The boys of cellblock 9

This week's Ha'aretz family profile is the most unusual yet, featuring four cellmates in the honor block of an Israeli prison. The inmates seem to be a fairly representative cross-section of the Israeli prison population, but life on the honor block is probably no more typical in Israeli prisons than in the United States.

Chagos redux

A British High Court decision denying the Chagos Islanders' claim for repatriation has been upheld by the Court of Appeal, effectively ending the islanders' bid for a British legal remedy. In their ruling, the appellate judges were not without sympathy to the ilois' claim:

Lord Justice Sedley [...] sitting with Lady Justice Butler-Sloss and Lord Justice Neuberger, said it was difficult to ignore the parallel with the Highland clearances in Scotland in the 19th Century.

"Defence may have replaced agricultural improvement as the reason, but the pauperisation and expulsion of the weak in the interests of the powerful still gives little to be proud of," he said.

Nevertheless, they were constrained to affirm the lower court's finding that the lawsuit was barred by the statute of limitations and that the plaintiffs' claims were not legally cognizable.

To be sure, the Court of Appeal's ruling is largely moot in light of a recent order in council asserting full British control over immigration to the Chagos archipelago. An order in council is a statutory instrument and is thus beyond judicial review in the British courts. If the ilois want to pursue their claim privately, they will have to go to the European Court of Human Rights, which does have the power to overturn British statutory instruments; in addition, the renewed Mauritian state backing for their cause may bring their case before the ICJ. The case of Chagos is far from closed.

End of a rebellion?

An IRIN report suggests that the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda may be "fizzling out" with the surrender of more than 500 soldiers and officers since the beginning of the year. Although not mentioned in the article, one of the reasons for this may be the changing political situation in Sudan. The Khartoum government has historically provided basing and logistical support to the LRA, but now that southern Sudan has been effectively ceded to the SPLA/M and the government's focus has shifted to the west, this support has been much diminished. It's far too early to break out the champagne, but if current trends continue, there's a realistic chance that one of Africa's most destructive civil wars might come to an end.

Pitcairners and Subversives

Claire Harvey discusses the ways in which the upcoming sex crimes trial is dividing Pitcairn.

Boycott strategy?

One of the most common dodges in the American political textbook is the "exploratory committee" formed by a candidate who has not yet formally decided to run for office. In fact, most candidates who create exploratory committees do want to run but aren't sure they can go the distance. The committee enables him to raise money, test the waters and try to drum up support - and provides him with a graceful excuse in the event that the money and support don't materialize.

The Zimbabwe Movement for Democratic Change has evidently decided to take a leaf from the same book by forming an exploratory committee to decide whether not to run. Next week, a "shadowy political group" called the Broad Alliance, theoretically independent of the MDC but closely allied in leadership, is expected to announce its formation in Harare. The purpose of the Broad Alliance is to "gauge the mood of the voters" concerning whether they want the MDC to take part in next year's parliamentary election.

The Financial Gazette interprets this as a sign that the MDC is "to all intents and purposes, undecided whether or not to participate in the crucial poll." There's at least one other possible interpretation, though - that the MDC leadership has already decided not to run, and is hoping that the Broad Alliance will manufacture the consent of the voters. From where the MDC is standing, there isn't much point in contesting the election; with Mugabe tightening the political screws, the party's internal disaffection becoming more apparent and recent electoral reforms amounting to "lipstick on a frog", the poll is likely to be a transparent sham. On the other hand, election boycotts are traditionally a weapon of the weak, and a unilateral boycott could make the MDC look like a fringe party rather than a credible opposition movement.

The Broad Alliance might change that. Its game plan is to collect five million signatures on a petition protesting Zimbabwe's political system, and then release "findings indicat[ing] that the people feel that the political environment does not meet the minimum conditions conducive to a free and fair election." At that point, the MDC would be able to pull out of the polls as the representative of five million disenfranchised voters rather than as a defeated opposition party. If it works, it may be one of the party's more successful strategems; it isn't likely to force ZANU out of power in the short term, but it will at least preserve the MDC's legitimacy.

Perfect timing

Just in time for my return to the states, Newsday profiles the Australian aboriginal community of New York - all five of them. They get together once a month and include an army colonel, a United Nations attaché and, yes, a waiter at Outback.

