An audience of dissatisfied African men

Last night, November 7, I went to a talk at AU on “Crossing the Border: Palestinians, Migrants and Bedouins in Sinai.” The speaker described the complex layers of cultures and ethnic groups that live and move through this section of Egypt. There were, she said, four principal groups: 1) Palestinians; 2) Bedouins; 3) Egyptian migrants; and 4) Illegal migrants.
The speaker described the thousands of Palestinians that have been trapped at the border at Rafah since Hamas took control of Gaza strip. A new word, she said, has emerged in the Palestinian dictionary to describe these people: “al-Alqyin”, or “the stranded.” She explained how the Bedouins, who had lived in this section of the world for generations, lacked basic legal rights such as property rights and citizenship. She outlined how the Egyptian government repopulated Sinai after 1982, drawing villagers from the Egyptian valley over to Sinai with promises of better salaries and housing.
But what struck me about the whole talk was not all this fascinating information about Palestinians, Bedouins and Egyptian migrants. It was the makeup of the audience who had come to listen to the talk. Over 75% of the people sitting in the room were African men. I have no idea where these men were from. I have no idea whether they are living in Egypt legally or illegally. But they did seem particularly fascinated by the topic of “illegal migrants.” Unfortunately, the speaker only brushed over this topic in the last minute of her 40-minute presentation. Knees jiggled nervously around me. When the speaker stopped, these men questioned her about the smugglers who traffic people across the border from Egypt to Israel: Was it just the Bedouins? Who was in overall control of this smuggling? Who controlled the border? The speaker’s answers were wholly inadequate (to be fair, this wasn’t her focus..)

I could only imagine what was passing through these men’s minds. Maybe I’m projecting stories onto them – maybe none of them have any intention of attempting to cross the border through the desert mountains. But it is likely that Israel is a potential destination for at least some of the men, despite the fact that Sudanese and Eritrean refugees have recently been shot by the Egyptian police as they were crossing the border, and despite the fact that Egypt has declared it is planning to return to Sudan some Sudanese refugees sent back from Israel (in violation of international refugee law). (see http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/EMAE-78FM49?OpenDocument; http://fortresseurope.blogspot.com/2006/01/three-migrants-shot-dead-in-2007-at.html).
When the speaker described the harsh conditions, the dangerous mindsets of the security force policing the border, and the rise in the use of violence in that region of the world… I couldn’t help but wonder if this was making at least some of the men’s hearts jump. I felt deeply grateful that I didn’t have to face this type of arduous journey in the quest for peace and economic opportunity.

Torture in Egypt

Two stories about torture in Egyptian jails have made international headlines this week. The use of torture by Egyptian state security forces is endemic and is widely criticised by human rights groups in Egypt and abroad. Today, Amnesty International released a statement calling for "sweeping measures" against torture in Egypt. (see http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=10145)

See also the commentary by arabawy (good Egyptian blogger) at http://arabist.net/arabawy/2007/11/06/boulaq-police-sadists-sentenced-to-3-years-in-prison/

Two Recent Stories:

On Monday, two Egyptian policemen were sentenced to 3 years in jail for torturing an Egyptian man, Emad al-Kebir, who was being held in custody. These policemen sexually assaulted and beat the detainee, and filmed the whole event so that they could use the footage to intimidate others. I don't know how they failed to consider the fact that this footage would likely become public... sure enough, you can see the horrific video online at YouTube.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7078785.stm

The second story that appears today regards an Egyptian man, Ahmed Saber Saad, who died after being held in custody and tortured for three days by police.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7082446.stm

Mary Oliver's "Singapore"

I have so much I want to write about this evening (went to a great panel discussion this evening about Arab women in cyberspace and justice triumphed in Egypt today when two policemen were jailed for torture) - but it's already late and I have to get up to go to a conference on migrant workers. But I promised myself that I would make one posting before going to sleep this evening. I wanted to share a poem by Mary Oliver, one of my all-time favourite poets. This particular poem is not one I read with much frequency, but when I read it before going to sleep last night, I was struck by the way in which Oliver manages to capture the subtleties of human interaction. In just a few lines, she shows how we can all make immediate, alienating judgments about people and how we can also, with something as small as a smile, overcome those moments of alienation and judgment.

