Women's worlds 2008: not a utopia

(See introduction above)

The Women’s Worlds Congress convenes every three years in a new country and naturally takes on a different flavour or focus according to its location. The first was held in Haifa, Israel. I attended the eighth Women’s Worlds in Kampala, 2002. That was the first time the congress had been held in Africa and it was an important event for Uganda itself, widely covered in the national media and actively supported by President Museveni. It provided a platform particularly for African women, and especially Ugandans, to highlight current issues of concern around government policies, political participation and women’s rights.

Co-ownership of land for women and recognised rights for second (unofficial) wives in a polygamous society were two aspects of the proposed Domestic Relations bill which had been under discussion then for four years by the government. Ugandan friends suggested to me that one reason for its slow progress was the fact that President Museveni had more than one wife himself.

At Makerere University, we had the official ceremonies in the open air under a large awning, were entertained by African drummers, enjoyed a fashion show featuring fabulous African prints and were able to browse the stalls of goods and services from local publishers, non-governmental organisations and women’s campaigns on the lawn of Freedom Square. And frankly, there was some dissonance between the language of western feminist academics and the articulation of hard-pressed needs of African women, whether working in national government or at the grassroots.

At the congress in Seoul 2005, aiming to address something of that paradox, the theme was north-south, east-west. For Madrid 2008 the slogan was “equality is not a utopia.”

At the congress opening in Spain, our first delight was the highly acclaimed flamenco singer Carmen Linares, whose powerful voice, interpreting raw pain and passion, transcends time, space and culture: “history is always the same for women.” And adding to the colour of this congress were the Arab women - both visitors and residents - in the hijab and shalwar-kameez.

The contradictions of the context also resonated clearly here. The (male) Secretary of State for Education and Innovation was convinced that the future of the world depends on bringing women and their talents on board, yet the (female) representative from the Ministry of Equality (with “an agenda fully supported by the government of Spain”) highlighted a list of problems still to be tackled: domestic violence, sex trafficking and the high level of abuse and discrimination against immigrant women. The (male) chancellor of the Universidad Complutense applauded the efforts of the (female) vice chancellor in pulling off the logistical feat of organising the Women’s Worlds Congress while the university’s office of gender equality talks about raising awareness among the academic community “by means of various actions including the gradual elimination of sexist language,” which scarcely sounds a hard-hitting approach.

To be fair, the opening ceremony provided a platform to air “the numerous obstacles to equality in our country” including inequity in the labour market and the “predominant white machismo of liberal democracy.” Spanish women are still in a minority in decision-making positions. Yet again, the congress is clearly a prestigious national event from which the male côterie wish to benefit.

My friend Irene Norman suggested that each country hosting the congress should be held accountable for achieving national changes in the three years leading up to the following gathering. (Irene was awarded “woman of the year for learning” by the Wales Assembly Government in 2002 and named one of Wales’ 2003 “top ten regenerators” in community education through projects such as promoting women’s enterprise.)

We were told by the convenors that the logo of this year’s congress represented “a woman, like a butterfly, emerging from her chrysalis, symbol of the change we are all going through, with her wings open to the future of possibilities.”

To what extent is this meaningful?

We can’t deny the fact that, in one sense, the Women’s Worlds phenomenon is located within what is still a man’s world, deriving permission, sponsorship and credibility from it. Can, indeed, women’s worlds exist independently outside? Yes, in terms of our collective intellect and imagination, our capacity to inspire each other, the connections we make and our conversations together. All this leaves little doubt that a woman’s world (for want of a better phrase) would be a smarter, safer, fairer, wittier, more colourful and sustainable place for both men and women to live in. Not a utopia, but a different paradigm – and an urgent necessity.

The Women’s Worlds 2008 website is at

www.mmww08.org

Read more: Wales Women’s Studies Monographs

Nearly ninety years of solitude: Magical realism and the United Nations

“Last night the UN rebuked the Zimbabwean government”

(Quoted from front page article, The Guardian, 24th June 2008)

When I ask my daughter about the literature module she’s been studying on the works of Gabriel García Marquez, Mikhail Bulgakov and Salman Rushdie, she replies: “But, mum, I think the whole of life is magical realism!” And thus she gifts me the language by which I can begin to translate the fantastic narrative of the United Nations.

Just a quick recap of the main aspects of the genre: time passes and yet stands still; events repeat themselves, but nothing is resolved; cause and effect are inverted while the characters - resembling each other and even having similar names - accept rather than question the logic of the magical element. In general, the story holds a dreamlike quality with heightened sensory details, emotions and symbolism all of which work to seduce and confuse the reader.

Is the magical or the mundane rendering of the plot more truthful to the world as it is?
Here it goes…

The forefather of the United Nations was the League of Nations - conceived during the first world war and established in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles, “to promote international cooperation and achieve peace and security”. Twenty years before, its existence was heralded by the first international peace conference, hosted in Den Hag, to elaborate common instruments for settling crises peacefully, preventing wars and codifying rules of warfare. The weakling League of Nations was disowned in 1942 for having failed to prevent the second world war. So, in 1945, fifty countries came together in San Francisco to celebrate the birth of the newly proposed United Nations and to baptise the Security Council - the body with primary responsibility for preserving peace - which held its first meeting in January 1946.