Ghetto lit

One of Moorishgirl's pet peeves, and rightly so, is the common expectation that "ethnic" authors will restrict themselves to themes defined by her identity. Her latest digression on that theme begins with a stereotype-breaking anthology of Arab women writers and carries forward to her experience as a member of the same group:

I think fiction by Arab women (and people of color in general) is all too often subject to the agenda that readers bring to the stories. In the past, I've received all sorts of innocent (and ignorant) comments during writing workshops, comments that reveal more about the reader than they do about the writing. Recently, in the margin of one of my stories, someone scribbled the words "So human!" I felt like saying, "Fancy that! Yes, we're human!" Or, another thing I get asked a lot is to describe scenery or furniture. "It's such an exotic setting," they'll say. "Make the most of it!" Once, a reader was disappointed that I simply referred to a carpet as "a rug." He wanted more description, because, he said, "Morocco has such beautiful rugs."

It isn't only "people of color" who get this treatment, though - it can happen to anyone with an identity that readers expect to be the defining element in his world-view. The example that sticks in my mind is Dave Kehr's New York Times review of the Israeli film Foreign Sister. The film, which was released in Israel in 2000 and the United States in early 2003, deals with the relationship between a middle-class Israeli Jewish woman and the illegal Ethiopian worker she hires as a cleaning lady. Along the way, it highlights, sometimes heavy-handedly, the major
social problems facing Israel's guest workers.

Kehr's review was generally positive, but finished with the following criticism:

Even though "Foreign Sister," which opens today in Manhattan, was filmed more than three years ago, it was apparently already impossible for the filmmakers to take the obvious dramatic step of making the maid a Palestinian. Some friendships must remain taboo, despite the good intentions and clear liberal politics of [director] Wolman and his collaborators.

Never mind that Jewish-Arab friendships weren't "taboo" in Israeli cinema either in 2000 or today; the real question is why a Palestinian maid would be such an "obvious dramatic step." The fact is that Israeli cleaning ladies are far more likely to be African or Filipino than Palestinian, and the issues facing guest workers deserve serious exploration in their own right. Israel is a complex, modern society that is more than the sum of its conflicts with the Arab world, and there are many sources of drama in contemporary Israel that have nothing to do with events across the Green Line.

Those who see Israel as something defined by its conflict with the Palestinians, though, might be inclined to dismiss the seriousness of an Israeli film that treats any other theme. That may not be quite as limiting as demanding that Moroccan-American authors write about rugs, but it is likewise a violation of one of the fundamental purposes of literature. An author should be free to interpret the entirety of human experience rather than the subset defined by his ethnic identity, much less the subset defined by others' conception of his identity.

Common tongues

Expatriate Mauritian educator Taleb Durgahee discusses the relationship between language and social status:

Literacy has become a medium for demarcation of schooling level, social status and professionalisation of social practices instead of a communicative tool. French language has gained such an entrenched incomprehensible supremacy in Mauritius.

Sociologists might argue that French language has escalated because we looked up to those who spoke French when we were still struggling with Bhojpuri and Creole. Traditionally, there has been a ‘higher status' perceived within the French-speaking community. Thus, there is a dynamic subconscious desire within all Mauritians that, to progress up the social and professional ladder, one has to be fluent in French. It is ‘cool' to speak French even to those who cannot understand it.

It is really funny, when guests (professionals) on TV programmes are asked questions in Creole, they reply in French. They are either unwilling or incapable of showing their diversity in linguistic mastery because they feel they might ‘go down' the social scale. Ever witnessed a meeting (on TV) of elderly citizens in villages where the speaker chooses to speak French when the audience understands Creole or Bhojpuri? This is the real context of our social and linguistic practices.

As Dr. Durgahee recognizes, however, social cachet isn't the only reason why French - and, to an increasing extent, English - have become high-status languages. Both are languages used across the country rather than only by a single ethnic group. French is the language of Mauritian business and public discourse, and English, thanks to a century and a half of British colonialism, prevails in law and government. Even more to the point, both are much more useful than Mauritian Creole or Bhojpuri in communicating and doing business with the outside world; even in the case of India, English can open more doors than Bhojpuri. Proficiency in French or English is an asset, not only a signifier of middle-class status but a means of achieving it.