The poem is called "Singapore":
"In Singapore, in the airport, / a darkness was ripped from my eyes./ In the women's restroom, one compartment stood open./ A woman knelt there, washing something/ in the white bowl.
Disgust argued in my stomach / and I felt, in my pocket, for my ticket.
A poem should always have birds in it. / Kingfishers, say, with their bold eyes and gaudy wings./ Rivers are pleasant, and of course trees./ A waterfall, or if that's not possible, a fountain rising and falling./ A person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.
When the woman turned I could not answer her face./ Her beauty and embarassment struggled together, and neither could win./ She smiled and I smiled. What kind of nonsense is this?/ Everybody needs a job.
Yes, a person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem./ But first we must watch her as she stares down at her labor, which is full enough./ She is washing the top of the airport ashtrays, as big as hubcaps, with a blue rag./ Her small hands turn the metal, scrubbing and rinsing./ She does not work slowly, or quickly, but like a river./ Her dark hair is like the wing of a bird.
I don't doubt for a moment that she loves her life./ And I want her to rise up from the crust and the slop and fly down to the river./ This probably won't happen./ But maybe it will./ If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it?
Of course, it isn't./ Neither do I mean anything miraculous, but only/ the light that can shine out of a life. I mean/ the way she unfolded and refolded the blue cloth,/ the way her smile was only for my sake; I mean/ the way this poem is filled with trees, and birds."

The right to access healthcare - US v UK

After Giuliani's attack on the British healthcare system, I was happy to read an intelligent rebuttal by Krugman in the NY Times. Yes, the British healthcare system has its faults (mismanagment, some long waiting lines, overwork of healthcare providers), but -- as Krugman points out -- "there’s very little evidence that Americans get better health care than the British, which is amazing given the fact that Britain spends only 41 percent as much on health care per person as we do." Plus healthcare in Britain isn't simply confined to the wealthy. Everyone can access the care. This is a basic right of all citizens and governments should fulfil their duty to provide such services. Go Michael Moore!!

For the full article, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/opinion/02krugman.html?em&ex=1194325200&en=657b785c5eb61362&ei=5087%0A

Extraordinary Rendition

Hossam el-Hamalawy on arabist.net drew my attention to an upcoming series on extraordinary rendition. You can see the preview at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz80NWS9vvE.

I am continually surprised by how many people have never heard of the shocking practice of "extraordinary rendition." Basically, "extraordinary rendition" occurs when countries such as the US fly individuals to a third country to be tortured and interrogated. In this way, the US can continue to claim that it does not condone the practice of torture (??!!) and can insist that torture does not occur on its own soil. For a detailed analysis with a good account of individual experiences of extraordinary rendition, and how the practice violates international human rights law, see: http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/hrj/iss19/weissbrodt.shtml

The second-class status of Baha'is in Egypt

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights has been representing Baha'is in Egypt who are unable to access ID cards. Every Egyptian citizen over the age of 16 is required to possess an ID--without this document, you can't graduate from college, get a death certificate, travel etc etc. The problem is that you have to list your religion on the ID and you are limited to the choice of Muslim, Christian or Jew. There's no option of "baha'i" or "no religion." This leads to terrible injustice. An article in Daily News Egypt recently described the situation and mentions EIPR's role in representing Baha'is:

