Chidi Odinkalu and Cesare Romano comment on the forthcoming launch of an African human rights tribunal.
Botswana may have economically viable gas reserves in addition to diamonds:
The Coalbed Methane Exploration Study initiated by the Department of Geological Survey [...] was done through drilling, coring, and testing, which revealed that the coal beds within the project area contain an estimated gas-in-place resource of 60 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), in addition to the 136 Tcf estimated to be contained in the associated carbonaceous shales, bringing the total to 196 Tcf of gas-in-place.
[...]
The report states that 15-20% of the Coalbed Methane gas-in-place could potentially be developed at a gas price of $2 per thousand cubic feet. Modie explained that the $2 per thousand cubic feet estimate is for pumping the gas directly from the holes and does not include infrastructure. He said even though there is potential, it should be taken into consideration that the end result of the project is bound to take a few years. According to the report, the resource figures provided are based on only four drill holes spread over an area of about 41 459 square kilometres, with limited subsurface control in deeper parts of the basin.
Coalbed methane reserves also exist in South Africa and Zimbabwe, and there has been some limited exploitation of the South African reserves.
Randy McDonald links to a long and fascinating discussion of religious jurisprudence by Scott Martens. It's multifaceted and well worth reading in its entirety, but the aspect that intrigued me was his discussion of the interplay between religious law and the state.
Scott posits a continuum ranging from totally secular states to those where religious law has constitutional status. In the former, exemplified by Marxism and the laicity of the French Revolution, religious law is not given official cognizance and is subordinate to the state. In such a state, religious commandments cannot be claimed as an exemption to laws of general application; where the dictates of faith clash with the civil law, the civil law always wins.
The other end of the continuum, paradoxically, also involves subordination of religious jurisprudence to the state. Whenever religious law has constitutional status - whether in a totally theocratic country or one with a religious personal law system - then it must be uniformly interpreted throughout the country. This necessarily means a state-controlled system of religious courts with a monopoly on issuing authoritative rulings.
Scott isn't comfortable with either of these models, and rightly so. The theocratic model stifles religious diversity and innovation and, if the judicial interpretation institutionalized by the state is a conservative one, might artificially curtail natural liberalizing movements. The radically secular model sets up unnecessary conflicts between law and conscience - and, counterintuitively, can also stifle religious innovation.
This is a result of the interaction of the secular state with modern civil rights legislation, particularly laws prohibiting religious discrimination. Such laws make it difficult for the courts to refrain entirely from interpreting religious law, because a plaintiff who claims that he was discriminated against for following religious commandments puts the nature of those commandments in issue. The 1977 decision in Ahmad v. ILEA, a British case cited in Scott's post and discussed in detail here, is illustrative. The plaintiff in Ahmad, a schoolteacher, requested that his Friday lunch breaks be extended to permit him to attend Jumah prayers. In order to determine whether the requested accommodation was reasonable, the court took evidence on whether it was obligatory for Muslims to engage in public prayer on Friday.
The Ahmad court thus set itself up as an interpreter of Islamic law. Although it did so with the aid of expert witnesses, it was the final arbiter in the event of contradictory expert testimony. In effect, a secular court determined how Islamic law should be interpreted in the United Kingdom. Although its ruling was not directly binding on the leaders of Muslim communities, it established the civil law within which those communities must function. The path of least resistance for any Islamic scholar called upon to rule on the same issue, therefore, is to rule consistently with the court decision and avoid placing his congregation in conflict with the state. Rulings like Ahmad will have at least an indirect effect on religious jurisprudence within the jurisdiction of the deciding court and will give an edge to the interpretation favored by the judges, all of which inhibits innovation and dissent.
To Scott, cases such as Ahmad set up a contradiction for secular states:
On the one hand, a secular state must either demand the tacit abandonment of the citizen's religious values when they conflict with policy, or it must set itself up as the judge of what is and isn't required by someone's religion. We must either fix people into religious categories and set up rules for each, doing what Clermont-Tonnerre opposes and letting the Jews (and perforce the Christians, Muslims, Raëlians, et al.) have their own judges, or we must refuse the citizen any right to a religious practice which contradicts public policy.
There is a third possible model for the secular state, however, in which the state refrains from assigning people to religious categories but enforces voluntary commitments. This is one area where American law, messy and compromise-driven as it is, achieves a near-optimal balance in which neither state nor religion is subordinate.
American courts are both more and less reticent about enforcing religious law than those in other Western countries. On the one hand, American judges will not presume to determine how religious law is or should be interpreted. In civil rights cases akin to Ahmad, American courts focus not on what the commandments of the plaintiff's religion actually are but on what he sincerely believes them to be. A Muslim who sincerely believes that he is obligated to attend Jumah prayers would be entitled to accommodation from his employer - for instance, a longer lunch break on Friday in return for staying late on some other day - while a Muslim who believes that such prayers are not obligatory would not be entitled to the extra time. Likewise, American prisoners who sincerely believe they are Jews are entitled to receive kosher food and attend Jewish religious services regardless of whether they are halachically Jewish.
On the other hand, American courts will enforce contracts in which individuals agree to be judged by particular religious authorities. This occurs often in cases involving Jewish marriage, where the parties may agree in a pre-nuptial contract to abide by the decisions of a certain religious court. Orthodox Jewish businessmen may also agree to submit commercial disputes to religious authorities, whose decisions will be enforced in the same way as those of any other arbitrator. In such cases, the courts do not decide whether the ruling of the religious authorities was correct; instead, they simply enforce the secular contract in which the parties agreed to abide by that ruling.
In some cases, voluntary assumption of religious obligations does yield to policy - for example, a person who sincerely believes that God has commanded him to commit murder cannot claim exemption from the criminal law. The urgency of the state interest necessary to overcome the free exercise of religion is often controversial, as with Native American rituals involving controlled substances. In the majority of cases, however, the American model avoids both the pitfalls cited by Scott. The government does not assign anyone to religious categories; the sincere beliefs of a follower of one sect of Judaism or Islam will not be privileged over those of another, and it is even possible to belong to a religion of one. At the same time, those who follow the tenets of a particular denomination can, to a considerable extent, choose to be judged according to its law rather than that of the state. Since the choice in all cases belongs to the individual, competition and dissent within religions is not precluded, and new interpretations of religious law can develop naturally.
American law concerning religion has some ragged edges. One occurs where the government asserts a doubtful pubic interest against the practices of a minority faith. Another is the threshold question of distinguishing religious from non-religious beliefs, an issue that has called upon several courts to determine whether a particular belief system is a religion. Making sure that voluntarily assumed obligations are really voluntary and that sincerely held beliefs are really sincere also pose difficult legal and evidentiary questions. The American model shows, however, that it is possible in theory - and to a considerable extent in practice - to concede religion a place in public life while remaining a secular state, and to enforce voluntary religious obligations without stifling diversity.
The escalating Darfur conflict has spread to Chad with the bombing of a Chadian border town by Sudanese forces. More than 100,000 refugees have already fled into Chad ahead of a Sudanese government offensive, and as many as half a million more have been internally displaced within Sudan.
This isn't the first time that Chad has been involved in the Darfur conflict; its troops have operated on the Sudanese side of the border with the consent of Sudan's government, and its government has attempted to broker a conference of border peoples. This is, however, the first attack on Chadian territory by Sudanese government forces. It isn't immediately clear whether the bombing was accidental or represents a purposeful escalation; the Sudanese military has conducted a campaign of bombing rebel-held villages, and may have inadvertently attacked a town on the Chadian side. The government of Chad has not responded, but if Chadian and Sudanese regulars clash, an already-dangerous conflict could spiral out of control.
Voreqe (Frank) Bainimarama, the chief of Fiji's armed forces, has won a showdown with the government by being reappointed for another five-year term. The reason he gave for wanting to stay on was his desire to see the perpetrators of the May 2000 coup brought to justice, which seems curious in light of his own role in the destruction of constitutional government in Fiji.
Still, he isn't the first Fijian military commander to make a belated conversion to constitutionalism. If anything, his transformation is less spectacular than that of Sitiveni Rabuka, who led the 1987 coup and imposed a constitution guaranteeing indigenous supremacy only to abandon it in favor of multiracial government. Even some prominent Indo-Fijians seem convinced of Bainimarama's sincerity; former diplomat Narendra P. Singh recently described him as "Fiji's only hope" end expressed the fear that another military commander might lead a nationalist coup. There's something about Fiji that turns former military rulers into liberals, and I wonder if they could share it with the rest of the world.
The Harare administrative judge who ruled in favor of the Daily News last October has become the latest Zimbabwe jurist to be forced into exile. The judge, who recused himself from the Daily News case after being attacked in state-controlled media, resigned after receiving further threats. This is nothing new in Zimbabwe, where quasi-official campaigns of harassment against independent judges are common and have succeeded in forcing the resignation of former Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay. The amazing thing is that there are still so many judges willing to rule against the government; the common-law tradition dies very hard.
The CEEAC countries have concluded a free-trade agreement that will potentially transform central Africa from one of the least integrated regions on the continent to the most closely knit:
At a two-day summit, which ended Tuesday in the Congolese capital Brazzaville, heads of state from the 11-member countries of the Economic Community of Central African States agreed to set up a free trade zone by the end of 2007.
Leaders said they are hoping to build a network of roads and an interlocked power grid.
The free trade agreement would also allow freedom of movement for government officials, students, religious leaders and business people within the community. Several countries had reservations about complete freedom of movement, which is why the categories of people who would benefit are so limited.
The grouping also said it plans to develop a common agricultural policy by 2008.
The CEEAC countries have a combined population of 110 million, and include oil-rich Gabon and Equatorial Guinea as well as some of the poorest nations in the world. The freedom of movement and unified infrastructure proposed in the free-trade agreement are roughly equivalent to the initial steps of European integration, which has successfully lifted Spain, Portugal and Ireland out of poverty.
The institutional obstacles to prosperity are much greater in central Africa than in Europe. In many areas, infrastructure will have to be built from scratch rather than simply being integrated, and its development will be delayed both by financial constraints and weak state structures. Without good roads and power delivery, freedom of commerce will be of limited use in promoting regional trade. At the same time, the agreement will make it easier for central Africans to invest and open businesses in neighboring countries and lay the groundwork for a regional economy. The new free-trade zone is unlikely to create an immediate Central African economic miracle, but it might play an important role in the long-term development of the region.
A constitutional commission in Angola has presented a draft charter to the country's parliament. It appears to have a stronger bill of rights than the previous Angolan constition, but it leaves Angola's status as a unitary state unchanged. As such, although it grants certain powers to local government, it is unlikely to satisfy the demands of separatist regions such as Cabinda for autonomy and local control of resources.