“Unlike the UN General Assembly, the Security Council was given power to enforce measures (on any danger to world peace) and was organized as a compact executive organ. Also unlike the assembly, it in theory functions continuously... However, on substantive matters, the nine affirmative votes required under the charter must include the five permanent members. This requirement of ‘Big Five’ unanimity embodies the so-called veto. The veto has prevented much substantive action of the UN but it embodies the reality that resolution of major crises requires the agreement of major powers” (US, UK, France, Russia and China).”

Almost lost in translation here: the Security Council as an entity was never given the power to avert crises or to exert sanctions – but the five major powers gave themselves (and each other) a licence to wage war (although of course Russia and China were never meant to use this). How many times during the 1980s did the UN General Assembly condemn US interference in the domestic affairs of Nicaragua (for example) while the US arrogantly shrugged off the ruling of the International Court of Justice in Den Hag? In more recent times, how often has the toothless Security Council vacillated over relationships in the Middle East, before and after, in all impotence, watching as the US and UK invade Iraq?

As I float back through the nebulous history of the UN family, I can recount how Iraqi oil was an issue that arose during the first world war: the archives show that the British government rushed troops to Mosul in 1918 to gain control of the northern oil fields. Britain and France clashed over Iraq's oil during and after the Versailles Conference, but Britain eventually took the lion’s share by turning its military victories into colonial rule. The powerful Iraq Petroleum Company acted always in the cartel interests of the Anglo-American companies. To the fury of the Iraqis and the French, the IPC held down production to maximize profits elsewhere, keeping a monopoly of Iraq’s oil sector until nationalization in 1972 (see Global Policy Forum).

During the final years of the Saddam era, envied companies from France, Russia, China and elsewhere obtained major contracts. But UN sanctions were kept in place by the US and the UK, making those contracts inoperable. Since the occupation of Iraq in 2003, have things changed? The Iraqi constitution of 2005, greatly influenced by US advisors, contains language that guarantees a major role for foreign companies in the forthcoming decades. But it is not yet a done deal - the Iraqi parliament has balked at the legislation; most Iraqis favour continued control by a national company and the powerful oil workers union strongly opposes de-nationalization. This is another thread in the nylon stocking of the storyline that will run and run.

Meanwhile, the UN flounders incomprehensibly across the globe, as ‘breaking news’ (UN News Centre ) eerily echoes both past and future:

“Settlement in Cyprus ‘not a foregone conclusion’ says envoy”

“UNICEF reports rising trend of violence against children in strife-torn countries”

“Ban calls for ‘redoubled’ efforts on causes and consequences of forced displacement”

“Kosovo plan is a ‘practical and workable solution’”

“UN chief says more women need to be involved in peace negotiations and recovery.”

In Africa conflict, food insecurity, poor health and inequality prosper. Help is at hand, however, according to ‘musician and humanitarian’ Bob Geldof who raised money through the Live Aid concerts of 1985 in response to famine and drought in northeast Africa (the UN estimated 160m people were still affected after nine months) .

This gentle knight accompanied the US president on his journey round Africa recently and records the experience without irony:

“On Air Force One, the President and I discussed this Luminous Continent, drenched in light and hope, grace and spirit…” (No! How could I make it up? This is from Time magazine, March 3rd 2008) “…The great unacknowledged story of America in Africa didn’t immediately originate with this President. But it was accelerated hugely by him, increased by him and monitored by him… I look forward to seeing exactly what the next President will do to continue this great untold and secret story. The story of the African Bush.” (No! seriously!) “The quiet triumph of America’s foreign policy.”

In the same issue of Time, ‘last true movie star’ George Clooney has an alternative perspective. Founder of a Darfur support organisation Not on Our Watch, he has a UN passport bearing the legend ‘Messenger of Peace’ (“it’s very cool”) which allows him to visit. “I’ve been very depressed since I got back. I’m terrified that it isn’t in any way helping. That bringing attention can cause more damage. You dig a well or build a health centre and they’re a target for someone… A lot more people know about Darfur but nothing is different. Absolutely nothing.”

Travelling to conflict areas of Sierra Leone and the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, we next find goodwill ambassador for the UN High Commission for Refugees, Hollywood actress and ‘earth mother’ Angelina Jolie (with adopted children from Ethiopia, Vietnam and Cambodia she has said she would like to create her own UN family) (Scotland on Sunday, 22nd June 2008).

Still active in the story from time to time is ‘international entertainment personality’ Geri Halliwell, who as goodwill ambassador to the United Nations Population Fund since 1998, draws on her ‘girl power’ persona to promote women’s sexual and reproductive health rights not only in countries like the Philippines and Zambia, but also in the US (speaking to Congress - and respect to her).