At the same time, French and English must compete with a growing movement to standardize and promote literacy in Mauritius' demotic languages. Dr. Durgahee characterizes this movement as political, but again that isn't the whole story; the death of those languages would impair many Mauritians' connection to their past. The preservation of Bhojpuri and Mauritian Creole in some form, or at least the translation of documents and literary works that exist in them, carries considerable cultural significance. Both development and preservation are legitimate state priorities, and Mauritius will have to balance the two.

Finding a balance

UNDP Pacific representative Peter Witham discusses the interplay between cultural freedom and human rights in traditional societies.

The ICJ's next case?

In the wake of a British order in council reasserting full control over immigration to the Chagos Archipelago, Mauritius may seek an ICJ advisory opinion concerning its sovereignty over the territory. Chagos was administered as part of Mauritius during the colonial era but was separated in 1965 to form the British Indian Ocean Territory, following which its inhabitants, the ilois, were evicted to make room for an American military base. The Mauritian government has consistently claimed that the division of its territory prior to independence was contrary to international law. This claim has remained largely dormant while the ilois pursued legal remedies in the British courts, but in the month since the British government overruled a court decision allowing return to certain parts of the archipelago, Mauritius has begun to assert it more aggressively.

The remedies available to Mauritius are restricted by Commonwealth rules that prohibit members from filing contentious cases against each other in the ICJ. Mauritius had earlier threatened to quit the Commonwealth in order to sue, which would have impacted its ability to engage in cultural and educational exchanges with other member nations. The Mauritian prime minister's legal advisors, however, have concluded that Mauritius may seek a non-binding advisory opinion from the ICJ without leaving the Commonwealth.

In order to obtain such an opinion, Mauritius would have to secure a referral from the General Assembly similar to the referral that brought the Israeli security fence before the court. The GA's position on Chagos is uncertain; Mauritius tabled a resolution supporting its claim in 1990 but later withdrew its motion, and the complete assembly has never voted on the issue. Mauritius enjoys the support of the African Union and the Commonwealth secretary-general, however, and may well be able to secure a majority in favor of referring the matter to the ICJ.

If the Chagos issue goes to court, it might make the fence litigation look like a tempest in a teapot, given that both British sovereignty and American military interests are directly at stake. The same considerations make it unlikely that an ICJ ruling in Mauritius' favor will be obeyed, which may result in a further decline in the court's authority. On the other hand, any ruling the ICJ may hand down will undoubtedly influence the European Court of Human Rights in the event that the ilois decide to pursue their personal claims in Strasbourg, and an ECHR ruling would be binding on Britain. It would probably be a wise idea for Britain to compromise with Mauritius and the ilois now, or risk painting itself into a corner later.

Bad news of the day

The Darfur peace talks are in danger of collapse even before they start, after rebel demands at an initial meeting resulted in a shouting match:

The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebels put forward a number of preconditions to holding political talks: disarmament of the Janjawid and the removal of those of them absorbed by the police and army; respect for the 8 April ceasefire; an end to impunity for the perpetrators of crimes and an inquiry into allegations of genocide; unimpeded humanitarian access; release of prisoners of war; and a "neutral" venue for future talks, which did not include Ethiopia.

The coordinator of JEM, Ahmed Jugod, told IRIN that unless these basic demands were met they would not engage in a political dialogue with Khartoum.

A spokesman for the Sudanese government, Ibrahim Ahmad Ibrahim, said "the demands of the rebels are unacceptable". He said the demands showed " disrespect to the African Union". "It is a delaying tactic, the rebels are not serious," he added.

The Sudanese government's objections might impress me more if they hadn't already promised to do most of the things that the rebels are demanding. At the same time, the rebel factions aren't doing themselves any favors by insisting that these measures be completed before the talks rather than in parallel. Time isn't on their side, and arguing over preliminaries will only increase the likelihood that the janjawid will complete their work. United Nations mediators are working to bring the parties back to the table, but even if they succeed, more time will have been wasted while more people become refugees.