The composition of the drafting commission may have had an impact on its decision to retain a unitary state structure. The commission was drawn from the National Assembly rather than being separately elected or appointed, and it did not include NGOs or civil society groups. Thus, although opposition parties were represented on the commission, the Cabindans were not, so their concerns were largely unaddressed in the drafting process. It seems probable that the conflict in Angola's northern enclave will continue despite the proposed constitutional reforms.
Abiola writes about the jailhouse experiences of Fred Ajudua, former Lagos socialite and convicted 419 fraudster.
The decline in Gabon's oil-based economy was brought home with student riots over secondary school cutbacks. Gabon's oil wealth has traditionally allowed it to provide educational services that are lavish by regional standards, but declining production has led to tuition hikes and cutbacks in transportation. Gabon may soon join the ranks of resource-rich countries that squandered their wealth and failed to diversify their economies - and, if Nauru is any example, its decline could be steep.
UPDATE: Abiola has more.
Bert de Bruin links to an article about Adel Hussein, who occupies a precarious position on the fault line between Israeli and Palestinian identity. Until his divorce in 1997, Hussein, a Palestinian from Tulkarm, was married to Jewish Israeli citizen Stella Peretz. After they separated, Peretz moved from Tulkarm to Dimona; their son Mohammed took the name Yossi Peretz and is now a soldier in the IDF. Hussein moved illegally to Israel after receiving death threats from his neighbors, only to face deportation by the Israeli Interior Ministry. Fortunately, the ministry has suspended deportation proceedings pending a court hearing and has indicated that it will reconsider Hussein's case.
As with the case of Tamir, the Palestinian street child who was adopted by an Israeli family and granted residency in Israel, the Hussein case illustrates the futility of trying to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in terms of race. Both Israeli and Palestinian identities are frequently intertwined with ethnicity, but they are at bottom matters of citizenship and loyalty. There are Arabs who are passionately loyal to Israel and Jews, such as the Neturei Karta, who regard themselves as Palestinian. While these are perhaps extreme cases, both Israelis and Palestinians are diverse national groups and are only becoming more so; if a halachically Jewish IDF soldier named Mohammed doesn't prove that, I'm not sure what does.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a complex one with overtones of dueling nationalisms, counterinsurgency and colonialism. The role of race in that conflict, however (as opposed to ethnic tensions in Israel proper), is relatively minor. There are certainly elements of the Israeli far right that are racist, but they have generally been able to enact their prescriptions only where ethnic issues were congruent with security concerns. Security, not race, is by far the greatest motivating factor for current Israeli policies.
This is one of the reasons why I reject the analogy between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and apartheid-era South Africa. Implicit in the definition of apartheid is the notion of a stronger population oppressing a weaker one as part of a program of racial supremacy. To call Israel an "apartheid state" is to argue that it is occupying the West Bank and Gaza simply because the Palestinians are Arabs - an argument that implicitly renders the intifada, terrorism and Palestinian nationalism irrelevant to the conflict.
The apartheid analogy therefore promotes an inaccurate understanding not only of the causes of the conflict but of the factors that keep it going. It also unreasonably narrows the range of possible solutions, given that compromise between nationalisms is morally and politically possible while compromise with racism is neither. If the apartheid analogy is accepted, then the Palestinians cannot legitimately be asked to make concessions in return for peace and statehood - a position which gives aid and comfort to Palestinian maximalists but does little to advance the cause of peace. In a conflict as politically sensitive and morally complex as this one, such analogies are profoundly unhelpful.
The sponsors of the Somali peace talks are reporting progress with delegates agreeing on the selection, composition and duration of a transitional parliament. I remain skeptical about the final outcome of the peace process, though; previous temporary accords have failed to lead to agreement on final status issues and the existing transitional government has been able to establish little authority on the ground. There are too many armed factions with agendas, and central authority is too weak, to permit an easy reunification of the country.
In a continent full of disputed borders, it isn't surprising that Somaliland and Puntland have one. The Sool region, which was part of British Somaliland during the colonial era, is now claimed by the Republic of Somaliland, but most of its clans are associated with Puntland to the east. Most residents of Sool boycotted the Somaliland election, and the area has been the scene of periodic clashes.
The most recent, and most dangerous, eruption of the Somaliland-Puntland dispute began late last year, when Puntland forces seized control of Las Anod, the capital of Sool. Although a major battle has not yet occurred, Somaliland troops are moving into the region and many believe that clashes are imminent. If fighting breaks out, it could easily turn into full-scale war much like the Ogaden war of the 1980s or the Ethiopia-Eritrea border conflict.
If the current tensions were playing out anywhere else in Africa, there would be a chance that international mechanisms might resolve them. Mediation and voluntary ICJ jurisdiction have played an increasing part in settling long-standing African border disputes; in at least one case, the Agacher Strip conflict between Mali and Burkina Faso, such methods were successful in ending a war. Somaliland and Puntland, however, are both states whose existence is not recognized by the international community and, while Puntland continues to regard itself as part of Somalia, Somaliland does not. The United Nations has appealed for calm, but can do little to resolve the underlying problem - it cannot offer help in demarcating the border of a nonexistent country.
The international community's impotence in the face of the Somaliland-Puntland conflict underscores the futility of its approach to the region. Because the world will not deal with Somaliland as a state, it cannot help resolve this dispute peacefully, which means that two nonexistent countries may slide into a very real war. It may also be that, while neighboring countries are unwilling to recognize Somaliland, they are willing to sell it weapons. Puntland authorities have accused Djibouti of arming Somaliland - a claim that both the Somaliland and Djibouti governments deny, but that the international community cannot properly investigate given the lack of formal relations with Somaliland. It is past time for the world to recognize Somaliland as the country it is, so that a major regional dispute can be resolved without war.
The reform faction in the Iranian Majlis has raised the ante by passing a law restricting the Guardians' power to disqualify candidates. The law is relatively moderate, focusing primarily on protecting incumbents and limiting the use of "disloyalty to the supreme leader" as a ground for disqualification, but it sets up a direct confrontation between the Majlis and the Guardians.
The Majlis has had such confrontations in the past and has almost always lost, but there are two possible motivations for its action this time. The reformers could be adopting a more combative approach in order to win back the support of the voters, who are increasingly distrustful of their willingness or ability to stand up to the hard-liners. In addition, they may also hope to prompt Khamene'i to make another strategic retreat by ordering the Guardians not to block the law.
Whether this would be a safe retreat for Khamene'i is open to question. On the one hand, the proposed electoral law would change little on the ground; it would not affect the Guardians' power to veto substantive legislation or to keep radical reformers out of the Majlis. At the same time, however, it would set a precedent for limiting the Guardians' authority and might result in a perceived shift in momentum to the reform faction. With Khamene'i largely dependent on the Guardians to maintain his constitutional legitimacy, it seems unlikely that he will acquiesce in any formal restrictions on their power.
UPDATE: The Guardians have, not surprisingly, vetoed the law.
In the wake of the dueling court decisions over the Anambra governorship, Justice Lawal Gumi of Abuja has gone some way toward restoring the judiciary's reputation by denying the government's request for an injunction against striking workers. An editorial in yesterday's Vanguard praised the decision as upholding the law despite government pressure and compared it to another courageous judicial ruling - Lagos High Court Justice Dolapo Akinsanya's 1993 order declaring the Interim National Government illegal.
The two rulings, in fact, hardly compare. Although the Obasanjo government has placed considerable importance on the fuel tax that is the subject of the threatened strike, the pressures it could bring to bear upon Justice Gumi pale beside those faced by Justice Akinsanya. The case decided by Akinsanya goes back to the dark days of 1993, when military ruler Ibrahim Babangida annulled Moshood Abiola's presidential election victory and transferred power to a handpicked government under Chief Ernest Shonekan. After Shonekan was sworn in, Abiola's lawyer drafted a petition against the government which was filed with then-Senator Bola Tinubu (currently Governor of Lagos) as the named plaintiff.
Nobody expected a ruling in Abiola's favor. Legal challenges to coups and other extraconstitutional assumptions of power have been the norm rather than the exception in post-colonial common law countries, but such challenges almost always ended in victory for the government. At the time the Tinubu petition was brought, only two courts had ever declared a sitting government illegal. One of these, the Privy Council in Madzimbamuto v. Lardner-Burke, sat thousands of miles away from the Rhodesian UDI government against which it ruled, and the other - the Supreme Court of Guatemala - issued its decision only after Jorge Serrano dissolved it and left it no choice. With no precedent to support her and with the shadow of the military looming large over Shonekan's government, it seemed certain that Justice Akinsanya would uphold the Interim National Government. Nevertheless, on November 10, 1993, she "ruled that the ING was illegal given the fact that General Babangida had no constitutional backing for constituting the body."
The effect of her ruling was mooted a week later by General Sani Abacha's assumption of power. What is less well-known, however, is that Shonekan initially obeyed the order by resigning and invoking the provisions of the 1989 constitution to fill the vacant presidency. Senator Tinubu argues that, had Abiola seized the moment at that time, he might have been able to assume office:
No one was anticipating the judgment. We had made alternative plan: that if the judgment was in Abiola's favor, he should take over that night, but if the government won, we would find other means. Unfortunately, may his soul rest in perfect peace, Basorun Abiola, was so trusting. He trusted [his running mate] Kingibe so much. He had told him, we were going to court, he had given Kingibe details of the action. The matter leaked to (Gen. Sani) Abacha, who was then minister of defense.
When, the judgment came and the court declared the ING illegal, and we were preparing to swear in Abiola, Kingibe was nowhere to be found. Abiola was not ready to be sworn in without Kingibe. He said it should be done in the traditional, normal way, two of them, that he was not the only custodian. He said he had a running-mate.
So Abiola was not sworn in, and Abacha - who Tinubu believes might have accepted a fait accompli - ended up taking over in his own right. All the same, Justice Akinsanya may have come heartbreakingly close to anticipating the Fiji Court of Appeal's successful reversal of the 19 May 2000 coup. (For the record, I have more than the usual interest in this case; I've published professionally on legal challenges to coups, and I'd be grateful for any help in obtaining a copy of the decision.)
Perhaps surprisingly, Justice Akinsanya did not suffer reprisals from the Abacha regime and remained on the bench throughout the period of military rule. She remained characteristically willing to rule against the government, such as a 1997 decision ordering the government to fill the vacant Obaship of Lagos. She currently chairs Nigeria's election tribunal, which gives at least some cause for hope that the many disputes arising from last year's elections will be resolved equitably. Nigeria needs a few less judges like Stanley Nnaji and a few more like Akinsanya.
Gabon and Equatorial Guinea have agreed to United Nations mediation to resolve a long-standing border conflict over the islands of Mbanie, Cocotiers and Congas in Corisco Bay. As with many boundary disputes, this one dates to the colonial era; according to one lawyer familiar with the conflict, "the Spanish colonial authorities in Equatorial Guinea removed a French presence on the disputed islands in the mid-1950's." Although France never protested, it also never consented to Spanish jurisdiction, and the dispute continued to simmer after Gabon and Equatorial Guinea became independent nations.