Stop press for 18th June 2008:

At roundtable discussions at UN headquarters in New York, US Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice raises the issue of war rape and joins calls for an end to sexual violence in armed conflict. She also presses the UN to weigh in on Zimbabwe’s rising violence: “the UN must act.” A UN food survey warns of impending food crisis in Zimbabwe. Neighbouring Malawi (where pop singer Madonna adopted her son) can help out because bumper harvests last year have provided a surplus, so the government is selling maize to Zimbabwe while the poorest Malawians are unable to buy sufficient food for their own families.

Violence and discrimination have marked Mugabe’s reign since he was first elected in 1980. However, during the first ten years, a commitment to social programmes brought real changes in the areas of health and education. From 1990 there followed austerity measures (it’s the same old story) imposed by the World Bank and IMF (both members of the UN family) - which have drastically affected social development in Zimbabwe.

So, here is the UN Security Council’s first direct involvement in the Zimbabwean crisis: mundane, magic or meaningful? Compare with the (still unsuccessful) nearly fifty-year-old US trade embargo on Cuba which continues despite the fact that, in the annual UN General Assembly, all of the USA’s closest allies vote against it. But no surprises there, especially as the term ‘magical realism’ was originally coined in 1949 by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier : he called it “lo real maravilloso” in his novel The Kingdom of this World.


Note
In 1967, The New York Times hailed One Hundred Years of Solitude as "the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race."

Read more
The new International Journal of Cuban Studies is now online at http://www.cubastudiesjournal.org/

And all my posts under Conflict and Africa!

Democracy in Mali: the president and the prostitute

The second round of parliamentary elections in Mali was completed at the weekend (22nd July 2007). The ADP coalition supporting Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT) was always the favourite to win and in the end they took 128 seats out of 147 in the national assembly. Since ATT was re-elected president for a second five-year term in May, the casual observer may be forgiven for assuming that the Malian population are happy with his style of leadership and that, clearly, he has their support to go forward with the neo-liberal programme of economic reform imposed by western donors.

Let’s look beneath the surface, because this also occurs in other countries. While Mali is perceived to be one of the most stable democracies in the African continent, it is also right at the bottom of the UN’s human development index. Despite a raft of donor-driven institutional reforms, life has not improved for the majority of her citizens. This is one good reason why the turnout for the national elections was low - as in bye-elections over the last year or so - indicating disillusionment with politics in general. Overall the turnout was estimated at 33% but this figure hides the disastrous lack of engagement of citizens in the capital (12%) and the relatively high engagement in some rural areas (up to 50% or more in a country where the literacy rate is around 25%).

Gender equality has made no progress whatsoever in the past 5 years. In fact, it looks as if it might be reversed. In the outgoing assembly, women deputies counted for a bare 10% or 14 out of 147 seats with 5 women ministers (18%). This year for the first time there was a woman presidential candidate Aminata Sidibé who entered the race late and was only able to draw on the support of a network of Malian women working in the non-governmental sector. In the parliamentary elections there were 227 women candidates out of 1,408 and none of them were elected in the first round, leaving only 26 to save Mali’s honour in the second round. Predictions that the number of female deputies would be halved in the new assembly were found to be too pessimistic: 14 women were finally elected.

This is not because women don’t want to be involved in politics. They have campaigned vigorously, in a cross-party coalition for the introduction of 30% quotas on the candidate lists (which are put forward by the different political parties) and even managed to get a bill discussed in the national assembly last August, in preparation for this year’s elections. After a stormy debate, the bill was thrown out by a majority of the legislature – but as they are almost all men, this is hardly surprising.

And while male commentators continue to claim that women are not politically competent or confident enough to run a successful campaign, women themselves complain that the main factor is economic inequality. Those candidates that have money to bribe the electorate will win. The vast majority of women in Mali are economically dependent and anyway women don’t play that game. Possibly one reason why men are against more women in government is that “their presence would bring scruples back into public life and rehabilitate politics in the eyes of citizens for whom ‘democracy’ has become devalued.” (Bintou Sanankoua secretary general of the network of African women ministers and parliamentarians and former deputy in Mali). Indeed, the ombudsman’s report for 2006 revealed that 103 billion West African francs (more than £103 billion) had been ‘lost’ that year through government corruption in Mali.

Coalition politics

The problem is that Mali exemplifies open democracy gone wild, but only for men of course. There was a total of 154 political parties contesting the 2007 elections, the same scenario as in 2002, when ATT formed a coalition government. For the 2007 elections, the ADP (the alliance for development and progress) comprised over thirty political parties and numerous other civil society organisations. In different constituencies different coalitions joined together to form other coalitions as seemed expedient in order to present the most attractive lists. This form of coalition politics is entirely cynical and has nothing to with political principle, according to Nina Walet Intalou, councillor in the northern-most constituency of Kidal and deputy chair of the independent state watchdog for local government.



In other words there is no viable opposition. As another friend there commented, the strongest candidate standing against ATT was Ibrahim Boubacar Keita - who had just been working with ATT as a minister for 5 years in government (sound familiar to British readers?): how can he be seen as a serious political opponent? Although I’m not generally in favour of the combative male two-party oppositional political paradigm, I have to agree with Nina Walet that it at least means representatives attempt to have some kind of position. The situation is also a disadvantage for ATT, because as leader he has to please everyone in the coalition. Realistically, he has to go along with corruption. And as for social justice, well, for example, he allegedly supported the women’s quota bill himself but was not able to push it through. Yet it seems he certainly had all the civil servants in his pocket come election time.