Terra Australis Cognita

If airports count, the flight to Australia was my first visit to California. If territorial airspace counts, it was also my first trip to Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

The daily New York-Sydney flight on Qantas is the longest night this side of Antarctica. It departs JFK after dark and, because it goes backwards through 10 time zones, doesn't emerge into the light until just before Australia. If I were the kind of person who could sleep in middle airplane seats, the 21 hours of darkness would be a perfect opportunity to catch up on my rest. Unfortunately, I'm not, but the trip was more than worth the trouble.

Sydney is a world-class city and Australia a prime destination, but kangaroos notwithstanding, Americans who are looking for something exotic should probably go someplace else. With the possible exception of English Canada, and I did say "possible," Australia is less foreign than any other country I've visited. Australia and the United States have obvious historical similarities - both are immigrant nations with vast frontiers, wide open spaces and a history of regional hegemony - and these have produced considerable overlap in attitudes. Australia is one of the few countries where the breakdown between the political left and right is comprehensible to an American, right down to the debates over terrorism, federalism and abortion. It even has its very own Canada in the form of the smaller, poorer and more liberal nation to the east with which it shares a close relationship but which it doesn't quite understand. If not for the different names and the extra "u" in "labour," the political columns in the Australian or the Herald could have come from any quality American daily.

Politics is very much in the Australian air right now; the next general election hasn't been called yet, but the campaign has been under way for some time. While I was there, the governing coalition reshuffled its cabinet and made a number of dramatic policy reverses, adopting a more lenient stance toward asylum applications and abandoning plans to create a nuclear waste dump in South Australia. In the meantime, the opposition is trying to have it both ways on the Australian-American relationship, denouncing Richard Armitage's ham-handed attempt to characterize it as weak-kneed on Iraq but accepting the American ambassador's praise of Kim Beazley's resurrection. Waiting in the wings is the proposed Australian-American free trade agreement, which may potentially favor American pharmaceutical companies at the expense of Australia's public health system; the treaty is just starting to become a political issue, but will likely be a major one by the time the votes are counted.

The asylum reforms are possibly the most far-reaching of the recent policy changes. One of the hallmarks of the Howard government has been the offshore detention centers in Nauru and Christmas Island, in which refugees have been held for years while their asylum applications were considered. At the time these policies were instituted, they were popular among middle Australians, but public support has decreased as the successful applicants filtered into Australian society and began leading productive lives. At this point, the government obviously views a hard-line policy as an electoral liability, although at least one columnist has argued that the shift in public opinion would never have occurred if the number of asylum seekers hadn't been reduced by harsh treatment.

In any event, the relaxation of asylum policy may have long-term effects in a number of areas. If the offshore detention centers are phased out, Nauru could be deprived of its last meaningful source of foreign exchange (although it has been half-jokingly suggested that the South Australia nuclear waste dump be relocated there). Closer to home, the shift represents one more nail in the coffin of the White Australia policy; the refugees aren't the first Afghanis in Australia but they will be the first to settle permanently. Australia, like the United States, is prone to periodic bouts of nativism, and the current one may be in its final stages.

The end of White Australia is also very apparent in Sydney. The streets are full of people from Asia and the Middle East, many of whom were born in Australia and whose influence on popular culture has become widespread. Most of the tourist attractions and major hotels have signs in Japanese, and Asian companies are increasing their economic presence. In Sydney, White Australia has become Australasia. It's a multiculti, cosmopolitan city with an Asia-Pacific focus, and it's also a place where a New Yorker can have a great time, which Naomi and I both did.

Next: Settlers and aborigines, 200 years later.

Sita's Fire Still Burns: Distorted Sex Ratios and the 'Male Tilt' in Asia

A commentary piece in The Christian Science Monitor examines a new report on some of the implications of the increasing imbalance in sex-ratios in many Asian countries; particularly India and China; having said this I am somewhat irked by the slightly sensationalist tone and take by the" CSM piece and given " that several of my more hardworking colleagues have done a fair bit of research in this area and never tire of talking about it I thought it might be of some interest to look at the issue in some more depth. This is a problem that has been noted with increasing concern for some time, going back to the late 1970s and at the time of the last Indian Census was held to be a major obstacle and social problem. Looking at the figures released from the latest decennial Census of 2001, it seems that things have "not improved all that much"

However, the sex ratio for children up to six years has slipped from 945 females per 1,000 males in 1991 to just 927 females 10 years later, indicating that despite government measures, such as a ban on sex determination tests, female foeticide is still widely prevalent. Many girls are also killed in infancy.