The discovery of oil reserves in the Corisco Bay region has naturally brought the conflict to the forefront. Ali Bongo, Gabon's defense minister and son of the president, recently "visited Mbanie, a 30-hectare island inhabited by a handful of fishermen, and declared it part of Gabon." This provoked an intense reaction including accusations of "illegal occupation" by the Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea, following which the African Union and United Nations stepped in.
The agreement between Gabon and Equatorial Guinea did not provide for ICJ resolution as has occurred in the Bakassi Peninsula and Lété Island conflicts. Given the history of oil-related frontier disputes in the region, however, the Gabon-Equatorial Guinea controversy is likely to end up in court. Gabon, which currently has physical control of the islands, is facing the decline of its existing oil resources and has reportedly been surpassed by Equatorial Guinea in terms of prosperity. With Gabon having strong concerns about being shut out of the Corisco Bay oil fields and Equatorial Guinea unwilling to consider joint exploitation, talks alone will probably resolve the conflict. Indeed, if the tortured history of the Bakassi dispute is any guide, even an ICJ ruling might not settle the matter.
The ironic part is that, as long as the dispute remains unresolved, it is likely that neither country will benefit from the offshore oil reserves, because oil companies are reluctant to enter licensing agreements with governments that may not have legal jurisdiction. This problem affects not only Bakassi and Corisco Bay but also offshore regions in the Bight of Biafra that are disputed between Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and Nigeria. Moreover, although Săo Tomé and Nigeria recently agreed to joint exploitation of offshore reserves in the Gulf of Guinea, there are still unresolved frontier disputes between Săo Tomé and Equatorial Guinea. For this reason, some oil fields discovered as much as a decade ago have not yet begun to be exploited.
It seems that the best way to resolve the West African offshore oil disputes is regionally rather than one at a time. This would require Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Săo Tomé and possibly Angola to regionalize their oil reserves by uniting them under a single authority and dividing revenues according to an agreed-upon formula. (Setting the formula would, of course, be the hard part, but in other cases it hasn't proven insuperable.) Licensing could then go forward without having to wait on time-consuming and uncertain border resolution processes, permitting exploitation of all known oil reserves and facilitating further exploration. A regional authority could also speak with a stronger voice to the oil companies and prevent the "race to the bottom" that sometimes results when countries compete to attract developers to their reserves. If the West African countries reinvented OPEC, they could remove an obstacle to regional prosperity.
The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers has issued a report terming 2003 the worst year for child soldiers. The report cites major increases in recruitment in Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia and Colombia as well as reports of brutality and torture in the Democratic Republic of Congo and northern Uganda. At the same time, the situation improved on at least one front as the SPLA began demobilizing child soldiers in Sudan.
The ongoing Anambra State soap opera took another turn with a new peace deal between the principals - or, rather, the resurrection of an old one. Loyal viewers will recall that last July, Governor Chris Ngige was briefly removed from office in a police coup instigated by political godfather Chris Uba. Ngige was released within days, but his restoration to office was clouded by legal and political maneuvering by the parties, including a short-lived injunction prohibiting him from exercising the office of governor.
Last month, local heavyweights brokered a deal between Ngige and Uba calling for the parties to withdraw their respective lawsuits, cease all incitement against each other and review the state appointments that had triggered the coup. Soon afterward, however, these "Owerri Accords" collapsed as a suspended state legislator brought suit against Ngige in the High Court of neighboring Enugu state. In an unprecedented ruling, Justice Stanley Nnaji ordered Ngige removed from office, which is roughly equivalent to a New Jersey county judge deposing the governor of New York.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit, Nelson Achukwu, was variously claimed to be a stalking horse for Uba and even for President Olusegun Obasanjo. Whatever his motivation, he succeeded in persuading the federal police to enforce the court order - a move that is perhaps not surprising in light of the police involvement in the original coup. Fearing another kidnapping, Ngige went into hiding shortly before a police detachment from Benue state disarmed his security detail.
The situation seems to have stabilized once again, though, with a higher Enugu court overturning Justice Nnaji's ruling and an Anambra state judge reaffirming Ngige's authority. Yesterday, Ngige and Uba met again and agreed to abide by the Owerri Accord, and for now it actually seems to be holding. Among other things, a new deputy governor was approved by the state assembly and sworn in today, thus entrenching the removal of the former incumbent who had plotted the coup.
There are quite a few legal loose ends remaining, and it's not beyond possibility that the story might take another dramatic turn. Moreover, former Biafran leader Emeka Ojukwu, whose APGA party came closer to winning a governorship in Anambra than in any other state, is trying to make political hay out of the crisis by casting Igbo nationalism as the only alternative to PDP godfatherism and corruption. Thus far, nobody involved in the Anambra affair - whether Ngige, Uba, the police, the courts or the state legislature - has emerged looking good.
Retired Canadian general Roméo Dallaire, testifying at the trial of Thomas Bagosora, has claimed that the goal of the RPF during Rwanda's civil war was "not the well being of the Rwandan population, but a long-established plan that would result in a country being dominated by Tutsis." My impression, other than the incongruity of a former UN official describing "massive return of... refugees" as a racist demand, is that they've done a poor job of it if so.
I respect Dallaire's opinion on Rwandan matters, given that he was the only one who saw the genocide coming, but I think that results sometimes matter as much as intentions. The Kagame administration has been autocratic, fitfully repressive and prone to cronyism, but it has not purged Hutus from Rwandan civil life and it has brought relative peace and stability to the country for the first time since independence. Whatever its intentions, it has not been racist in practice.
In any event, even if Dallaire's testimony is given full credit, it will hardly support the defense team's goal of "demolish[ing] an opinion... that portrayed the RPF as being the good side while the government forces were the bad ones." The "government forces" committed a genocide while the RPF stopped one, and that's really all that needs to be said; until government-orchestrated mobs of Tutsis start chopping up Hutus by the hundreds of thousands, there can be no moral equivalence.
The big news in Nuku'alofa this weekend was the foundation of the Tonga Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China. With the attendance of more than 150 delegates from the overseas Chinese community and Chinese-funded agencies, this diplomatic heavyweight swung decisively against Taiwanese independence.
This may also be a sign of Tonga's ambivalent relationship with China, one that favors the Chinese government but not the Chinese people. Overseas Chinese make up about three percent of Tonga's population. Few are citizens, however, and like many "merchant minorities," they are often scapegoated for the islands' economic difficulties. In 2000, one of Tonga's 33 nobles banned Chinese stores from his district, and Tonga conducted a mass expulsion of 600 Chinese shopkeepers the following year after a wave of anti-Chinese crime.
At the same time, however, the Tongan government has encouraged Chinese investment and technical aid, and a number of Chinese-operated factories now exist in Tonga. This is due in part to royal business connections with China, but also to the government's desire for a development partner that won't ask questions about human rights. Nor is Tonga the only country to want such a partner; similar overtures to China were made by the Fijian interim government after the May 2000 coup. Even as the overseas Chinese continue to be the targets of Pacific economic nationalism, China is increasingly courted as a counterweight to Australia and New Zealand.
The police have vacated the offices of the Zimbabwe Daily News after being served with another court order directing them to leave the premises pending appeal. The publishers hope to get an issue out on the streets tomorrow.
An unprecedented 13-member panel of the Israeli Supreme Court heard argument on a petition to overturn a controversial law banning Palestinians who marry Israelis from obtaining Israeli citizenship. Parties and amici curiae from all points on the political spectrum were present, leading to pointed and sometimes heated argument.
During the argument, Chief Justice Aharon Barak hinted at a compromise resolution under which the court would refrain from striking down the law but prohibit the Knesset from re-enacting it after its expiration date. This would be a politically expedient move for the court, which has been accused by the right of pushing the envelope of Israel's unwritten constitution. I suspect that the court will ultimately adopt this strategy in a 9-4 or 8-5 decision, with several judges on the majority expressing a preference for overturning the law outright but concurring in the result. This wouldn't be as satisfying as a clear ruling in the petitioners' favor, but it would effectively take a bad law off the books and conserve the court's authority for future civil rights cases.
UPDATE: Steven Weiss responds.
Ideas proposed in random conversation with Naomi last night (some of them hers, some of them mine):
Interested network executives can contact me via e-mail.
The Iranian Council of Guardians has reinstated about 200 of the 3600 candidates it disqualified from next month's parliamentary election. Its review is continuing, but it seems likely that the majority of disqualifications will be allowed to stand and, given past experience, that the reformist faction won't call the Guardians' bluff.
I'm going to take a day or two off from blogging, although I'll continue to answer comments; I'll post the second installment of "Africa Meets the Middle East" tomorrow or Wednesday. In the meantime, I'll leave you with two questions: (1) if you wanted to create an artwork about reciprocal violence between Israelis and Palestinians, what would it look like and why, and (2) what are the moral implications, if any, of artwork that takes a position on a political conflict?
UPDATE: So my vacation didn't quite last 24 hours. Sue me.
King Mswati of Swaziland, evidently still smarting from the failure of his plans to buy a private jet, wants the government to build him a few new palaces. Specifically, he wants 11 of them, so none of his queens will have to double up. Since the $15 million price tag hasn't been budgeted, it would have to come from a special assessment or cuts to services - like, for instance, programs to reduce Swaziland's 40 percent HIV infection rate.
In case anybody's wondering what I think of Ambassador Zvi Mazel's unconventional art criticism, Shai's take on the incident is largely the same as mine. Those interested in Swedish opinion can find some of it here (although there's probably some self-selection among those who write to the Jerusalem Post) as well as here (for those who read Swedish). I know I have at least two Swedish-speaking readers; I'd be grateful if they let me know what the Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet op-ed and letter writers are saying.
UPDATE: More discussion by Bjřrn Stćrk, Stefan Geens [1, 2, 3, 4], Imshin [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], Allison Kaplan Sommer, Randy McDonald, Dragan Antulov, Roger L. Simon, Judith Weiss [1, 2, 3], Nelson Ascher, Gregory Djerejian, Steven Weiss, Mats Lind, Magnus Lagerstedt, Francis Strand, Scandinavia's Cross [1, 2], Jeremy Schreiber (entry of January 19), Jaakko Haapasalo, and Less Than Zero. The BBC also summarizes Israeli and Swedish editorial reaction, The Editor posts a transcript of an Israel Radio interview with Mazel and artist Dror Feiler, and Calev Ben-David compares the incident to Tony Shalfrazi's 1974 defacement of Picasso's Guernica.
One common thread that appears in much of the commentary, both for and against Mazel, is that there is only one permissible interpretation of the artwork, which was either "clearly" a glorification of terorrism or "clearly" not. I don't think either of these arguments holds up; as discussed in detail in the comments, both the installation and the accompanying text are ambiguous and can be read as supporting or condemning suicide bombing. I favor the former interpretation, but others have argued persuasively that alternate readings are possible.