So, the long and the short of it is that the citizens of Mali don’t bother voting because – despite the plethora of apparent options - there isn’t really any choice. And, in the same vein, journalists are free to say what they like about ATT and the government because that’s not going to make any difference either.

Freedom of the press

However, there was a little fuss in June when a secondary school teacher was arrested for disrespect to the president, along with five journalists - which led Reporters without Borders to query Mali’s status as one of the few African countries to field a free press. Believe it or not I actually met this young man who used to drive up on a moped to visit his cousin Mboye, the housekeeper in the Bamako courtyard where I lived for 3 months. In his first year of teaching, Bassirou Minta had taken advice from an older colleague on essay themes that had been used before. He then gave his students an assignment to write on moral corruption in relation to an imaginary president and his mistress. The press got hold of this, thanks to a helpful parent. Minta was fined, jailed and barred from teaching; the journalists were also fined and had suspended sentences for publishing articles on the matter. The public were barred from the trial on the grounds it was a ‘sex case’.

On 21 June, a crowd of around 200 journalists marched in the capital in front of the office of the Justice Minister to demand the release of their colleagues (as reported by the International Federation of Journalists) Security forces violently broke up the protest and fired tear gas at the journalists, badly injuring Ibrahim Famakan Coulibaly, the president of the Malian Journalists' Association and the West African Journalists' Association.

But the story was nothing to do with politics - or was it? Firstly, the woman in the story was ‘a student and economic prostitute’. It is so much taken for granted in Mali that young women will sell their favours to older wealthy and more powerful men. It is only when the girl falls pregnant, as here, that there is an issue to debate - one of the dilemmas being should the president marry his mistress and recognise his child - which in fact he is forced to do when the girl comes into a cabinet meeting to plead her case.

Apparently ATT is well known for his extra-marital liaisons and his long line of natural-born children. A lot of people think ‘a big man’ like him should have disregarded the story in the press instead of over-reacting. As the journalist who first published the story puts it: “the link is clear between moral corruption at the grassroots and the role model at the very top which has created it.” Seydina Oumar Diarra continues: “We allow young girls from our own families and villages to be pimped - in a society where money has become the only sign of success.”

Meanwhile Mali’s new poverty reduction strategy depends on money from the US-based Millennium Challenge Corporation. The MCC currently uses 16 objective indicators of social, political, and economic performance to determine a country’s eligibility for support – including combating corruption. The aid invested is expected to deliver a return, namely, improvements in the lives of the poor. Mali’s plans are to upgrade the airport at Bamako which will advantage private and foreign companies. In addition, rural development will include parcelling out land to what another journalist (Ousmane Sow, writing in Les Echos 22 November 2006) calls ‘Sunday farmers from Bamako.’ Instead of the people benefiting from the great green river Niger, their water and electricity supplies are controlled by outside entreprise - and GM crops are being introduced by the US under a new agricultural project.

So, that’s democracy in Mali. Who’s the prostitute in the story? And where’s the moral outrage? A government committee is complaining that not enough people went online to cast their vote for Timbouctou to become classed as one of the seven wonders of the world. Never mind, two young Maliennes have been voted in to the final round of the regonal Miss Sahel competition. Let’s get things in proportion.



Afterthought: The women’s platform

The women’s cross-party coalition in Mali held a round-table in January 2007 to develop a women’s platform for future increase in political participation . I hope they get the support they need to move this forward for the 2009 local elections. At that level, another women’s platform already exists : the labour-saving multi-purpose machine run on battery power which performs a range of tasks normally allotted to women, lightening their physical load and freeing up time – to become involved in politics. If every community in Mali had one of these, we might begin to see real progress in democracy and development.



Read more

See an earlier post on the same theme: The Boys Club Rules OK

Pamela Mhlanga discusses the 50.50 gender protocol in southern Africa

My original essay on Mali: everyone's favourite destination, 2006

Africa and democracy: Club rules still apply

The Club of Madrid is comprised of 68 former heads of state and effectively amounts to an old boys network. When I first heard it was launching the African Women Leaders Project - in support of high-level women politicians in West Africa – I was a little sceptical. However, Mary Robinson, one of the few women members of the club, is leading the project, and it’s a salutary reminder that we need more women leaders not only in Africa - but across the world.

With funding from the European Union, the project will provide opportunities for sharing experiences, networking and looking at feasible policy options for the increase of women’s political participation.

It’s a worthy cause. Because feminists, women lawyers and human rights activists in Africa have already been systematically addressing these issues and wherever I go the message is the same: we’ve heard the rhetoric, let’s see some action.

The key instrument for gender equality is the African Protocol for the Rights of Women (based on CEDAW) - which, after much lobbying, was ratified by the African Union in 2004. Women are still actively campaigning for individual governments to ratify and implement the protocol at national level.

