a few days prior to the carnage that

happened in the city of Baghdad: Christian

minorities in Iraq are going through a tale of

woes, which leads an increasing number of

brethren attempting to leave their home soil --

many of whom for good. Daniel Pipes’

‘Disappearing Christians in the Middle East’ from

2001 somewhat anticipated this trend. It also

confirms the assumption that waves of

emigration are cardinally associated with the

outbreak of violence. In this context, it is equally

important to not be deceived by selective

perception -- ISIS’ killing spree does not make

halt in front of fellow Sunnis,as it was recently

shown when hundreds of the Anbar-based Sunni

Albu Nimr tribe were executed by ISIS.

To that end, looking back, particularly the

overthrow of Saddam Hussein triggered

unintended consequences. Many formerly

oppressed religious groups, among which the

Iraqi Shi’ites that make up more than half of the

country’s population, have been experiencing the

formerly denied right to a political expression

and thus gaining more political leverage. Since

then, with the deterioration of the overall

security situation, Iraq has not only been

shattered by waves of sectarian violence and anti

-government insurgency, but it has also become

46

a perilously exposed location for Iraq’s various

formerly condoned ethno-religious minority

communities. For these groups, among which

Muslim Shabaks, Turkmens, Christians and

Yazidis, that have been living largely peacefully

with Sunni Iraqis, despite there being some

ongoing discrimination prior to 2003, the

situation has undergone a profound shift in the

wake of the US-led invasion of Iraq. Systematic

attacks and threats have led over half a million

members of religious minorities to flee their

country, leaving behind parts of the countries

spiritual, cultural and linguistic heritage.

The Chaldean Christians, for instance,

who have their own patriarch based in Baghdad,

constitute the largest non-Muslim minority in

Iraq. In fact, under Saddam Hussein’s secular

despotism, the Chaldean Tariq Aziz rose to

prominence as he served as Iraq’s Foreign and

Vice-Premier Minister. Bearing in mind Hussein’s

repression and mistrust against the Shi’ites,

while for that matter openly privileging Christian

communities, this may have well driven a wedge

between the two major Muslim denominations.

It resulted in the Shi’ite resentment eventually

turning violent in the aftermath of Ba’athist rule

that ended in 2003. The same applies by and

large to the southern Mesopotamia-based

Sabean-Mandaeans community that historically

resided in and around the Basra province and

has been experiencing profound aversion, facing

the threat of extinction on Iraqi soil. This is

telling, since this minority group does not

admittedly pursue any political ambitions nor

does it seek influence in any such secular affairs.

On the other hand, however, due to the

considerable involvement in educational and

economical key positions, the numerous

examples of extortion and havoc that the

Mandaeans have suffered therefore serve as

evidence for the resentment and persecution

against minority groups.

More recently, in the summer of 2014,

another syncretic ethno-religious minority group

found itself in the midst of persecution, as

illustrated by the fate of trapped Yazidis on

Mount Sinjar, savagely pursued by ISIS militias in

northern Iraq. The Yazidis adhere to an amalgam

of Sufi influence, ancient Persian and Zoroastrian

beliefs, which many Muslims consider as

idolatry, hence devil worship. As such, unlike

Christians or Jews, they have never been

technically acknowledged with the status of a

protected dhimmi community by Islamic

jurisprudence. Although a hastily set-up and

Washington-led air campaign enabled many of

the Yazidis to escape further north towards the

Kurdish regional government territory, ISIS

continues to persecute the Yazidi community

while expanding its foothold elsewhere alike.

By tearing down parts of the Iraqi-Syrian

border, ISIS has managed to ring down the

curtain of Sykes-Picot, officially known as the

Asia Minor accord secretly concluded in 1916 by

Britain and France with the intention to divide

most parts of post-Ottoman Empire Arab lands

between the two countries. In doing so, ISIS

created a strategic pivot from which they

unleash their campaign with relative impunity.

In such an environment, there is neither

incentive nor chances for persecuted groups to

stay on there homeland.