I don't think that any "orthodox" interpretation can be imposed on a work of art, particularly one as abstract as this. Nor do I believe that the artist's intentions are dispositive. Every work of art contains two works - the one the artist intended to create, and the one the viewers see. If an artist creates a political work, he accepts the risk of communicating an unintended political message to the public and of being criticized for that message. Ambassador Mazel's act of vandalism was wrong, but his interpretation of the artwork was valid.
If this post seems more disjointed than usual, that's because it is; the above is very much a product of conversation rather than an essay.
Kenya's constitutional review commission has proposed modifying the strong-president system by barring the president from dissolving Parliament and transferring the power to nominate Cabinet members to the prime minister. The proposal wouldn't entirely adopt the parliamentary model of democracy; the president would remain the head of government and would have executive powers independent of Parliament. In effect, the draft constitution would create a bipolar political system in which the president and prime minister would act as checks against each other.
Given their experience under Kenyatta and Moi, not to mention the experience of other African countries under both presidential and parliamentary systems, it's easy to see why Kenyans would be distrustful of a constitution that concentrates a great deal of power in a single person. At the same time, a bipolar executive carries its own risks, particularly the danger of a Sri Lanka-style clash between rival executive officers. It may be that the best check would come from outside the executive - for instance, strong courts and investigative commissions or tight parliamentary control of finance - rather than through creating two strong centers of executive authority.
Amalek, or so the story goes, was the grandson of Esau and the ancestor of the biblical Jews' most implacable enemies. The tribe of Amalekites are mentioned in the Torah on several occasions, the most significant being their surprise attack on the Israelites soon after the departure from Egypt. It was this attack that resulted in the divine commandment to exterminate the Amalekite tribe:
The duty to obliterate Amalek is regarded as a positive commandment, and Saul's failure to comply with it cost him his kingship. Haman is likewise described as the heir of Agag king of Amalek, and the Book of Esther is the story of his attempt to exterminate the Jews of Persia - a story that ends with the Jews being given permission to defend themselves and decimating his tribe instead.
What is one to do today, though, with a positive commandment to commit genocide? The dilemma is made somewhat easier by the fact that there is no nation or ethnic group today that claims descent from Amalek, but to those Orthodox Jews for whom all 613 commandments have continuing relevance, it must retain some form of meaning. The modern-day significance given to it, however, varies widely from interpreter to interpreter.
There are three ways that the commandment to exterminate Amalek can be interpreted today. One is to regard it as a dormant duty, similar to the commandments relating to sacrifices in the Temple - one that cannot be performed today because there is no Amalekite tribe, but which will be incumbent upon Jews if Amalek returns to the world. In some variations on this theme, the identity of Amalek will be made known upon the coming of the Messiah:
... we won't know who the people of Amalek are until Elijah the Prophet comes and tells us. And then, we will wipe out all remembrance of Amalek from under Heaven.
Another possibility, which is sometimes advocated by Kahanist extremists, is to equate Amalek with the enemies of the Jews, and to accord the legal status of Amalek to any group that aligns itself against the Jewish nation. Under this interpretation, the term "Amalek" has been used to describe the Nazis and the latter- day enemies of the State of Israel, particularly the Palestinian Arabs. To those who follow this doctrine, a religious duty exists to make war upon the Palestinians until they cease to exist as a people or cease to threaten the Jews. Some go so far as to describe the Baruch Goldstein massacre as a sort of perverse reenactment of the Purim story.
The third interpretation removes the concept of Amalek from the physical world entirely and recasts it as an idea. This could involve Amalek being equated with anti-Semitism, and the duty to exterminate it being reinterpreted as one to fight against anti-Jewish bigotry in all its forms. The battle against Amalek may also be viewed as a personal struggle against the evil within. To Rabbi Shraga Simmons, for instance, Amalek is the force of chaos and irreligion, and Jews may fight against it by embracing Torah:
In our own lives, we can gauge the extent of Amalek's encroachment by measuring our own level of belief in God. To the extent that an individual doubts the existence of God, is the extent that Amalek's philosophy of randomness has become a part of us. One of Amalek's battle tactics is to create doubt about God's presence, in an attempt to confuse and ultimately destroy the Jewish people. Appropriately, the numerical value of "Amalek" -- 240, is the same value as the Hebrew word safek, meaning "doubt."
Reform rabbi Sylvia Rothschild prefers an Enlightenment-based interpretation, equating Amalek more generally with injustice and inhumanity:
Our tradition paints a picture of Amalek as one who will hurt for the sheer pleasure of hurting, who will destroy aimlessly, who derives no benefit from the destruction or mutilation of the other but will do so anyway. The word describes the one who is the antithesis of 'godly' in that they see no humanity in the other, recognise no common bond between people, care not one whit for the feelings or emotions of the stranger. The Amalakite is estranged from relationship, alienated from a sense of shared ancestry, views others as commodities or objects. It is a state of being we can all slide into on occasion - we too can be Amalek [...] as we celebrate the gory end of those who tried to murder us, as we relieve ourselves of some of the stress of a minority existence amongst people who resist our particular difference, lets spare a thought for the Amalek inside all of us, the characteristics of selfishness or conceit, of narrow mindedness or wilful ignorance of other's pain. Our world contains violence and famine, slavery, hatred, huge discrepancy between rich and poor, warfare and oppression. If that isn't the presence of Amalek, I don't know what is.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs also equates the struggle against Amalek with the pursuit of justice, and applies it to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in precisely the opposite way the Kahanists do: as "our internal Jewish fight against justifying the oppression of another people, and as our attempt to guarantee that this people may live in dignity."
I don't subscribe to any of these interpretations; I believe that some mitzvot come with expiration dates, and that the commandment to exterminate Amalek is one of them. The range of modern interpretations, however, has fascinating parallels with the varying meanings given to the term jihad by Muslims. To extreme Kahanists, the mitzvah of blotting out Amalek is the foundation for a concept of Jewish holy war, which necessarily presupposes the existence of a theocratic Jewish state to wage such a war. The interpretation of jihad as holy war, to be waged by an Islamic state until the enemy is exterminated or submits, is in many ways almost identical.
At the same time, the reinterpretation of jihad as personal struggle, which is advocated by many liberal Muslims, has its counterpart in the equation of Amalek with injustice or doubt. Both Jews and Muslims are engaging in the process of adapting a commandment delivered in a more primitive and violent time to the moral values of the Enlightenment. Jihad and the battle against Amalek are often viewed as antitheses by each other's advocates, but they may in fact be two words for the same concept.
UPDATE: This post has received some attention. Brian Ulrich discusses possible identities of the historical Amalek, al-Muhajabah points out that all religions have texts that can be used in the service of intolerance, Judah Ariel (first entry of January 17) speculates about the role of state ideology in strengthening violent or peaceful interpretations, and Mrs. Tilton notes that Christianity has a similarly bloody history notwithstanding its lack of analogous scripture. Temima beat me by two weeks in drawing parallels between Amalek and jihad, and provides more textual detail; I've been advised via e-mail that Emma Klein has also done so in the pages of the Guardian. There's nothing new under the sun.
At least 16 people have drowned when their boat capsized while attempting to cross from Morocco to the Canary Islands. Nine others were rescued.
This sort of accident is unfortunately common. Since the Canaries are an integral part of Spain, they are the southernmost gateway to the European Union, and present a tempting destination for Africans seeking work in Europe. By some estimates, as many as 4000 people have died while attempting to reach the Canaries.
Courtesy of Tim Lovell-Smith: The Pacfic island of Niue, which is in danger of losing its population after being devastated by a cyclone, is considering importing citizens in order to stay in business. The Prime Minister of Niue, Young Vivian, claims to have cabinet support for opening the island to the 11,000 citizens of Tuvalu, who are looking for a place to go before their country is drowned by rising sea levels.
Some Tuvaluans have already settled on Niue, and Vivian describes them as "good, religious, law-abiding people." For many of them, however, the stay proved temporary:
About 100 Tuvaluans moved across the Pacific to Niue between three and five years ago, settling in the southeastern village of Vaiea.
Locals said many stayed for three years to qualify for permanent residence and a New Zealand passport, and then resettled in New Zealand. About 20 000 Niueans live permanently in New Zealand, which also pumps about $5m in aid into Niue each year.
This suggests that, even if Niue opens its gates to the entire population of Tuvalu, many Tuvaluans will see it primarily as a way station to New Zealand. The Tuvaluans are currently angling for the right to immigrate to Australia, but New Zealand will work in a pinch. Immigration from Tuvalu might be more a solution to the Tuvaluans' problems than to Niue's.
John Mbaria writes about how corruption, conflicts with the church and technical assistance from the Intermediate Technology Development Group have affected the Kipsongo slum in Kenya.
The gossip in Kenya these days is all about Mary Wambui, a long-time friend of President Mwai Kibaki's family who has been rumored to be his second wife. Wambui is a stylish entrepreneur and former schoolteacher with a computer business in Nyeri, has been close to Kibaki's family since 1972 and was reputedly married to him during the 1980s. Her daughter is widely believed to be Kibaki's, and she has been seen with him at political and social functions since early in his career. Although Kibaki denied any relationship with her after she was outed in the Sunday Standard, she continues to have an official security detail and acted as hostess today to a parliamentary delegation in the president's home district.
The signs seem to point toward Wambui being part of the Kibaki family, but the president's Christianity - and First Lady Lucy Kibaki - are obstacles to acknowledgment of her status. For the time being, the word from the presidential palace will continue to be "I did not marry that woman, Ms. Wambui."
Abu Aardvark (added to the blogroll) provides a concise summary of the unfolding events in Iran. As always in Iranian politics, there are contrary indications; one report alleges that senior officials are backing off their resignation threats in the wake of Khamene'i's decision to reconsider some election disqualifications, but reformist leaders in the Majlis are vowing to continue their sit-in unless all 3600 banned candidates are allowed to run. This could be politics as usual, with Khamene'i defusing the protest through a face-saving half measure, or it could be a turning point. Right now my money is on the first, but the situation might change.
The indispensable Brian Ulrich links to a Guardian article about the latest crackpot theory on the origins of African civilization. In a soon-to-be-released manuscript, Robert Dick-Read claims that Africa's unknown benefactors were Indonesian seafarers, who "gave Africa the secrets of iron and bronze, exotic plants such as banana and yams, and a new culture enriched with music, architecture and spirituality." He argues that the Indonesians not only reached the east African coast but also South Africa and modern-day Nigeria, a theory that British yachtsman Philip Beale intends to test with a Thor Heyerdahl-type voyage in a reconstructed Javanese sailing ship.