In November 2006, The Gambia hosted an ECOWAS conference for women’s rights representatives to develop a common approach. The difficulty they all have is explaining to male-dominated governments that, under the protocol, affirmative action to achieve equal representation of women is not an option but a regionally (and internationally) endorsed principle.

Once this right is recognised and enforced, there are examples of electoral systems which facilitate equitable election of women candidates. The most impressive example – not only for Africa but for the world – is the quota system in Rwanda, underpinned by civil society involvement, which has resulted in fifty-fifty government. Rwanda also led the way by holding the first international women parliamentarians conference (February 2007). According to organiser Judith Kanakuze, this aimed to develop participating countries’ “insights and commitment to gender equality as a tool for nation building”.

Where this principle remains in question, women’s efforts continue to be frustrated. The Women’s Manifesto for Ghana was developed collaboratively by Abantu for the 2004 elections to provide a common platform for both voters and candidates. Their hope was: “women would be empowered to use their vote as a bargaining tool; candidates have an agenda once elected; and political parties held accountable as to where they stand in relation to women’s issues.” Ghana, widely recognised as a stable progressive democracy, recently celebrated her 50th year of independence. But, with only 9% of elected officials at national or local level, women still feel left out of the celebrations.

Meanwhile, the Fifty-Fifty Group in Sierra Leone - a country still recovering from civil war - is campaigning hard to get at least 30% representation for women in the July 2007 national elections.

It all comes down to money

Even where (male) political support is not forthcoming, women clearly have the capacity to move forward their own agenda. While cultural and educational restraints are often quoted, my discussions with women activists in Mali reveal a consensus on what is really holding them back from success. “Basically, it all comes down to money,” says Nina Walet, former Vice-President, Haut Conseil des Collectivités, the independent state watch-dog for local government.

Women’s lack of economic empowerment hinders their political participation from the very first step. In order to register as a voter, to join a political party or to stand as a candidate, you need to have a birth certificate and that costs money. So does running an election campaign. In countries with limited infrastructure, travelling round the constituency can be difficult and expensive. The same applies for getting to the voting station, as Nina Walet, who stood for mayor in the desert region of Kidal, describes: “Voters have to travel long distances of up to 60 kms, so you need to give them food and lodging overnight, provide water for their animals. I sent my people out one week beforehand to find two or three tents each and persuade the touaregs to come in and vote.”

And even then… Nina, whose electorate consists of 70% women, was elected mayor in 1999 but her appointment was never endorsed by the state because of pressure from the men of the (wealthy) ruling family of Kidal.

Women’s organisations all emphasise the need for finance to support their lobbying and campaigning work - to mobilise members from different parts of the country, run meetings, produce leaflets, discuss and publish manifestos or get media coverage. “Awareness raising is an essential activity - for both men and women, not only at the grassroots but also among intellectuals and professionals”.

Article 26 of the women’s protocol obliges member states to provide a budget for effective implementation of gender equality. Oumou Traoré, director of the coalition of women’s associations (CAFO) in Mali, is indignant about the lack of state support. “Women are just treated as election fodder. We need leadership training and citizenship education. Women should understand their rights, put up resistance to party politics, learn to vote for the policies not the person, check the party lists to see if women candidates are included. But the government’s afraid of this kind of thinking, maybe that’s why we don’t get any funding from them.”

The right conditions

National women’s organisations often look in vain to the international community to support their cause. In fact the situation has got worse with the introduction of the poverty reduction strategy (PRSP) model. “In 1997-8 we had a lot of encouragement from donors for women candidates and direct support. But now all donor money goes through the government, the donors shrug and say sorry, they can no longer help out,” says Nina Walet.

Rwanda, with her critical mass of women in government, has moved towards institutionalising gender through all areas of planning, legislation and development. This requires a process of gender budgeting– not an increase in funds but an equitable redistribution.

For women in Mali the answer is clear. “Donors should impose conditions on the government for quotas - and proper resources to support women’s political participation.” I’m not generally a proponent of conditionality for aid, but this is one case where G8 countries could, in one simple move, change the face of development, reduce corruption, increase efficiency, promote peace – by themselves endorsing international law on women’s rights rather than enforcing privatisation of basic services which result in the economic disempowerment of women.

At the France-Afrique summit in Bamako in December 2005, the participants celebrated the presence of Ellen Johnson- Sirleaf, first democratically elected woman head of state in Africa – an inspiration for Liberians, Africans and women everywhere. She also addressed the US Congress in March 2006, an honour bestowed sparingly on international dignitaries. She faces the daunting task of bringing peace and prosperity to a society afflicted by years of conflict. However, as soon as she took up position, the European Union laid down conditions for continued funding. She has been back to the US a second time to lobby for debt cancellation - which, along with control of trans-national companies and additional aid for health and education, may have been a more effective way of strengthening female leadership and public confidence in women political leaders, as the Club of Madrid project aims to do.