As to the political dimension, Iraq seems

to have repeatedly been at the crossroads with

its reoccurring sectarian violence, however,

regardless which path was taken, the country

ultimately yielded to disadvantage either the

Sunni or Shi’ite communities. Against this

background, the disintegration of statehood

since 2003 and the reoccurring vacuum of power

since the US withdrawal in 2011 can still be felt

today as they augured badly for the narrowing

opportunities for interreligious dialogue, let

alone coexistence.

47

The Syrian quagmire

Daring a look into Iraq’s neighboring

country Syria, the turmoil erupting since the

beginning of the civil war in 2011 gradually

intensified and not only caused lasting trauma

upon the countries stability, but also to Syria’s

religious and ethnic composition. First and

foremost, with the so-called Arab Spring having

long turned for winter, the country has been

split between supporters of the minority Shi’ite

sect Alawite Bashar al-Assad and the largely

Sunni Muslim opposition to some extent under

the heterogeneous umbrella of the Free Syrian

Army.

Intriguingly, the Alawites make up for

merely ten percent of the country’s population

but are traditionally in charge of navigating the

countries influential political and military

apparatus since the assertion of power through

Ba’athist Hafez al-Assad in 1970. In fact, as long

as nationalist aspirations were to dominate

Syria’s agenda, Syrian Druze -- whose faith is

rooting in Shi’ite offshoot Ismailism -- mostly

based in western Syria in the vicinity of the

slopes of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and

the outskirts of Damascus, as well as Syrian

Kurds living alongside the Turkish border,

managed to come to terms with the country’s

domestic status quo: by tacitly resigning to

Assad’s authoritarian rule, threats vis-a -vis

Syrian minority groups used to be reasonably

contained, allowing minorities some degree of

religious freedom of expression. However, recent

events have rendered the situation much more

worrisome. To give a supporting example of this

statement, the regime’s stance regarding the

multifaceted Christian community sheds light on

the country’s state of play. At the outset of the

civil war, the Syrian Christians, among which

Greek Orthodox, Melkite Greek Catholic and

Syriac Orthodox, were given the choice whether

to pledge allegiance to the regime or reject it.

Against all odds, many Syrian Christians turned

out to be less cooperative than expected.

They responded rather inconsistently with some

groups rallying around the regime’s flag, whilst

others either joined opposing forces or tried to

remain as neutral as possible.

Most Christian church leaders actually

publicly supported Assad’s policy of repression

in the early stages of the uprising. They did so in

emphasizing the relative calm and secure

environment in which they found themselves

embedded when Hafez al-Assad established

Ba’athist rule. Since then, and unlike what

happened in Iraq, a large number of Syrian

Christians were promoted into the country’s

governmental and military ranks. This may have

factored into a certain cultivation of the thought

emphasizing the freedom of faith and protection

of minority denominations that the Alawite

Assad minority government provided against the

backdrop of a Sunni majority country.

At the same time, one can just as well

depict Christian support to the Free Syrian

Army’s cause as it is heralded by anti-regime

forces with Christian leaders being prominently

represented in the National Coalition. While little

is known authoritatively about what actions are

being taken, one can assume that such Christian

advocacy strives in favour to the idea of creating

a civil and democratic Syrian state whilst at the

same time going against the brutal oppression

with which the regime has been operating

against the insurgency.

Now, between both extreme ends, there

also exists a third group of Christians avoiding to

take sides. Some churches in Damascus for

instance refused to make their facilities available

for propaganda against the revolution while by

the same token, just when the regime called up

the minorities to carry weapons for self-defence,

patriarchs advised their denomination against it.

As a consequence, the prospect of potentially

being sucked in by the Syrian spiral of violence

coupled with economic misery narrows these

48

neutral groups room for manoeuvre. Moreover,

beyond the schism with respect to al-Assad’s

regime, more radical violence occurs within rival

Islamist groups operating on Syrian soil. This

has been the case since the established foothold

of ISIS in Syria started complicating the formerly

gridlocked frontlines between regime-loyalists

and al-Assad’s foes, splintering fractious rebel

groups even more.