"CAIRO: Shady Samir, a 33-year-old business owner, lost his father two years ago. Yet, he is still paying the yearly taxes on his father’s business as if he was alive. Why? Because his father is Bahai and official Egyptian documents such as the death certificate only recognize the Christian, Muslim, or Jewish faiths.
For Samir’s father to be “officially dead” to the national authorities, he would need to convert and become a Muslim, Christian, or a Jew upon his death.
Official documents such as identity cards and birth certificates are a survival necessity. Citizens cannot enroll in school, receive medical treatment, take bank loans, or buy a car without their national ID card. Young children cannot even receive vaccinations against diseases without a birth certificate.
Those Bahais who refuse to pose as Christians, Muslims, or Jews are left in limbo, living as stateless people in their own country.
“Egyptian Bahais exist in nature but in the eyes of the state they are non-existent,” said Hossam Baghat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Human Rights (EIPR)."
See the full article at http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=10046

French boy raped in UAE - prejudice shown against 'homosexuality' no surprise

I just read a heartbreaking story about a young French boy who was raped in Dubai that highlights the inadequacies of the rape laws in UAE--inadequacies that are certainly also evident in the Egyptian legal system. Despite the fact that he was raped by 3 men at knifepoint, the boy himself now faces charges of homosexual activity and has fled back to France. The UAE authorities also lied about the fact that one of the assailants had tested positive for HIV when he was in prison three years ago. The prejudice against homosexuals and lack of legal protection afforded to survivors of rape is unfortunately not surprising in this part of the world...
(Proviso: I am fully aware that the racial dynamics in this article might make some people uncomfortable--ie that it is a French national who is receiving all the attention while a UAE national would not get this type of publicity. I do not, of course, think that the rape is any worse because the survivor was French. UAE nationals cannot simply flee to Europe to escape these draconian laws.. and that's what's so terrible. I'm just pleased to see any publicity focusing on these issues).

You can read the story at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/world/middleeast/01dubai.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Also, his mother has set up a support group dedicated to her son at http://boycottdubai.com/. She is calling for reforms to the UAE criminal code so that child survivors of rape are better protected by the law. You can join as a member to show your support.

Talal Asad

I have just read an interesting interview by Talal Asad (Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center). He discusses human rights, secularism and the interaction between Islam and Western traditions. He makes very interesting observations about the interactions of the public and private in Islam. Here is an extract from his interview - an extract that highlights the importance of questioning what we mean by 'equality' and the benefits of individualism. I try to keep such questions at the forefront of my mind as I work within the world of human rights law:
"Of course there are people who are trying to rethink the Islamic tradition in ways that would make it compatible with liberal democracy. But I am much more interested in the fact that the Islamic tradition ought to lead us to question many of the liberal categories themselves. Rather than saying, "Well yes we can also be like you," why not ask what the liberal categories themselves mean, and what they have represented historically? The question of individualism, for example, is fraught with all sorts of problems, as people who have looked carefully at the tradition of individualism in the West know very well. The same is true of the question of equality. We know that the equality that is offered in liberal democracies is a purely legal equality, not economic equality. And the two forms of equality can't be kept in water-tight compartments. Even political equality doesn't necessarily give equal opportunity to all citizens to engage in or contribute to the formulation of policy. What do Islamic ideas about the individual, equality, etc., tell us about Western liberal ideas?
These are questions worth pursuing, I think. So instead of leaping up and saying, "Ah yes, we can all be liberal," I think it is more important to ask, for example, "What exactly does the liberal mean by tolerance?" It is easy enough to be tolerant about things that don't matter very much. That tends to be the rule in liberal societies. Increasingly what you believe, what you do in your own home, whether you stand on your head or decide not to, is up to you as an individual in liberal democracies. So who cares? The liberal tolerates these things because the liberal doesn't care about them. Yet tolerance is really only meaningful when it is about things that really matter. Even in ordinary language we talk about "tolerating pain". In other words, the kind of tolerance that really matters is something we ought to be exploring, thinking more about - and the ways in which the Islamic tradition conceives of tolerance (however limited that might be) helps to open up such questions."
http://www.asiasource.org/news/special_reports/asad.cfm

The effectiveness of human rights..