According to recent research, 90% of the estimated 3.5m abortions in India each year are to eliminate girls.

Even more alarmingly, the usual assumptions that urbanisation and rising incomes would neutralise or counter-act tendencies towards such imbalances have not been borne true:

Until now, it was believed that the bias against girls was especially acute in the countryside, where the high child mortality rate, combined with the prestige gained from having a male child, the need for wage earners and the prohibitive cost of marrying a daughter heavily tilted the scales in favour of sons.

But the census has come up with a startling statistic - the sex ratio in the national capital region of Delhi has plummeted to just 865 girls to 1,000 boys, well below the national average. In one district in Delhi, it has dropped below 800.

Having said this some of the concern over this phenomenon seems to be quite male-centric:

The book, "Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population," (MIT Press), by Valerie Hudson and Andrea Den Boer, connects the dots of a huge demographic trend that carries international implications. ("Bare branches" comes from a Chinese phrase for adult offspring who don't bear children, like empty fruit trees.)

Policymakers should take note: China, India, and other nations that can't stop this practice might see great social upheavals, such as mass migration of young males or the widespread kidnapping of women.

"The security logic of high sex-ratio societies predisposes nations to see some utility in interstate conflict," the authors write.

Return

Naomi and I have returned safely from Australia, and regular blogging will resume over the weekend. I'd like to thank all the guest posters who helped mind the store and congratulate them on their excellent contributions. I've been in the air for the last 22 hours, so further discussion of the Australian zeitgeist will have to wait, but all will be revealed in due time.

NZ/Israel Dust-Up

[Cross-Posted at The Bonassus]

Is the Pax Americana wearing thin? First we had the Canada-Denmark "Hans Island Fooferaw."

Now (in a peculiar synergy of the Head Heeb's interests) New Zealand and Israel are going at it. From the Guardian:

The prime minister of New Zealand angrily denounced Israel and imposed diplomatic sanctions on it after two suspected Mossad agents were jailed for six months for trying on false grounds to obtain a New Zealand passport. The plot, which involved obtaining a passport in the name of a tetraplegic man who had not spoken in years, provoked a furious reaction yesterday.

"The breach of New Zealand laws and sovereignty by agents of the Israeli government has seriously strained our relationship with Israel," said the prime minister, Helen Clark.

"This type of behaviour is unacceptable internationally by any country. It is a sorry indictment of Israel that it has again taken such actions against a country with which it has friendly relations."

High-level visits between the two countries will be cancelled, visa restrictions imposed for Israeli officials, and an expected visit to New Zealand by Moshe Katsov, the Israeli president, later this year has been cancelled.

Ms Clark said Israel had ignored requests made three months ago for an explanation and an apology.

The action marks the most serious rupture in New Zealand's international relations since Wellington suspended diplomatic relations with France in 1985 after French agents bombed Greenpeace's anti-nuclear ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour.

"I can't comment on what they might have done but I can point to the precedent when the Canadian passport system was penetrated and agents involved in an assassination attempt in another country were using those false passports," says Clark.

She says it is "entirely a possibility" that the same scenario could be applied to the New Zealand case.

Jewish graves at a cemetery in Wellington have been vandalised. Swastikas and Nazi slogans were gouged into and around 16 Jewish graves.

The head of the country's small Jewish community, David Zwartz, said he thought the attack was directly linked to the government's criticism of Israel.

"I think there is a direct connection between the very strong expressions against Israel and people here feeling they can take it out on Jews," Mr Zwartz said.

"It seems to me Israel-bashing one day, Jew-bashing the next day."

I'm fairly certain that all of this will eventually blow over. My intuition is that what seems like fairly widespread pro-Palestinian sentiment among Kiwis is incredibly unlikely to lead to acceptance of anti-Jewish thuggery.

Wellington's Jewish community is tiny and very low profile in comparison to those of American cities of a similar size. And during the 6 months I spent in Wellington last year, I was often astonished at the unusually bitter and virulent anti-American and anti-Zionist sentiment I sometimes encountered, especially given Kiwis' reputations as mild and fair-minded.