With more than 200,000 casualties

already and ISIS fiercely besieging Kurdish

towns alongside the Syrian-Turkish border, the

many wars in Syria appear in desperate fashion:

‘an outright victory by either side is neither a

real possibility nor a desirable prospect.’ In such

a protracted environment, there is hardly any

hope for the sandwiched minorities to endure

another winter in their war-torn country. Under

these circumstances, one can thus hardly fault

minorities for leaving their country behind. The

mass exodus that can be seen in cities like Homs,

Latakia or Aleppo thus threatens the inter-

confessional equilibrium in which Syrians,

regardless their religious affiliation, lived

together for centuries.

The Lebanese patchwork

Given the reciprocal and traditionally

intertwined relations between Syria and

Lebanon, the civil war has a profound impact on

its neighbouring country since it currently hosts

over one million Syrians that had fled their home

soil. The tiny country of Lebanon serves as a

panopticon of a unique mix of diverse religious

groups which reflects the wider sectarian

struggles and foreign interests that are

prominent throughout the whole of the Middle

East. This becomes most apparent in the later

stages of the Lebanese civil war lasting from

1975 to 1990. The internal polarization among

Lebanon’s various religious factions at that time

became visible, resulting in what William W.

Harris adequately labels as ’the heyday of

cantons and militias’. Meanwhile, the political

manipulation implied by Syrian and Israeli

presence on Lebanese soil further led to political

instability. Back then, Ba’athist Syria

traditionally considered the Cedar State,

Lebanon, as its strategic backyard, thus backing

its Shi’ite proxy Amal as well as the

establishment of Iran’s Islamic Revolution –

which inspired the creation of Hezbollah. Israel,

for its part, also tried to exert its leverage on ‘a

larger slice of the sectarian pie’ by supporting the

Lebanese Maronite Catholics and the South

Lebanese Army from the late 70’s until its

withdrawal in 2000.

In fact, the consequences of foreign

interventionism continue to resonate in Lebanon

to this date; what seems to be an afterthought of

the Syrian presence in Lebanon, the animosity

between pro- and anti-Assad factions alongside

the Sunni-Shi’ite divide extended into Lebanon

has flared up as of late. Tensions escalating

further can also be explained when considering

the country’s regionalisation. While Lebanese

Sunni Muslims form the majority of the

population from the Mediterranean coastal

region to the region near Tripoli, Sidon and the

western outskirts of the capital Beirut, the

strongholds of the country’s Shi’ite community

are located in southern Lebanon with the Beqa’a

valley that is in the immediate vicinity of the

Syrian border. Illustrating once more the tied

curse of Syria and Lebanon, the Syrian quagmire

repeatedly showed its potential to plunge

Lebanon back into unrest. The numbers speak

for themselves: three years into Syria’s civil war,

Lebanon is currently the host of more than one

million Syrian refugees, equalling approximately

one fourth of the country’s overall population.

While the Lebanese are continuously showing

remarkable generosity in stemming the burden

of the refugees, it will be increasingly difficult for

49

the country to manage the unceasing flow of

refugees across its borders.

It comes as no surprise either, that the

already fragile country has experienced a series

of exacerbating economic crises due to the Syrian

conflict. International trade, tourism and

investment have declined steeply and the public

services can not keep up with the growing

demand either the refugees or its citizens.

Particularly affected by the lack of resources to

cover demand are medical services, electricity

and water supply. As a result, with the

humanitarian situation in dire straits, the

sectarian struggle aggravates the already fragile

Lebanese political landscape. For instance, in the

winter of 2013, the country had to cope with

three major terrorist-bomb attacks, causing over

100 casualties and leaving several hundreds

injured. This series of attacks alternately hit

Shi’ite and Sunni targets, including an attack

against the Iranian embassy in the south of

Beirut, which further sparks the fear of vengeful

actions. Unlike the assault that occurred in the

northern Lebanese coastal town of Tripoli on the

23rd August 2013 and in a Hezbollah stronghold

in southern Beirut in mid-August, the 2013

Iranian embassy bombing in Beirut has proven to

be carried out by two suicide bombers. Indeed,

the Jihadi militant Abdullah Azzam Brigades took

the responsibility for the attack and heralded

further action if Iran was not to pull back out of

the conflict in Syria.