I am constantly questioning and assessing the role of human rights discourse, particularly in the legal field, and whether it can really make a difference to people on the ground. I think it's important that I remain acutely aware of the discord that can emerge between legal cases and people's actual lives.
I am attempting to think of ways to approach my desire to improve human relations and to reduce suffering that will really have an impact on individuals. With my literature background, I am looking at the creative projects used to promote human rights...
Today I have been reading Richard Rorty who writes:

"In my utopia, human solidarity would be seen...as a goal to be achieved. It is to be achieved not by inquiry but by imagination, the imaginative ability to see strange people as fellow sufferers. Solidarity is not discovered by reflection but created. It is created by increasing our sensitivity to the particular details of the pain and humiliation of other, unfamiliar sorts of people. Such increased sensitivity makes it more difficult to marginalize people different from ourselves... ....This process...is a matter of detailed description of what unfamiliar people are like and of redescription of what we ourselves are like. This is a task not for theory but for [other] genres..., especially, the novel. Fiction...gives us the details about kinds of suffering being endured by people to whom we had previously not attended....gives us the details about what sorts of cruelty we ourselves are capable of, and thereby lets us redescribe ourselves. That is why the novel, the movie, and the TV program have...replaced the sermon and the treatise as the principal vehicles of moral change and progress."
I have put more of Rorty's work on the bottom RHS of this blog, under 'quotations from books/articles I'm currently reading.'

Wearing a Veil .. my readings on the issue (I)

I have begun reading a variety of articles and books on women in Islam, focusing particularly on the the wearing of the veil.
The article I am reading today describes the rise of "Islamism"--a political form of Islam-- and how educated, well-travelled women who are part of this movement decide to wear the veil as a symbol of pride and distinction. The author, Nilüfer Göle, (a prominent Muslim Turkish scholar) admits that it is a "puzzling issue, because they have become assertive by adopting a symbol of gender subservience and stigmatization." She describes the veil as a "stigma," but how it is now being used as a 'positive' stigma by many women:
"veiling as a sign that is seen as debasing women's identity - as inferior to men, passive and secluded in the interior family space -- is voluntarily adopted by women as a stigma sign, but struggling to become a new prestige symbol. In short, the meanings of the veil are undergoing a radical transformation by women who have had access to secular education and agency and claim their difference in spaces of modernity. The headscarf, symbol of backwardness, ignorance, and subservience for Muslim women in modern contexts, fights back to bcome, once again, as it has thought to be in the Islamic past, a symbol of distinction and prestige for urban Muslim women."
(Nilufer Gole, "The Voluntary Adoption of Islamic Stigma Symbols," 70 Social Research 810, 820-1 (2003)).

Egypt's media defy Mubarak at their peril

An article from the Chicago Tribune describes the extent to which freedom of expression is being repressed in Egypt. The government is cracking down on any journalists (including bloggers) who are critical of Mubarak's regime. One major target has been Ibrahim Eissa, editor of the Al-Dustour newspaper. He reported in August of this year that President Mubarak (pictured opposite) was unwell, and rumours quickly spread that the president had died. The Egyptian government wasn't too happy about this!
The article is available at http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/monday/chi-egypt_slyoct15,0,7285323.story
Eissa seems to be keeping his humour going. He wrote that he was pleased to hear that you could take his i-pod into prison with him:
"I've found out that I'm allowed to take my iPod," he said cheerfully. "This is progress in the Mubarak era. Yes, they do torture you in your cell, but they allow you to listen to your iPod!"