That being said, Wellington is hardly a hotbed of anti-semitism, nor is the country's leadership anti-semitic (indeed, as covered by Jonathan Edelstein, New Zealand has recently sought out Jewish immigration). Helen Clark is no Zionist, to be sure, but neither is she likely to ignore any systematic outbreak of violence against Jewish New Zealanders.

Diasporas: Shifting Meanings, Real Intentions

I'm Randy McDonald, former graduate student and part-time blogger. This is my first guest post on the Head Heeb, and yes, I acknowledge taking a good while to make it. I'd like to think, though, that the question I'm raising means something about shifts in the common definition of transnational communities.

The word "diaspora" has been used to describe the transnational community of the Jews for some time. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language goes into some detail on the word's etymology:

1. The dispersion of Jews outside of Israel from the sixth century b.c., when they were exiled to Babylonia, until the present time. 2. often diaspora The body of Jews or Jewish communities outside Palestine or modern Israel. 3. diaspora a. A dispersion of a people from their original homeland. b. The community formed by such a people: “the glutinous dish known throughout the [West African] diaspora as … fufu” (Jonell Nash, Essence February 1996). 4. diaspora A dispersion of an originally homogeneous entity, such as a language or culture: “the diaspora of English into several mutually incomprehensible languages” (Randolph Quirk).

The word "diaspora," however, has taken begun to be applied to other transnational communities. Of the first 100 hits that came up for the word "diaspora" in Google's Canadian news service, 27 did refers to Jews. 14 references to an African diaspora; 9 references to a Jamaican diaspora; 5 references each to Armenian and Indian diasporas; 3 references each to Nigerfian, Palestinian, and Zimbabwean diasporas; 2 references to Azerbaijani and South Asian diasporas; and single references to diasporas rooted in Uganda, Bosnia, South Africa, the Philippines, Cameroon, Ghana, Caucasian Georgia, China, Chaldo-Assyrians, Eritrea, the Caribbean, Greece, the Yoruba of Nigeria, Pacific islanders, the Herero of Namibia, the Romany, and Bangladesh.

The Jewish diaspora remains the prototypical diaspora, established in the middle of the first millennium BCE with the Babylonian exile, growing immensely with migration and deportations dispersing Jews throughout the sphere of Roman civilization in the Mediterranean and Europe, and in the second millennium expanding first into Germanic and Slavic central and eastern Europe, then to Europe's overseas countries of settlement. Since Israel's foundation, the continual decline of Jewish communities in the Muslim world and in central and eastern Europe have contributed to the growing concentration of Jews in their diasporic homeland of Israel. Even now, though, after the Holocaust and substantial aliyah, only a minority of Jews live in the diaspora.

Many of the groups above--Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Chaldo-Assyrians, Greeks, Jamaicans, Romany--share, to varying degrees, the Jewish diaspora's history of extreme dispersion. The construction of a Greek nation-state that included the overwhelming majority of Greeks, for instance, took almost a century. For Armenians, a brief period of concentration of Armenians in the Soviet republic of Armenia in the mid-20th century was followed after the Soviet Union's fall by a massive emigration that has reduced Armenia's population by a quarter.

Most of the other groups that appear in Google's news search, though, don't have that tradition of dispersion. Many of these diasporas are constructs of post-colonial independent states and their nation-building processes (Bangladesh, Eritrea, Nigeria); others are large and heterogeneous communities issued from large and heterogeneous quasi-nation-states (China, India). Relatively few of these groups share the ethnic and religious homogeneity which underpins the Jewish diaspora, and the other diasporas mentioned above, and while emigration has been important for individuals and communities in most of these nation-states it rarely has dominated their futures.

Scanning through those articles, one thing that I noticed was that usage of the term "diaspora" frequently occurred in economic contexts, in terms of nation-states trying to acquire the capital or the skills of their emigrants for their own benefit. References to cultural solidarity across borders certainly appeared, but economic solidarity in the name of the homeland was a rather more important characteristic. The usage of the term diaspora--particularly outside of references to the African, Armenian, and Jewish diasporas--took on a primarily economic meaning.