Why doesn’t the international community turn rhetoric into action? After all, fifty-fifty is a simple concept and it’s been shown to work. “The real problem is that men won’t give up power,” says Nina. “ In fact, they just get greedier.”

A surprising end to the story is that there has been a female candidate for the first time in Mali’s presidential elections: Mme Aminata Sidibé, lecturer at the University of Bamako and well-known environmental activist. She was inspired by the International Women’s Day celebrations in Bamako - which focussed on women’s political emergence as a force for change. She entered the race late and her only support was a group of Malian women employed by various international development agencies who were able to help with networking. While Aminata didn’t really have a chance in the primaries against the incumbent, President Amadou Toumani Touré, her name and face were in the polls and in the newspapers – underlining the fact that there are competent African women willing to come forward, dedicated to building social capital and changing the face of development.

They are held back by north-north, south-south and north-south male economic networking. After all, it’s nice to have the ladies providing a little colour. But, apart from in Rwanda and other notable exceptions, the boys club still rules OK.


Nice quotes

“Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is not an anomaly. The African political landscape is being reshaped by women, generating hope for the future of the continent and raising the bar for democracy worldwide.” Pambazuka News

“Female illiteracy is a social mechanism designed to ensure female acquiescence and mute the voice of women.” Roselynn Musa

Further links

Women’s Manifesto for Ghana

Gender Budgeting

International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance

iKNOWPolitics

Sudan: The chips are down

Carmen Moreno, director of the United Nation’s international institute for training and research for the advancement of women (Instraw) describes the appalling levels of insecurity and violence which shape women’s lives as a ‘Russian roulette’.

Reports of sexual violence on all sides of the Darfur conflict continue. Women may be victims in this game but not always passive. “Women go out of the camps to get firewood. They say that if their men went, they’d be killed and that’s why the women choose to expose themselves to being raped instead.’ Subsequently, many of the victims then bear and bring up the nameless children of this aggression. (Louise Arbour on international women’s day)

Systematic use of rape was highlighted in the controversial report prepared for the current session of the Human Rights Council. The team of investigators led by Jodi Williams claim the Sudanese government has failed to protect the population of Darfur from large-scale international crimes and has itself orchestrated and participated in these. In fact, it is estimated that women comprise 90% of the of the victims of the conflict.

A hard-hitting report specifically on sexual violence in Darfur was published by AllianceDarc in December 2006. To coincide with publication on the global day for Darfur a letter signed by an international group of stateswomen was circulated calling for a robust and effective peacekeeping force.

Instraw, a tiny member of the UN family, has carried out research on integrating a gender dimension into the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) framework. Endorsed by the UN Reform Summit in 2005, the R2P doctrine requires the international community to prevent conflict, react to humanitarian crises and help rebuild societies - in situations where national government fails to do so.

The fourth session of the Human Rights Council met 12th to 30th March 2007

Responsibility to protect?

While Angela Merkel, guest of honour at the 24th France-Afrique summit in Cannes spoke on the theme of ‘joint responsibility for peace and security’ with specific reference to Sudan, we haven’t seen too much R2P from G8 countries.

Current and recent political activity revolves around the call for economic sanctions against the Sudanese government. To be fair, the US government took a lead last decade on banning US business involvement, although according to Drumbeat for Darfur US financial institutions are still investing in third country foreign companies operating in Sudan. And as always, there are questions over the effectiveness of the sanctions approach.

There has been condemnation of China’s role in Sudan from both western governments and African civil society : the displacement of people in order to develop the oil-fields has contributed to, if not created, the current crisis, while government revenues from the partnership with China are said to finance the janjawid militias. China has been called on to exert influence on the Sudanese government and France’s latest ploy is to suggest boycotting the next Olympic games in Beijing if China doesn’t help out. However, it is important to note that not only the US but Britain, the Netherlands and Germany, have all had petroleum interests in Sudan; African commentators see western business interests as the root cause of the conflict - and Khartoum is a new boom town.

The Darfur Consortium an African / international civil society action group has consistently lobbied African governments for continued commitment to AMIS (the African Union peacekeeping mission in Sudan). They have also petitioned the Arab governments of north Africa in particular to take a more pro-active role vis-à-vis the Sudanese government.

I spoke last year in Mali to Commandante Nema Sagará– one of the few trained African women peace-keepers –about the development of the AU peace-keeping force. She told me then that it doesn’t have sufficient capacity (including funding) to mount, execute and maintain missions effectively – although a range of military training for African peacekeepers and observer missions has been provided by western governments (US, Canada, France, Germany) clearly with the intention that Africa will be left to sort out her own problems.

While the potential of AMIS (and more generally, the AU as a continental peacekeeper) is recognised and promoted, there is no budget support from the international community. And, since the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, G8 and other bilateral donors continue to lay down conditions for debt repayments, cuts in public expenditure, financial sector reform, privatisation of basic services and unfavourable trade agreements, African governments are a little strapped for cash.

Despite this, tiny landlocked Rwanda has sent 2,000 soldiers to AMIS. However President Paul Kagamé has expressed frustration that “our presence there hasn’t brought about any change on the ground” and Foreign Affairs Minister Charles Murgandé goes further: “We ask ourselves if we should maintain our soldiers for a mission which is not supported by the international community.”

