Time to face the facts

By guest author Dot Walsh

People Get Ready: The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy is a new book by Robert W. McChesney with John Nichols, the popular national affairs correspondent at The Nation. The authors write that “The United States retains the facade of democracy. It remains a democracy on paper and in our hearts. But ours is, increasingly, a citizenless democracy…Oligarchs and their servants call the shots for the feudal serfs of corporate capital.”

As with the environment, the threat to democracy is dire. The United States has created, as Dr. Kathie Malley-Morrison pointed out, the greatest wealth inequality since the 1920s. McChesney and Nichols warn us that the technological revolution is contributing to the ever-increasing wealth and power of a tiny minority of Americans at the expense of everyone else—a problem that needs a revolutionary solution to avoid the massive unemployment and undemocratization that will accompany unfettered capitalism.

All is not lost. People still have the vote and the economy has not completely crashed yet. There are some ways that citizens can take back their power and create a peaceful revolution. Locally, the willingness of ordinary citizens to protest against developments that endanger their lives and their environment can be seen in the opposition to new pipelines and fracking . On a broader level, social media like change.org provide a way for individuals and groups to speak out against powerful organizations engaged in harmful pursuits

Dot Walsh is a lifelong peace activist and member of the Engaging Peace Board of Directors.

Poverty: A terrible terrorist, Part 2

By guest author Charikleia TsatsaroniBegging

Mahatma Gandhi said, “Poverty is the worst violence.” Poverty is also a terrorist.

Poverty means threats of or actual loss of jobs, loss of pensions, loss of one’s home, loss of hope. It means living under the heavy shadow of a big national financial debt, constantly terrorized by the risk that your country will be bankrupted, fearful of reprisals if you protest austerity programs that bring no relief to poverty. After three years of austerity in Greece, freedom from such terror feels unattainable.

All these violent expressions of poverty can have serious consequences to people’s health and psychological well-being. For example, currently the Greek health care and education systems lack adequate materials and personnel, and have become more difficult to access, as well as less egalitarian. Unemployment has reached record-breaking rates.

Greek people seem increasingly distrustful. Such social distrust can sometimes take the form of violent social conflicts. For instance, racist attacks on immigrants and refugees are more common since the financial crisis, because some people consider immigrant groups and refugees to be the cause of unemployment in Greece. Also, for the first time since 1950, the infant mortality rates went up in 2012, as well as suicide rates and psychological problems (e.g., stress, panic attacks).

Poverty is a nearly global problem hurting individuals and communities well beyond the borders of my own country. For decades, many organizations around the world have tried to deal with it. Do they work together or compete or undermine each other? Where do their interests lie–with ordinary people or the power elites?

What can ordinary people do to stop this form of violence? Are there effective ways to help? Are there peaceful ways to protest against poverty and the terror it produces?

I have sought answers and inspiration in different places such as the thought-provoking films from the project “Why poverty?” that aim to inspire people to ask questions about poverty, become part of the solution, and bring positive change. More significantly, I try to remain mindful and engaged.

Charikleia Tsatsaroni, MSc., EdM., from Greece, is the former head of the Department of Human Resource Training and Development of the Greek Organization Against Drugs (OKANA), and is a member of GIPGAP.

Violence in Africa

First in a series by guest author Mbaezue Emmanuel Chukwuemeka

Some schools of thought maintain that force or violence can sometimes be an effective means of resolving conflicts. The reality, however, is that violence breeds violence. The perceived enemy whom you beat down today may rise up tomorrow and obliterate you.

African wars and conflicts--map
African wars and conflicts 1980-1996. Image in public domain.

In cases of civil wars and insurgencies, the warring parties may believe that violence is the only way to either maintain the status quo or protect the rights and interests of a perceived marginalized or isolated group.

The bitter truth remains that it is the ordinary men, women, and children who are plunged into unimaginable suffering. Most of these civilians become Internal Displaced Persons (IDPs) or refugees in their own homelands.

Most civil wars or crises happening in Africa today are manifestations of the “greed and grievance theory”—that is, it is the corrupt practices of many government officials that give rise to conditions of poverty, unemployment, and illiteracy. These conditions in turn give rise to feelings of exclusion or marginalization, both of which are recipes for disaster and potentially violent confrontations.

Governments have the bulk of the blame for the under-developed state of most African countries. Therefore, it should be their responsibility to remedy those conditions through dialogue with the aggrieved parties and developmental projects.

Unfortunately, what most African governments do to silence or discourage any form agitation or protest is to engage in indiscriminate killings, unlawful incarceration, and torture. African politicians would rather die in power than take responsibility for their failures and resign. When the government responds with violence to political/economic issues, radical groups, more often than not, equally counter with force.

Thus, the cycle of violence continues until the power elite can become convinced of the benefits of nonviolence.

Mbaezue Emmanuel Chukwuemeka has a Masters of Science in Conflict Management and Peace Studies from University of Jos, Jos, Plateau State. He is a member of Institute of Chartered Mediators and Conciliators, and works as a paralegal counsel at the Legal Aid Council for the Federal Ministry of Justice in Nigeria.

Prosecuting the perpetrators (The Khmer Rouge genocide, Part 3)

[This is the third of four posts by Dr. Leakhena Nou on the legacy of the Khmer Rouge genocide.]

In the 21st century, efforts have been made to promote restorative justice and end the culture of impunity in Cambodia. For example, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, a hybrid court drawing on U.N. and Cambodian legal teams, began prosecuting senior Khmer Rouge perpetrators in February 2009.

Killing Fields bones
Killing Fields bones of children in Cambodia. Photo by Oliver Spalt used under CC Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

In Case 001,  Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch, former S-21 Chief Commandant), was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity (murder, enslavement, torture, and other inhumane acts). When Duch appealed the verdict,  the ECCC responded by handing down a sentence of life imprisonment without parole or further appeals.

Duch’s formal apology was disseminated to the public:

“May I be permitted to apologize to the survivors of the [Khmer Rouge] regime and also the loved ones of those who died brutally during the regime […] I know that the crimes I committed against the lives of those people, including women and children, are intolerably and unforgivably serious crimes. My plea is that you leave the door open for me to seek forgiveness.”

In your view, how should Cambodians and others respond to such an apology after a genocide?

Case 002 brings to trial four other senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge including Ieng Sary (former Minister of Foreign Affairs), and his wife Ieng Thirith (former Minister of Social Affairs).

Despite current legal initiatives to end the culture of impunity and deter violence, Cambodia remains plagued by chronic, multifaceted, and evolving social problems. These include

  • Human and sex trafficking and other related human rights abuses
  • High rates of unemployment, poverty, diseases, and domestic violence
  • Widening inequalities among social groups, and
  • Lack of access to adequate education, health, and social services.

 

These shortcomings highlight and reinforce many of the social, economic, political, and structural problems and conditions that ignited the Khmer Rouge violence nearly forty years ago.

Leakhena Nou, Associate Professor of sociology at California State University at Long Beach and executive director of the Applied Social Research Institute of Cambodia