Since then, partisan suspects of radical

Sunni sheikh Ahmed al-Assir, who was

persecuted by the Lebanese Army, called on the

Sunni Lebanese to support their brothers in their

struggle on Syrian soil. The deliberately stoked

ethnic resentments suggest a kind of 'blood guilt'

which radical Lebanese Sunnis consider they

have yet to settle with the Shi’ite Hezbollah. The

latter, in return, make it no secret of the fact that

they have openly started to support the troops of

Bashar al-Assad with their own fighters. To this

effect, Hezbollah’s Secretary General Nasrallah’s

public vow of fidelity to Assad followed only a

few days after a visit to Tehran in April 2013. By

stating that Hezbollah was supposed to fight

solely Sunni extremists in their neighbouring

country, who otherwise would threaten

Lebanon’s Shi’ites and Christians, Nasrallah

justified the deployment of his troops across the

border: if the Syrian regime was to fall, it would

significantly decrease Hezbollah’s foothold in

Lebanon. Adding to this, with the Syrian conflict

spilling over, alongside the often barely marked

365 km long Lebanese-Syrian border, fighters of

various factions are already commuting more or

less freely in both directions, turning border

villages and towns into no man’s land. In these

parts of the country, violent clashes between the

Lebanese Army and fighters of Jabhat al-Nusra

and ISIS are also occurring more frequently.

The bottomline is that with the narrowly

confined size of the country, the influx of mostly

Syrian refugees, and the spill-over of the radical

elements disseminating from the Syrian Civil

War, Lebanon is sharing an immense burden of

the region’s overall conflagration. This applies

also to the half a million registered Palestinian

refugees living on Lebanese soil, al-Assad-loyal

Alawites, and syncretic Druze, despite all of

whom adhering to closed communal identities. As

such, the heavy political and economic toll is

further to the detriment of the country’s

coherence, setting the precarious conditions for

the outburst of social unrest among these various

religious camps.

Lastly, particularly the Lebanese Christian

community is prone to economic deadlock given

their traditionally strong presence in the

country’s financial and business echelons. As

such, the exodus of Christians from the country,

initially starting during the civil war that lasted

15-years until 1990, continues to date and is

likely to alter the confessional composition of the

country on the long haul as well.

50

One cannot go wrong by being pessimistic

about the Middle East

As outlined above, Middle Eastern

interfaith coexistence is seriously harmed by the

maelstrom of political break-up, economic

hardship and militant elements widening the

divisions along sectarian lines. Although regional

confessional tensions are not limited to the three

portrayed countries, the widening Sunni-Shi’ite

split and the surge of ISIS topically accentuates

the intertwined fate of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

The sphere of influence across the Shi’ite

Crescent, ranging from Tehran over Damascus

into southern Lebanon, thereby clashes with the

Sunni surge in Syria and Iraq. This ultimately

puts forward the two countries’ historic patterns

where authoritarian persistence and foreign

influence has been deeply discriminating, at the

very least as of 2003 in Iraq and 2011 in Syria,

against their Sunni communities respectively.

With the disintegration across the region,

it becomes clear that its distinct socio-religious

contours are about to disperse. Middle Eastern

ethno-religious minority groups cannot be

hermetically protected, thus they are falling prey

to the radicalized climate. With the humanitarian

situation in decline, these groups are facing a

Hobson’s choice when being uncompromisingly

persecuted. The recent vanishing and exodus of

jeopardized groups, regardless their

denomination, shall therefore serve as a vivid

reminder that a part of the region’s integral and

fundamental identity is indeed gravely at stake. It

should be in the international community’s

interest to step up efforts to curb barbarism, and

to dare, at the helm, adamant engagement

towards all-encompassing inclusiveness and

reconciliation; otherwise the repercussions of the

amorphic Middle East are likely to resonate

beyond the region with unforeseen, but certainly

painful consequences.

51

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SHOULD WE RESPECT THE HUMAN

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THE POLITICIZATION OF BOKO HARAM

FEMI OWOLADE

Aislinn Laing, "Boko Haram Leader taunts US

over Bounty", The Telegraph, 69 December 6457

Andrew Higgins ‘How Israel helped to spawn

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