Theories that African civilization was imported are nothing new; nineteenth-century explorers theorized that Phoenicians or Egyptians might have been responsible for vanished African cities like Great Zimbabwe. Nor are such theories unique to Africa; Egyptians, Romans and Jews have been given credit for the Mesoamerican civilizations and Peruvians for Polynesia. In extreme cases, the origins of civilization have been placed, von Däniken-style, among the stars.
In many cases, although not always, theories of imported civilization have been linked to racism and colonialism, working backwards from the premise that a "lesser race" couldn't have developed a sophisticated civilization on its own. While Dick-Read doesn't appear to have any racist motivation for his theories, he falls victim to some of the other fallacies that bedevil such speculation. These include failure to give sufficient account to convergent evolution, independent invention and other potential causes of observed phenomena.
For instance, one of the items Dick-Read cites as evidence of Indonesian influence is that "early iron age pottery spread so quickly in the first and second century AD down the coast from Kenya all the way to South Africa." The Bantu migrations, however, provide a much easier explanation for the spread of pottery styles. By this time, Bantu-speaking peoples had known ironworking for several centuries, the migrations were well under way and the settlement of modern South Africa was on the verge of beginning. It's hardly surprising that pottery styles or other cultural patterns would spread quickly throughout Africa at this point in history.
The banana - another item cited by Dick-Read - is also believed to have arrived in Africa somewhat later than the period in which he claims that Indonesian contacts occurred. Also, while Dick-Read discounts trade from the north as the source of African banana cultivation, the trans-Sahara and Indian Ocean trade routes were well established by the time bananas appeared south of the Sahara. Records from the Roman period detail sea routes to India and "Azania" - most likely modern-day Kenya or Tanzania - and are corroborated by archaeological evidence of distinctive Roman pottery and jewelry styles in Zanzibar. Bananas were known in India and Arabia by the early Christian era, and could easily have been transported along established trade routes to market towns along the east African coast or to the early kingdoms of West Africa.
Another significant thing about the early Greco-Roman and Arab merchants is that none of them mention Indonesian merchants or settlers. Travelers' accounts during the period of influence posited by Dick-Read - about 2000 to 1500 years ago - mention the presence of Arab merchant settlers and suggest that some of the coastal towns may already have been under Arab rule, but give no indication of Indonesian ships. If the Indonesians had an active seafaring trade with east Africa at this time, it seems likely that they would have encountered - and possibly fought - the established Arab trading communities.
Finally, a basis for comparison exists in the form of Madagascar, which does have known Malayo-Indonesian influence, and where religious and cultural patterns are sufficiently different from the rest of Africa that it is often regarded as a non-African civilization. There could easily have been trade between the Malayo-Indonesians of early Madagascar and the east African coast - they reached the Comoros, and the mainland isn't a great leap from there - but the progenitors of sub-Saharan African culture were Bantu rather than east Asian.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i has reportedly ordered the Guardians to reconsider their disqualification of more than 3000 parliamentary candidates:
Khamenei met members of the Guardian Council, the body responsible for the disqualifications, on Wednesday and told them to reconsider, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
For incumbent legislators, "the basis of decision should be that (candidates) are authorized to run unless it's proven otherwise," Khamenei told the council, the agency said.
For new candidates, "logical and common qualification is sufficient and there is no need for further investigation. The Guardian Council must definitely and carefully reconsider the qualification of hopefuls," the agency quoted Khamenei as saying.
As with all of Iran's opaque political processes, reconsideration by the Guardians may prove to be a smokescreen that could result in confirmation of all but the highest-profile disqualifications. The fact that Khamene'i felt the need to have this meeting, though - especially after declaring only yesterday that he would remain above the fray until a final ruling was issued - shows that the reformists' threat to shut down the government has achieved results. Although the means of resistance available to the reformers are mostly passive, they have the power to deprive the theocracy of its constitutional legitimacy and leave the country without an effective government, both of which could endanger Khamene'i's hold on power. It's too early to predict a shift in momentum, but it's already clear that the hard-liners don't have things all their way.
Another small Pacific island is reconsidering its future in the wake of a devastating natural disaster. Niue, with a population of about 2100, is a self-governing island in "free association" with New Zealand, with an organic act establishing a relationship roughly equivalent to what Puerto Rico or the Northern Mariana Islands have with the United States. It is arguably the world's smallest nation; although New Zealand is responsible for Niue's defense and foreign affairs and provides two thirds of its budget, it has complete internal self-government and other incidents of sovereignty such as stamps and an Olympic team.
This is being called into question in the wake of a cyclone that caused an estimated $35 million in damage - about $17,000 for every man, woman and child on the island - and left a tenth of the population homeless. Promises of aid have poured in from New Zealand, the EU and even Fiji, but it will take a considerable time to rebuild shattered homes and infrastructure. The damage has also shut down the island's tourism and fish processing industries for the foreseeable future.
In the meantime, Niue's population decline - which began well before the cyclone - has been accelerated. Some islanders have already packed up and moved to New Zealand, which is home to a diaspora ten times as large as the population of Niue itself, and others are considering the option. There has also been some discussion of repealing the self-government arrangement of 1974 and becoming an offshore borough of New Zealand. Coming at a time when Australia is considering reabsorbing Nauru due to its worsening economy and ecological devastation and Tuvaluans have discussed mass emigration due to rising sea levels, Niue's predicament is another example of the marginal sustainability of small Pacific countries.
The Israeli foreign ministry has launched an Arabic web site to make Israeli media and politics more accessible to Arabic-speaking audiences. The site, called "Altawasul," or interconnection, will "contain political news on Israel, opinion polls, articles from Israeli newspapers translated into Arabic, as well as information related to Israeli culture, society and religion."
The homepage is here, and I'd appreciate it if one of my Arabic-speaking readers can let me know what its subject matter and emphasis is. Altawasul is an interesting concept, and making Israeli media accessible to Arabic-speakers is generally a good idea, but I'm not sure how wide an audience it will get; I doubt that Arab audiences will be any more swayed by an Israeli foreign ministry site than by the American State Department's Arabic-language lifestyle magazine. Maybe the best way to communicate Israeli points of view to Arab audiences is for existing media and commercial outlets to create Arabic sites, as Yediot Ahronot has already done, and allow Arabic-speakers to read without filtering.
Not even a Tongan prince can advocate democracy safely; a nephew of the king has been threatened with treason charges after asking for Australian help in reforming the country's political system.
Brian Ulrich links to a Washington Post article [1, 2, 3, 4] about black Iraqis who trace their descent to east African slaves from the early days of Islam. There are some fascinating parallels between African-Iraqis and African-Americans; the legacy of Iraqi slavery is far more distant and there has been considerable intermarriage, but the Africans appear to be a cohesive ethnic group with a hint of American-style racial consciousness:
In a country that revolves around religion rather than race, the term "abd" (slave) may be used by light-skinned Iraqis in a matter-of-fact way to describe someone's dark complexion. Dark-skinned Iraqis say the word may or may not be considered an insult, depending on how it is used and the intent of the speaker.
"We use the word abd in the black community," said Salah Jaleel, 50, one of Youssef's cousins. "Sometimes I call my friend 'abd.' Of course he knows that I don't insult him, because I'm black also, so it's a joke. We accept it between us, but it is a real insult if it is said by a white man."
Some African customs and rituals also survive among the black Iraqis and may be turning into centerpieces of a nascent ethnic identity.
The Washington Post article illustrates a widespread but relatively little-known phenomenon. There has been a great deal of cross-fertilization between black Africa and the Arab world, not only in Iraq but throughout the Middle East and the Maghreb. As the Sahelian states demonstrate, there is no clear demarcation between the two zones, and contact through trade and slavery has existed from earliest times. And although most of the discussion of African-Arab contact has concerned Arab influence in the Sahel and east Africa, the influence has gone the other way as well, with sub-Saharan African customs impressing themselves on north Africa and the Arabian peninsula.
There have been several layers of African influence in the Middle East. The slave routes from east Africa to Arabia began before Islam and continued well into the twentieth century, with vestiges remaining today in the form of illicit labor trafficking. More recently, prosperity in Libya, Saudi Arabia, Israel and other regional countries - as well as their position along migration routes to Europe - has resulted in voluntary immigration of African guest workers. Others have come as refugees from conflicts south of the Sahara or, in the case of Ethiopian-Israelis, as citizen immigrants. Their effect on the region has been subtle but often profound.
This is the first in a series of posts on black Africans in the Middle East, including the Maghreb, the Levant (Israel included) and the Arabian peninsula. Upcoming installments will discuss the political and cultural legacy of African slaves, guest workers and voluntary immigrants as well as the future of sub-Saharan Africans in the region. The long meeting of Africa and the Middle East is continuing, and going in directions that would not have been guessed a generation ago.
Via Kesher Talk: Vered Levy-Barzilai interviews the mayor of Umm al Fahm, who has some surprising things to say about the fence, the city's future and his plans to attract Jewish-Arab economic partnerships.
Mauritius is planning to follow in Bangalore's footsteps with a $100 million technology center. The 150-acre complex, which is financed with credit from the Indian government and has already attracted the attention of major Western information technology companies, will open in 2005 and is intended to stimulate a local computer industry.
The German ambassador to Namibia has accepted moral responsibility for the genocide that followed the Herero revolt of 1904, although he stopped short of a formal apology due to pending legal claims. A demand for $2 billion in reparations is still outstanding, and some Herero leaders have made threats against the ethnic Germans who remain in Namibia. Germany, which is Namibia's largest donor, has indicated that it will increase aid payments but has thus far rejected the payment of reparations.
Imshin has begun a multi-part analysis of the Or Commission report, the landmark document that analyzed the causes and response to the October 2000 riots. As she and Gil Shterzer point out in the comments, the rioting was even more widespread than I had realized, erupting in Arab communities throughout Israel and doing lasting damage to already strained relations between Arabs and Jews. Her first two posts about the report are up [1, 2] and I'm looking forward to what she has to say.
Her second post focuses on a dilemma that I've noted before - that reconciliation between Israeli Jews and Arabs must be a two-way process. On the one hand, Israeli Jews must recognize their obligation to treat Arab Israelis as equals and to integrate them into Israeli society at all levels - but on the other hand, Israeli Arabs need to reaffirm that they want to be part of Israel's future. Coincidentally, today's Ha'aretz has an article about how an increasing, although still small, number of Arabs are interested in national service:
Today, for the first time, after two years, young Arab men and women are displaying some willingness to volunteer for national service, she explains. These are a few dozen volunteers, most of them young women who prefer to volunteer discretely (some of them conceal their activity from their parents).
This year, the Israeli government reportedly intends to unveil an alternative national service plan in which Arabs may volunteer for non-military duties in their own communities. This proposal is opposed by the Arab political leadership, to the point where the government has been unable to find an Arab participant for the development team, but there are indications that the rank and file may be more interested:
[Deputy National Security Advisor] Gal says that "the Arab population has to distinguish between leaders and young people." Surveys, he continues, show that between 50 and 60 percent of young Arabs are willing to volunteer in national service. Such service commitments which confer on volunteers the rights and benefits that are conferred on IDF veterans and will reduce material and other gaps, he believes.