In response to Jacques Chirac’s recent call for sanctions, the leader of one of Darfur’s rebel movements Abdul Wahid Al-Nour challenges France and the EU to make a choice: “Either you send an international force or you give us weapons to defend ourselves.”

One financial solution reported in Jeune Afrique (19-25 November 2006) comes from the US company Blackwater offering mercenaries to fight under the UN flag. This would work out cheaper than the going price of $1000 per solider per month paid to governments. Apparently Kofi Annan had even thought about using South Africa’s Executive Outcome in Rwanda during the genocide there (for similar reasons) but concluded “the world’s not yet ready to privatise peace”. Then again, everything else in Africa is being privatised.

Prevention is better

Not everyone is convinced a military solution is appropriate. Humanitarian workers on the ground in Darfur highlight the complexity of the situation, suggesting that the EU and China focus on support for reopening negotiations. Only one of the three main rebel movements signed the Darfur Peace Agreement in December. It’s not certain that a political solution can be found for Sudan either, given the fragmentation of opposing groups and the fact that just a handful of (male) leaders are involved in such discussions.


As Roselynn Musa reports on the ‘comprehensive’ peace agreement for southern Sudan signed in 2005, this excludes consideration of women’s specific contributions and concerns in peace negotiations and rehabilitation processes.

Surely, for the future, we have to do better. Above all, this requires sound investment in conflict prevention. Instraw has a new guide to policy and planning for women peace and security (UN SCR 1325). Bring together the whole range of stakeholders - including women and women’s organisations – to develop a joint strategy which represents and addresses the different needs and interests of all. However, there’s the usual caveat: ‘a dedicated budget is essential to ensuring the concrete and sustainable implementation of even the most modest action plan.’

In her speech at Cannes, Merkel claimed that Germany was “monitoring the situation in Zimbabwe with great concern.” Meanwhile Condaleeza Rice inaugurated awards for international women of courage. One of the recipients was Jennifer Williams founder of Woza (Women of Zimbabwe Arise)who accepted the award on behalf of the movement’s 45,000 members and took the opportunity to emphasise that “it’s important for the diplomatic community to play a role in helping us to achieve our struggle.”

“Women of courage are standing up for freedom and human dignity and the United States stands with them,” announced Rice .
Events in Zimbabwe have now moved on. The breath-taking gap between what western politicians say and what they do (or not) - to prevent conflict or protect civilians - remains. Are they really cynical and self-serving or do they speak in good faith? Is it a compulsive habit? Close your eyes when placing the chips and then cross your fingers. That’s how to gamble away other people’s security - when those with a real stake in peace are never called to the table.


Patricia Daniel
March 2007


Read more

Sexual violence in Darfur

Save Darfur petition

Women at the World Social Forum

Until end of January I'm going to be in Nairobi blogging the World Social Forum from a women's perspective. Please check out the blog here

Africa: Responsible Parenting

My good friend Mary tells me the story of how she once went into a posh hotel in Bamako and saw five or six white women sitting in a line, each with a cute black baby on her knee, ‘for all the world as if they’d just been on a shopping spree and were showing off their purchases.’

Adoption of African babies by white families in the West is an ongoing practice and may be done from the best of intentions. Yet Mary, who has been in Mali for twenty years and has her own Malian family, explains how the practice of African-Western adoption highlights fundamental cross-cultural misunderstandings.

It is, in fact, common for African parents to let family or friends look after one of their children, give them a good education or a better start in life. But this is quite different from giving up their child for good: the child is always part of their natural family and will always return to take up their adult role there.

‘However carefully the process is explained to an African family, they simply don’t grasp the concept of adoption as we understand it in the West, because for them, the idea of giving up a child for good is simply inconceivable. So, when African parents enter into such an adoption agreement, they do not realise the full consequences of what they are doing.’

In addition, there is plenty of evidence from personal testimony that, however loving white adoptive parents may be, black children taken out of their natural environment – no matter how disadvantaged - will grow up to resent this and even say: ‘I wish it had never happened.’
You can take the child out of Africa, but you can’t take Africa out of the child.

Although some of this evidence is now contested there has been, in the UK, since the early 1980s, serious opposition to ‘transracial adoption’ - which makes it extremely difficult for a white British family to adopt a black child who has been born to parents in the UK. But, somehow, this restriction doesn’t apply to adoptions from overseas.

Adopt a country

We’ve had the sponsor a child concept - which means providing extra support for a child in their own environment. That’s been criticised for setting the child apart, creating inequality in the community. There followed the ‘sponsor a community’ concept, but this attracts the same criticisms. You can’t solve Africa’s problems by focussing on individual needs, without addressing the system in which these needs arise, as Malawian child rights activists have tried to point out to Madonna.


Good intentions are simply not enough. There’s inevitably a power and wealth differential in these arrangements which has to be recognised. So when I read that Angela Merkel is proposing that each of the G8 countries adopt an African country as part of her G8 presidency platform, my blood runs cold. Although this won’t mean taking children out of Africa, there are a number of possible consequences worth considering.