DONALD RUMSFELD CHARGED WITH TORTURE DURING TRIP TO FRANCE

"October 26, 2007, Paris, France – Today, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and the French League for Human Rights (LDH) filed a complaint with the Paris Prosecutor before the “Court of First Instance” (Tribunal de Grande Instance) charging former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with ordering and authorizing torture. Rumsfeld was in Paris for a talk sponsored by Foreign Policy magazine. “The filing of this French case against Rumsfeld demonstrates that we will not rest until those U.S. officials involved in the torture program are brought to justice. Rumsfeld must understand that he has no place to hide. A torturer is an enemy of all humankind,” said CCR President Michael Ratner.“France is under the obligation to investigate and prosecute Rumsfeld’s accountability for crimes of torture in Guantanamo and Iraq. France has no choice but to open an investigation if an alleged torturer is on its territory. I hope that the fight against impunity will not be sacrificed in the name of politics. We call on France to refuse to be a safe haven for criminals.” said FIDH President Souhayr Belhassen. “We want to combat impunity and therefore demand a judicial investigation and a criminal prosecution wherever there is jurisdiction over the torture incidents,” said ECCHR General Secretary Wolfgang Kaleck."That a criminal State representative should benefit from impunity is always unacceptable. Because the USA is the super power of the beginning of this century and, above all, because it is a democracy, the impunity of Donald Rumsfeld is even more insufferable than that of a Hissène Habré or a Radovan Karadzic", underlined Jean-Pierre Dubois, LDH President. The criminal complaint states that because of the failure of authorities in the United States and Iraq to launch any independent investigation into the responsibility of Rumsfeld and other high-level U.S. officials for torture despite a documented paper trail and government memos implicating them in direct as well as command responsibility for torture – and because the U.S. has refused to join the International Criminal Court – it is the legal obligation of states such as France to take up the case. In this case, charges are brought under the 1984 Convention against Torture, ratified by both the United States and France, which has been used in France in previous torture cases. French courts therefore have an obligation under the Convention against Torture to prosecute individuals responsible for acts of torture if they are present on French territory (1). This will be the only case filed while he is in the country, which makes the obligations to investigate and prosecute under international law extremely strong."
http://www.fidh.org/spip.php?article4829

"The Lost Boys of Cairo", Caroline Moorehead

The Prologue to Caroline Moorehead's "Human Cargo" is called "The Lost Boys of Cairo." It documents her interactions with mainly Liberian refugees who are hiding in Cairo. It is a powerful piece of writing, with incredible snapshots of the stories of individuals who have lost everything and whose future is generally bleak:
"Fear, memory, expectations, endlessly deferred, rule in the quicksands of Cairo's refugee world. Psychiatrists say that it is important for peace of mind to live in the present, to come to terms with daily existence, and neither brood about the past nor attach too much meaning to the future; but the refugees trapped in Cairo today, haunted by terrifying memories of loss and savagery, seduced by a longing for a world they perceive as stable and fulfilling, cannot accept the present. Cairo is a prison sentence, to be endured because there is no option. They simply wait...
Cairo is not just one of the most polluted cities in the world; it is dirty, intensely overcrowded, broken down and full of rubble, with roads built up on legs above other roads in an attempt to dispel the traffic jams that paralyse the city for all the day and most of the night. Occasionally, between the brick and the cement, you catch glimpses of filigreed minarets, delicately carved porticoes and arcades, stately facades and the traces of sumptuous courtyards, earlier Cairos of the Islamic mastercrafstmen and Coptic merchants, when the city was a splendid place of pleasure garden and cool palaces, civil servants in their red fezzes strolled along tree-lined avenues and visitors drank sherbet in famous tearooms. It is the utterly derelict nature of the city today that partly makes possible its absorption of so many refugees - 200,000? 500,000? No one can say for sure. Around the city's edges, entrepreneurs keep constructing identical breeze-block buildings in ever-widening circles, leaving the top floor unfinished so that other floors can be added year by year. From the top of the buildings along the Nile, on the rare moments when the smog evaporates and the setting sun lights up the horizon, you can see the Pyramids of Giza, framed by the jagged edges of yet more unfinished blocks. Wherever the buildings are most derelict, the electicity supplies most sporadic, the water least reliable, there the refugees live." (pages 8-9)

Right to Privacy... any ideas?

It was my first day at work today. Over the next 10 months, I will be focusing principally on "the right to privacy." I want to find out as much as possible about both the philosophical and practical foundations of this right... so if anyone has any ideas or research tips, please let me know!