This is one instance where the position of Israeli Arab political leaders goes against the interests of their constituents. One one level, it's hard to argue with Mohammed Barakeh when he says that "the formula by which rights are won in exchange for obligations is unacceptable." At the same time, equality of obligations is as fundamental a concept in a democratic state as equality of rights. Voluntarism and national service are crucial parts of Jewish, Druze and Bedouin Israelis' bond with the state, and Arabs' attitude toward this bond plays a major role in their Jewish conationals' perception of them.
Alternative national service for Israeli Arabs need not involve acceptance of Zionist ideology. Instead, it would be an acceptance of citizenship - a sign of their choice to be Israelis even as they struggle for the equal rights to which they are entitled. On a more practical level, Arab voluntarism would help soften the budget cuts that have affected both Jewish and Arab municipalities and improve the quality of law enforcement and service delivery in Arab towns. It would also be a partial antidote to the social segregation of the villages, bringing Arabs into more day-to-day contact with Jews and repairing some of the social damage caused by the October 2000 riots. In a political landscape that has often seemed bleak during the past three years, an alternative national service plan may be a sign of hope.
The new year is seeing a reprise of last year's protests against the Iranian government, but this time the protesters are members of the Majlis rather than students. The catalyst is the Council of Guardians' disqualification of more than half the candidates in upcoming parliamentary elections, including an unprecedented rejection of 80 sitting legislators. A parliamentary sit-in that began yesterday now includes more than 100 members, and Iran's 27 provincial governors have raised the ante by threatening to resign en masse unless the Guardians reverse their decision.
The Majlis standoff could turn into a high-stakes game of chicken. On the one hand, the Guardians' decision could be an indication that the government is at the end of its constitutional rope. The sitting legislators who were disqualified from next month's election have necessarily been certified on at least one prior occasion by the same council, so the decision to reject them this time appears purely arbitrary. At the same time, even though the Majlis' protest doesn't seem to have ignited demonstrations in the streets, the mass resignation of legislators and high provincial officials could leave Iran without an effective government. The Supreme Leader and the Guardians have neither the resources nor the constitutional mechanism to rule directly, so this is not a confrontation they will be able to win by brute force.
There's still time for a constitutional resolution. Decisions of the Guardians may be appealed, and Iran's byzantine appellate mechanisms and cross-checks have frequently been used to correct unpopular rulings without explaining or acknowledging error. It is likely that an appeal will result in the reversal of some of the Guardians' most objectionable rulings while the majority of disqualifications are sustained, in the hope that the steam will be taken out of the legislative protest. Whether that happens will depend on how far things have gone by then and how accurate the Guardians are in judging what the Majlis will accept.
This month's Lusaka Lowdown recalls the history of one of Zambia's last colonial-era projects and its costs, both financial and human.
The leading Turkish Cypriot opposition party has formed a coalition with a small nationalist faction. The pro-European Republican Turkish Party will get a majority of Cabinet seats, but the nationalist Democratic Party will get the foreign portfolio, giving it an effective veto over any reunification agreement. While Democratic leader Serdar Denktash - the son of the hard-line Turkish Cypriot president - has shown more flexibility than his father, he is likely to insist on substantial renegotiation of the UN-proposed plan, which makes it all but impossible for the two sides to initial an agreement before Greek Cyprus enters the EU.
A growing financial scandal that threatens Zimbabwe's banks has resulted in the arrest of Philip Chiyangwa, a ZANU member of Parliament and a long-standing Mugabe ally. There is some speculation that Chiyangwa's arrest, like the recent crackdown on acquisition of multiple farms by high-ranking ZANU figures, is part of an anti-corruption campaign in the run-up to parliamentary elections. Mugabe has undertaken such campaigns in the past, although their results have usually proven temporary, with cases being quietly dropped and high-level corruption reverting to normal after elections were held.
In yesterday's New York Law Journal, Justice Patrick Henry of the Suffolk County Supreme Court wrestled with the dilemma of where Virginia Bowles should be buried. Mrs. Bowles had been married twice, each marriage ending in death, and she hadn't left specific instructions as to which husband's plot she intended to share - or rather, she'd left too many specific instructions. Justice Henry framed the issue thus:
The fulsome record before us establishes only that Virginia told different things to different children in this connection, and we cannot discern her intent therefrom.
Not infrequently, we unguided souls who briefly walk this earth lead two or more lives, usually unwillingly. Wiliam Quinlan was an integral part of Virginia's first life. However, a Power much higher than this Court ended that life many years ago, for reasons we are not allowed to question.
Virginia's second life, with Richard [Bowles], began when life with William ended, and lasted for 34 years, marked, it seems clear, by constant love and mutual devotion. They supported each other through their terminal illnesses, and she saw him over the bar.
This kind of writing, which was common in judicial decisions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries but is rarely seen today, is a relic of the time when oratory was an integral part of the judicial art. Three centuries ago, the rulings of common-law courts were delivered from the bench, and case reports were written by the reporters rather than judges. The reports would contain the high points of each case, including the rhetorical flourishes of the judges and counsel as well as the meat and bones of the holding, and judges knew that a memorable statement would increase the chance of their decisions being reported. The judges were also, almost without exception, drawn from an upper class which, like that of Rome, considered oratory a standard part of a young man's education.
By the middle nineteenth century, written rulings were becoming the norm in British and American appellate courts, but the tradition of judicial oratory was still apparent in the way judges framed their opinions. By the twentieth century, however, judges had begun to write primarily for other judges. The ideal of judicial writing became professorial - a dispassionate and detailed rendition of the facts followed by a logical exposition of the applicable law.
In many ways, this has led to a notable improvement in the quality of written decisions; it has made judicial reasoning more transparent and provided clearer guidance as to the relationship between rules of law and the facts of each case. However, it has also resulted in a much drier and more clinical style of writing than was the norm a century ago. Modern judicial decisions are occasionally leavened with humor, but almost never with oratory - which is a shame, because there are some stories, like that of a woman who married two men and loved them until death did them part, that call for it.
Virginia will be buried with Richard.
The Zimbabwe Daily News has won yet another round in its ongoing battle with the Mugabe government, with a High Court judge in Harare ordering the police to vacate its headquarters. Like the News' two previous judicial victories, however, this one quickly came under a cloud as Deputy Attorney General Bharat Patel pointed out that it did not specifically allow the paper to resume publishing. Patel also vowed to appeal.
UPDATE: As expected, the police have refused to vacate the News' plant, and Mugabe has upped the ante by arresting the editor of the opposition Independent for criminal defamation.
Jill Kamil writes about the artwork being revealed by the restoration of one of Egypt's oldest monasteries:
Truly remarkable images have come to light during the restoration of the Cave Church. The 18th-century Dome of the Martyrs at the entrance revealed saints on horseback, with fresh light cast on them though windows hitherto plastered over. Earlier paintings dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, including the figure of Christ depicted against a pale blue sky raising his hand in blessing, appeared in the formerly blackened dome in the sanctuary of St Antony.
The Monastery of St. Paul on the Red Sea is in fact much older - it is widely believed to date from the third century - and further restoration may uncover even deeper layers of artwork.
This week's Al-Ahram Chronicle contains a fascinating profile of Egypt's first woman lawyer, Naima el-Ayoubi, who was admitted to the bar in 1933. The article also contains other details about Egyptian feminism in the 1930s and the development of the legal profession in Egypt.
The semifinal round of the Koufax Awards is under way, and I've been nominated as Most Deserving of Wider Recognition (formerly "Most Unappreciated") as well as picking up a brace of nominations for Best Post. There are plenty of other deserving candidates to vote for, including a controversial nomination for our own Allison in the Best Conservative or Non-Liberal Blog category. I wouldn't characterize Allison as "non-liberal," let alone "conservative," but she has an interesting and insightful blog that deserves to be recognized, so give her your support.
Eric at Wampum has an interesting discussion of two Supreme Court cases decided a century apart: the 1883 case of Ex parte Crow Dog and the 1978 decision in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe. The first of these held that a North Dakota court had no jurisdiction to try an American Indian for crimes committed on a reservation. The second, in an opinion by then-Justice Rehnquist, ruled that a tribal court could not try non-Indians arrested on reservations for violations of tribal law.
Eric correctly points out that the Crow Dog decision is couched in racist language typical of its time, declaring that Indians were governed by "the instincts of a free though savage life" and were unable to understand the white man's law. This language is missing from the discussion in Oliphant. Curiously, however, Crow Dog is in many ways the more modern of the two decisions. Crow Dog was a nineteenth-century case shot through with the racism of the period, but its holding is consistent with modern judicial norms. The holding of Oliphant is, quite literally, medieval.
In the modern West, the primary basis of legal jurisdiction is territorial. Law is not portable; a citizen of one jurisdiction does not have the right to bring his law with him into another. Instead, anyone who travels to a jurisdiction in which he does not reside is presumed to accept the law of that jurisdiction and the authority of its courts for the duration of his stay. I couldn't go to New Jersey, for instance, and demand to be tried in a New York court according to New York law.
At one time, however, the Western norm was different. With the fall of Rome and the Germanic migration into Europe, western Europe developed a system of personal law in which every person retained the right to be judged by the law of his own nation. This system held for much of the early medieval period and, although it was gradually replaced by the development of common law, vestiges of it remained until the rise of modern nation-states.
The Crow Dog decision, albeit couched in racist terms, is consistent with modern territorial conceptions of law - its holding was that crimes on reservations should be judged according to the laws made by their inhabitants. Oliphant, however, represents a return to the fifth century when people brought their law with them from one jurisdiction to another - and, more to the point, it creates a system of personal law for some American citizens but not for others. An Indian who resides or travels outside a reservation is subject to the laws of the jurisdiction where he is physically present, but a non-Indian can bring his personal law into a reservation and claim immunity from its laws and courts. Non-Indians can be tried in Federal court for crimes committed on reservations, but only for violations of Federal law - so if a tribal law defining an offense is not also a Federal crime, non-Indians may violate it with impunity.
Some of you may wonder why I'm discussing this now. For one thing, although Oliphant was decided in 1978, I didn't get the memo until I read Eric's article; Indian law is an unfortunately neglected subject in American law schools. For another, Eric wants to start a campaign to overturn Oliphant, and I think this campaign is a good idea. I don't necessarily think so for the same reasons that he does, but I believe that the American territorial concept of law should apply across the board, that American law shouldn't discriminate between one class of citizens and another, and that sovereign jurisdictions should have the right to enforce the laws made by their people. Oliphant was one of Rehnquist's many bad decisions, and it's past time to do something about it.
The Sudanese government and southern rebels have reached an agreement under which oil revenue will be divided on a roughly equal basis between Khartoum and an autonomous southern region. This agreement marks a dramatic step forward in Sudan's ongoing peace process, and one that will provide the southern region with the revenue to establish functioning institutions.