My first reaction is that this is a 21st century return to the original carve-up of the African continent between colonial powers, the impact of which is still being suffered by individual African countries. This seems to smack of the same kind of paternalism: ‘we can do things better, we know what you need.’ Haven’t we learned anything?

But there’s always more than one perspective. When I mention the idea to the president of one of the leading African women’s organisations, she’s surprisingly enthusiastic. ‘What a great idea! Just think, if Germany was really concentrating on Mali, all our problems would be sorted within 12 months!’

Maybe it’s something to do with who is going to do the parenting. Because, in fact, though Germany’s contribution to development aid is rather thrifty, it’s always money wisely spent, her technical assistance is widely recognised as excellent and, in Mali, very much appreciated.

Despite this, German representatives here privately admit to grave doubts about the longer-term sustainability of their projects, given the lack of real commitment of central government to the decentralisation process and the related lack of effective social mobilisation at the grassroots.

One of the reasons Mali may welcome greater involvement from Germany is their strongly felt need to escape from the psychological influence of ageing France – whose continuing stranglehold on the education system in francophone West Africa deliberately, according to education workers, impedes the development of locally appropriate skills and attitudes for both young men and women.

What kind of partnership?

Are African countries now going to have the choice over who will adopt them? Will there be a squabble in the nursery? ‘No, I want Germany to be our new dad!’ or ‘Yes, we want China to be our new mum!’

For each G8 country is going to do parenting differently. Does this mean we will see new paradigms of development, and, for example, competition between the latest German and Japanese models?

I’m not seriously worried about the proposal, because I don’t believe the G8 countries will buy into it. Whatever their relative levels of altruism as regards development aid, they all want to have a footprint in every African country, for reasons of future political influence and their own economic benefit.

But I want to run with the metaphor because it can be both entertaining and informative. What’s going to happen if Germany is doing a good parenting job with characteristic Zuverläßigkeit and China comes along, like a flamboyant rich auntie, saying: ‘That’s OK, bruv, take the weekend off, I’ll give her a treat.’ Then proceeds to subvert little Mali with a diet of takeaway pizza, coca cola and adult-rated movies?

China is willing to adopt any of the children. You can already see the marks of her high-heels across Africa, from Algeria to Angola, most recently in Accra (Ghana). She now rivals the US in trade relations. But Africans are beginning to ask: ‘what does our Chinese friend really want? She’s not applying any political conditions to economic engagement. Is she a new partner or just a neo-colonial?’ (Afrique Magazine No. 254 November 2006)

In contrast, the German proposal specifies that only certain countries are going to be adopted. Like those respectable white ladies in the Hotel Salaam, G8 is mainly interested in cute well-behaved babies. After all, who but China would want to invest in rebellious, abused, conflicted children like the Sudan or D R Congo, when you can’t trust them to play nicely at parties?

Rwanda has successfully managed to grow out of her bad-girl image. (Far be it from me to suggest this success is due to the fact that, after the 1994 genocide, the majority of the population were women.) The country’s also thrown off the influence of France, whose neglect in the 1990s had such unimaginable consequences. Now Rwanda has her own vision for her future, she is able to stand up to France and say: ‘We are equals.’

Her government’s had a lot of help through much-needed budget support from the UK. But people from both East and West Africa have also raised issues with me about commercially motivated UK support for Rwanda playing dirty games across the fence with neighbouring DR Congo…

Readers may argue that I’m being unfair. Merkel’s proposal is about G8 countries ‘picking a partnership’. She is suggesting a summit with (male) African leaders to discuss the proposal. In fact, as other reports highlight, this is not about giving more money in development aid, but (what a surprise) developing private sector investment. So, without checking the small print or talking to their (female) partners in country, are African governments going to sign up yet again to an agreement of which the consequences may be unexpectedly negative?


Good parenting

I am very lucky that I was brought up where I belonged, in Yorkshire, by my natural parents, both poor but proud working class socialists. This tough love upbringing consisted of the Brian Daniel Methodist-based morality (‘Well, you should have been sorry before you did it’) and Victorian work ethic (‘If anything’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right’) combined with the Mildred Baxter school of counselling (‘It’s time you pulled your socks up, love’).

This resulted in me working hard, taking responsibility for my own actions, never being a victim or wearing wrinkled stockings. I grew up with self-respect, because I was always treated as an intelligent equal.

Good parenting also works by example. Despite their humble origins, my parents were both loved and respected members of society. They didn’t lie, cheat or steal; never countenanced violence; they gave their services to the community for free after work in the evenings (because that’s what you do) and didn’t feel the need to advertise their achievements.

It’s not enough to have good intentions - you also need to live out your principles.

Adoption procedures in the UK continue to be stringent, and rightly so, because parenting is a big responsibility, not everyone can hack it. So, all you G8 countries, please line up behind Germany: I’d like to inspect your credentials. Africa is still experiencing growing pains because of colonialism - and which one among you, in the meantime, has become a fit parent?

December 2006