At the same time, however, the fighting in the western Darfur province is escalating, with an increasing number of refugees spilling over into neighboring Chad. Although the Sudanese and Chadian governments have recently announced initiatives to mediate the Darfur conflict, Khartoum does not appear ready to make concessions similar to those that have led to progress in the south. With the long southern rebellion nearing a negotiated resolution, finding a solution to the conflict in the west is becoming critical to regional stability.
Bradley Burston reports that Israel has received diplomatic overtures from an unexpected quarter:
Further raising hopes of a warming trend in one of the world's colder diplomatic relationships, Gadhafi was quoted Tuesday as saying he was prepared to compensate Libyan Jews whose property was confiscated, and to allow Libyans to visit Israel.
Moreover, the head of the Foreign Ministry's diplomatic team, Ron Prosor, met some two weeks ago with Libyan diplomats in Paris, in order to establish a channel of communications with Tripoli, and a Kuwaiti paper reported this week that a high-ranking Israeli delegation was expected to visit Libya with the aim of reaching a mutual understanding on the signing of a peace agreement.
Libyan recognition of Israel is something few would have imagined even a month ago; Qaddafi has described Israel as "fictitious" and has been one of the primary exponents of a binational Israeli-Palestinian state. This wouldn't be Qaddafi's first radical change of mind, though, and it may not be so strange when viewed in context.
In the past few years, Qaddafi has changed his ideology from pan-Arabist to pan-Africanist. Without the resources or stature to assume leadership of the Arab world, he has shifted his focus to Africa, where Libya's comparative wealth and technological sophistication increase its influence. In 2002, Libya went so far as to withdraw from the Arab League and, although it subsequently "suspended" this decision, it has continued to distance itself from the Arab world. Instead, Libya's primary fields of influence are the African Union and the CENSAD regional grouping, both of which were created under its auspices.
Pan-African politics requires a different set of attitudes from pan-Arab politics. Although the sub-Saharan African nations often vote against Israel in the General Assembly and participated in the nonaligned movement's rejection of Israel after 1967, they are not as hostile as the Arab countries. Most have diplomatic relations with Israel, many receive Israeli technical assistance, and some - particularly Ghana and Ethiopia - have significant expatriate or diaspora communities living in Israel. By making overtures to Israel, Qaddafi may be bringing his political stance into line with Libya's African focus, and placing himself in a better position to advocate for African guest workers in Israel. Such a shift in position also wouldn't hurt Libya's relations with the United States, which is another area where Qaddafi appears to be looking for improvement.
Libya's peace overtures, therefore, may very well be real. At the same time, precisely because Libya is such a maverick in the Arab world, these overtures are unlikely to signal a realignment in the attitudes of other Arab countries. A more reliable indicator is likely to be provided by whether the feelers currently being put out by Syria result in diplomatic progress.
When Jonathan first set up this blog, he intended to discuss marriage as well as politics. Obviously, politics took precedence, so I hope you don't mind if I hijack his site for a day. My expertise is actually in television and pop culture, but after dealing with that all day (I'm an editor at an entertainment magazine), I'd like to focus my energy elsewhere.
In the upcoming year, many of our friends will be getting married. One of them just tied the knot this weekend (congrats, Mary and Tom!) and we have at least three other weddings coming up. Being in our early '30s (I'll actually be 30 in 3 1/2 weeks, so I'm still getting used to the idea), we're at that age where everyone we know seems to be pairing off.
One of the most interesting things about this is observing how my friends and engaged coworkers are handling changes in their relationships. When you get married, you not only marry the person, but his or her friends and family. Yes, that's a cliche, but for good reason. Over New Year's, we spent the evening at one of my engaged friends' houses; during the night, I filled in her fiance on the particular dynamics in our group (who's the loud one, who's good at keeping secrets, etc.). And at work, all the married staffers are constantly exchanging "horror" stories about their in-laws.
Out of everything, I think that surprised me the most - how many people really don't get along with their in-laws. We've all heard jokes about mothers-in-law from hell, but I never expected so many people to really think that about their spouse's parent. Yet many of my coworkers came back from the holiday break complaining about having spent the weekend with their in-laws.
As someone who celebrated "Jewish Christmas" (which involves going for Chinese then driving around to admire the lights) with my in-laws, I'm happy and proud to say that I have no bad stories to tell about them. I'm blessed in that my husband gets along very well with my parents, and my parents with his; but my relationship with Marty and Sharon has always been particularly important to me.
I first met my future in-laws way back in college when I was living with Jon's sister. Even before Jon came into the picture, they took me into their family. They invited me to celebrate Passover with them, and immediately made me feel as if I belonged. They soon began including my parents, as well, so the holiday truly became a family affair.
Our relationship extends beyond the holidays, however. I often call them without Jon, just to chat, and love having them at our parties (they never mind hanging out with us "youngsters"). When they took me on as a daughter-in-law, *daughter* became the operative word; they really have been like a second set of parents to me, encouraging me and getting to know everything about me. They've always been there when I needed someone to talk to and never nag us about things like having kids, etc. And even though we don't need it, Sharon always sends us a nice gift for birthdays and the holidays ... just to let us know that they're thinking of us. They're truly two of the nicest people I know (my parents would readily agree) and my folks often thank me for bringing them into the family.
As the year goes on, please continue to contribute to Jon's site and discuss world issues. But in the meantime, let's raise a toast to the people who brought my husband into this world. Wuthout them, Jon wouldn't be where he is today.
The last of the rebel factions in Burundi, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), has agreed to enter talks to join the country's power-sharing government. The FNL had previously refused to join the negotiations that resulted in cessation of hostilities between other Tutsi and Hutu factions.
The move follows by a week the assassination of the papal ambassador by FNL guerrillas, although the FNL is denying any connection between the two events. It would be ironic if the envoy's death resulted in peace coming to Burundi, but it may be what he would have wanted.
I've added Far Outliers, a Hawaii-based blog that features interesting discussion of the Pacific and Pacific Rim diasporas. There's some good stuff there on Micronesia to complement my Melanesian and western Polynesian focus.
French peacekeepers have begun to deploy in rebel-held areas of northern Cote d'Ivoire. The French troops are accompanied by a 1400-strong ECOWAS force, and are expected to clear the way for the return of refugees and humanitarian organizations.
Courtesy of Sara at Diotima, an interesting article about how family-based political structures in Lebanon form a barrier to women:
Despite the 1952 abolition of legal obstacles to women's formal participation in the political life, not one woman has been appointed to a ministerial post. Before the early 1990s, only one woman ever reached parliament; Myrna Bustani was elected in 1963 to complete the term of her deceased father.
Women have been conspicuously absent from the upper ranks of public administration and the judiciary, as well. Even at the municipal level of government, the 140 women elected in 1998--as council members of 708 cities across the country--hold less than 1 percent of the available seats.
Analysts and participants in the country's political system chalk up women's virtual absence from public and political life to a number of obstacles.
According to Mouawad, the recruitment of politicians from leading families in the country (such as her own) is a huge barrier because women so rarely take leadership roles inside the family.
"We are still a very clannish society," Mouawad said in an interview with Women's eNews. "It is still very exceptional to see a woman in the position of a family leader."
Similar complaints have been made by Arab women in other countries including Israel, where many political parties in Arab municipalities are also family-based.
Regional integration in Africa isn't a new thing. The Organization of African Unity, the precursor to the present-day African Union, was created in 1963 - only three years after the first wave of post-colonial African nations gained independence - and a strain of idealistic pan-Africanism has existed in continental politics since the colonial era.
In the past decade, though, and particularly during the past five years, regional integration has begun to move from the conceptual to the practical. As in Europe, multinational groupings originally created for economic and diplomatic purposes have developed political and security dimensions, and dormant regional associations have taken on new life. At the same time, integration on the continental level has advanced with the formation of the African Union and the forthcoming African parliament and human rights tribunal. With all that, however, supranational organizations in Africa have fallen far short of their promise.
The two longest-standing African regional groupings are the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which have undergone something of a convergent evolution. ECOWAS was founded in 1975 as a regional trade pact, but has taken on an increasing regional security role with the emergence of failed states in West Africa. During the 1990s, ECOWAS peacekeepers were deployed in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and were deployed again in Liberia in 2003 after the departure of President Charles Taylor. In the past decade, ECOWAS has been the African regional pact that has been most active - although not always most effective - in the field of conflict resolution.
SADC, on the other hand, had a security function from the beginning. At the time it was founded in July 1979, apartheid South Africa was a participant in a number of regional conflicts, and the intent of SADC's founders was to provide collective security as well as reducing economic dependence on South Africa. It had its moments - for instance, when a Zimbabwe-led intervention force halted the RENAMO offensive of 1986 - but wasn't remarkably successful at either.
Since the end of the apartheid era, SADC has undergone a radical realignment, with South Africa becoming its de facto leader rather than its primary target. With the major regional power on board, SADC's security and economic functions have become somewhat more effective; the member states recently approved a treaty establishing a standby peacekeeping force, and the organization has had some success in mediating conflicts in the Comoros and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In other areas, however - particularly the ongoing meltdown in Zimbabwe - it has been relatively timorous about flexing its political muscle.
The Economic Community of Central African States (CEEAC) was founded in 1981, but was largely dormant until 1998 due to lack of funds. In the past five years, however, the CEEAC countries have begun to phase in free trade and have created a number of technical and development institutions. A brigade-strength standby force agreed to in 2001 has begun to get off the ground and is intended to reduce member states' dependence on mercenaries and paramilitary forces. CEEAC is also scheduled to merge with CEMAC, a monetary union of six Central African states.
The Community of Sahelo-Saharan States (CENSAD), created in 1998, consists of 18 countries in the Maghreb, the Sahel and the horn of Africa. With Nigeria and Egypt as members, CENSAD contains two heavyweights and is a potential bridge between sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. In practice, however, neither Egypt nor Nigeria has been an active participant, and such programs as CENSAD has instituted have primarily been vehicles for Libyan hegemony. The CENSAD development bank and the organization itself are headquartered in Tripoli, and the pact's sole regional security operation to date has been a widely criticized Libyan-led mission in the Central African Republic.
The final African regional political grouping, the East African Community, has its roots in a colonial-era administrative federation of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Some of the institutions of this federation survived until 1977, and regionalism has been a stronger force in East African politics than in many other parts of Africa. It is probably no accident that the reconstituted EAC is among the most ambitious of the continent's regional pacts; political integration is among its stated goals and its institutions include a regional high court and parliament. These regional institutions have been criticized as largely empty, however, and it is likely to be some time before they approach the level of political union.
Other regional associations, which often overlap the political pacts, serve purely financial or economic functions. CEMAC and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) together form the Communauté Financiere Africaine (CFA), which sponsors the Euro-pegged currency used in most of the former French colonies in Africa. The Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), which overlaps the SADC, EAC, CEEAC and CENSAD regions, began as "preferential trade area" in 1981 and was reorganized in 1994 to provide phased-in free trade and uniform commercial law. COMESA also sponsors a development bank, banking and insurance institutions, and a court of justice that (unlike many other African regional courts) has actually adjudicated cases.
At the same time that regional economic and security institutions have become stronger, organizations at the continental level have also begun to perform similar functions. In 1991, the OAU countries drafted a treaty to form an African Economic Community with conceptual goals including a common currency, central bank and free trade by 2025. Another major turning point was the 2000 reorganization of the largely diplomatic Organization for African Unity as the African Union, with a charter consciously modeled on the EU.
The African Union also began as a Libyan initiative, but it has taken on a life of its own. The following year, the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) was formed under AU auspices to create areas of cooperation in public health, anti-poverty programs and economic development. 2004 has the potential to be a key year in the development of continent-wide African institutions with the inauguration of a pan-African parliament, a human rights tribunal and a standby peacekeeping force. The protocols for each of these institutions were drafted within the past five years, and have now been ratified by a sufficient number of member nations to enter into force.
As with the East African Community, however, the AU's legislative and judicial institutions are much weaker than their European counterparts. The African Court on Human and People's Rights, unlike the ECHR, will not have jurisdiction to hear cases brought by individuals or NGOs without the consent of the state being sued. In addition, the parliament will have "consultative and advisory powers only" during its first term, although it may thereafter be given legislative authority by the member states. According to the enabling protocol, its "ultimate aim" is "to evolve into an institution with full legislative powers, whose members are elected by universal adult suffrage," but it is likely to be a considerable time before this goal is put into effect. The real development of 2004 is likely to be the creation of economies of scale in African peacekeeping and regional security; the legislative and dispute resolution functions of the AU will take somewhat longer to come into their own.
The example of the European Union, which has turned one of the world's most warlike continents into perhaps the most peaceful, shows that regionalism has considerable potential as a means of peaceful development. Strong supranational institutions can result in a de-emphasis on national borders and a consequent reduction in border-driven conflicts. They can also assist in the creation of regional economies, reduce customs barriers in a continent with too many small nations, facilitate export trade for landlocked countries (of which Africa has more - 14 - than any other continent), permit economies of scale in infrastructure and public health, provide effective dispute resolution mechanisms and establish a regional security force for the instances when such mechanisms fail.
For the most part, however, African regional pacts haven't done this. Although supranational institutions have scored some conflict resolution and peacekeeping successes, these pale beside the number of conflicts that have proven intractable. In the economic sphere, there is little difference in standard of living between the countries that are part of a regional trade pact and those that aren't; prosperity in Africa is more dependent on other variables such as infrastructure, technical expertise, political stability and integrity of public institutions.
Why hasn't regionalism succeeded in Africa to the extent that it has in Europe? In part, the reason is that African regional integration is much newer. Although most of the frameworks for regional integration have existed for more than two decades, the development of free trade, dispute resolution mechanisms and effective political institutions has only begun in earnest in the past five years. To some extent, African supranational groupings are only now getting the tools to fulfill their goals, and should not be judged too harshly for past failures.
Nevertheless, there are also systemic problems. One of the most pressing is adequate funding; with most African countries at or near the subsistence level, there are few resources to spare for creating regional institutions ex nihilo. Political constraints also play a part in inhibiting African regional integration; many African countries, including nominal democracies, have an entrenched and corrupt political class that is resistant to any attempts to reduce its authority. Creation of supranational institutions has also not been an urgent political issue for African electorates, which tend to focus on issues closer to home. Also, since several regional pacts are dominated by a hegemonic local power, the governments of smaller states have been reluctant to cede their sovereignty to multi-national groupings. The result is that, for both financial and political reasons, many regional institutions are either dormant or weak.
Another inhibiting factor is the difference between the legal landscape and the facts on the ground. The existence of a free trade pact matters little if the local warlord or provincial governor is determined to collect a toll. For the most part, neither African states nor multi-state groupings are strong enough to curb the power of local leaders. To some extent, the challenges facing the African Union can be compared to superimposing an EU-style overlay on top of feudal Europe rather than the modern European nation-states. Imagine trying to persuade one of the medieval dukes of Burgundy to abide by a treaty made by the French crown, and you will have some idea of the difficulty of establishing African free trade zones or dispute resolution mechanisms.
There is also the factor of infrastructure. During the colonial era, the physical infrastructure of Africa was geared toward trade with the colonial powers rather than with other parts of Africa, and this has gone largely uncorrected by post-colonial governments. African road and rail networks tend to connect outlying areas of a single country with the capital and port cities rather than connecting major cities on a regional basis. Until recently, customs barriers have provided a disincentive toward the development of regional infrastructure, and physical infrastructure projects are not high on the list of most present-day regional groupings. Without the roads to carry African goods to markets in neighboring countries, free trade by itself will not create prosperity.
Finally, many of the African multi-national organizations overlap in jurisdiction and provide redundant services, in some cases leading to conflict. The relationship between the regions and the African Union has also not been entirely sorted out; the AU protocols call for cooperation with pre-existing regional institutions but leave cooperation mechanisms and areas of authority nebulous. At a time when both continental and regional organizations are increasing their powers, this can easily lead to jurisdictional battles. Some consolidation is in order, preferably accompanied by rationalization of smaller multi-national pacts whose functions are subsumed within the regional groupings.
These factors, particularly when combined with local nationalisms, simmering ethnic conflicts and language barriers, combine to make regional integration in Africa difficult. These problems, however, are not insuperable. The momentum is currently in the right direction, and the difficulties may become more surmountable with time, especially if the initial development of regional institutions creates a virtuous cycle by reducing local warlords' power to impede further integration. In addition, the potential rewards are great. Africa, like Europe, has messy borders and overlapping ethnic groups, and stands to benefit greatly from a political system in which national borders are de-emphasized. In addition, economies of scale are highly important on a continent where many small, financially strapped countries are currently battling daunting public health and poverty crises.
It is possible, then, to imagine a regionalized Africa, circa 2050, in which the end result of current trends toward regional integration is a four-tier continent-wide political structure. At the apex is the African Union, which will be the primary representative of Africa in the geopolitical arena, possibly with a seat on the Security Council. The AU will also be a customs union with internal free trade, free travel and uniform commercial law, and will have responsibility for conflict resolution, peacekeeping and human rights. The next tier down will consist of regions, which will be more responsive than continent-wide institutions and will have primary responsibility for infrastructure development and public health. Depending on the degree of economic integration thus far achieved by the African states, currency and banking might also be regional functions, with the ultimate goal of transferring monetary policy to the continental level.
The third tier - nation-states - would be the primary source of legislation outside the commercial and human rights areas, and would maintain military forces while contributing troops to the AU collective security mission. Finally, local areas existing both within nations and across national boundaries will have internal autonomy and primary responsibility for education and cultural heritage. Thus, while nation-states will continue to exist, borders will no longer be barriers to trade or cultural cooperation, and border-driven ethnic conflicts and separatism will lose much of their impetus. The functions of government that local, national and supranational leaders are now trying to exercise all at once will be transferred to the most appropriate levels.
Any doubt as to whether the Zimbabwe farm invasions are really about race or colonialism has been dispelled by the Lands and Agriculture Minister's occupation of Kondozi Farm in defiance of a court order. Kondozi is a majority black-owned enterprise that employs 5000 workers and is Zimbabwe's second-largest exporter of horticultural products. The farm is also in an export processing zone, which makes it legally immune from confiscation, but that didn't stop the minister and other top ZANU figures from moving in and claiming to be the new owners.
The farm invasions were never really about redressing the legacy of colonialism, but the Kondozi occupation can't even pretend to be. It's acres for apparatchiks in the most blatant form yet.
The Ethiopia-Eritrea border conflict has taken a step backwards with Eritrea's rejection of a United Nations envoy. At stake is a disputed village previously awarded to Eritrea (PDF file) by a UN-empaneled boundary commission in the aftermath of a two-year war. Ethiopia has rejected the ruling; the Eritrean government regards further UN mediation as an unwarranted concession and has taken the position that the only remaining role for the UN is to enforce the decision. If the mediation fails, however, the destructive border war - one of the few old-fashioned wars of territorial conquest to take place in post-colonial Africa - might resume.
The Cameroon government has closed down 12 independent radio and television stations in an election-year move:
Most of the stations received orders last week to close down by midnight 31 December on the grounds that they had not been issued with a licence, Paris-based RSF said in a statement.
"Cameroon is on its way to becoming one of the most repressive countries in central Africa as far as freedom of expression is concerned," Robert Menard, secretary general of RSF said.
"And we fear that the situation could deteriorate still further at the approach of presidential elections," he warned.
The Roman Catholic Radio Veritas station, which is often identified with the opposition, was not affected by this wave of closings, and remained open under a December 12 agreement with the government.
Gabrielle Menezes discusses the long-standing quasi-official role of Al-Azhar University in Egyptian official censorship, and wonders whether it might be weakening.
Just about everyone has already riffed on the Israeli-Palestinian Antarctic expedition that set sail today from Chile. I'm a bit cynical about the whole affair; there's already ample proof that individual Israelis and Palestinians can cooperate, and the expedition will change the political situation about as much as all the peace camps and peace concerts that have gone before. The expedition is a nice human interest story but the real action is, and always has been, on the diplomatic front.
One interesting detail, though, is that al-Jazeera has picked up the story, complete with the description of one of the Israeli participants as the son of Holocaust survivors. The story might not shift the political ground, but it may help to humanize Israelis in the eyes of al-Jazeera's audience.
The Fijian government intends to draft a law transferring ownership of state-owned coastal lands and fisheries to the customary landholding system:
Fiji's new law will be drafted by the end of this year, after negotiations between the Government, tourism industry and local landowners.
Senator [Qoriniasi] Bale did not want to elaborate on the planned law change, but referred the Herald to a recent speech he made to a Fiji tourism forum. In this, he said the areas covered would include waters identified as customary fishing grounds, including reefs and seabeds.
"One of the principal purposes and effects of this new law will be to maximise and direct commercial benefits on the use of foreshore land and resources straight to the customary owners," he said. "Foreshore lease rentals will no longer be paid to the state, but to the customary owners."
The trouble with this is that customary land ownership in Fiji operates according to a complicated system in which ground rents are collected and administered by chiefs at various levels. Critics of the system charge that little of the rents find their way to the commoners. The land transfer contemplated by the Fijian government would thus take revenue-producing property away from the state - in which indigenous Fijians have political control and in which some revenue does find its way to the commoners in the form of government programs - and place it under the effective control of the chiefs. Although this plan is presented as a way to give more commercial benefit to customary landowning units, its effect might be exactly the opposite.