Quote of the Day - 17.12.2013

Soldiers are Heroes
The 'How Leftie are You?' Quiz (http://games.usvsth3m.com/how-leftie-are-you/)

So I am aware that it is a propensity of quizzes such as these to divide the world into binaries: you like tea, you're British, you don't, you're not; you think that Margaret Thatcher's death requires a moment of silence (right wing), or celebration (left wing). Such scenarios make no allowance for a middle ground. The fact that I don't believe in celebrating death does not mean that I do not vehemently oppose Thatcher's policies and all that she stood for. Neither does the fact that I would disagree with the blanket statement 'Soldiers are Heroes' make me a lefty-liberal type.

We are very quick, some of the time to divide the world into binaries, right and wrong, good and bad. My cause is just and thus any actions I take in pursuit of this are, you cause is unjust and thus so are your actions. This is something that was seen in South Africa (which, you may have guessed, I am currently writing an essay about). The argument placed there was that because the ANC were fighting a 'just' war, in rightful pursuit of independence and fair treatment, they could not be accused of 'gross human right's violations'. Yet the Truth and Reconciliation Commission held (rightly in my opinion) that unjust acts in the pursuit of a just cause are still subject to investigation. This indeed, is upheld by international law (in the form of the Geneva Convention), a just war requires to not merely just cause but just action in pursuit of that cause.

Shades of grey are often missing in judgement of political situations, the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks in the USA and UK respectively were unjust, reprehensible, utterly without cause or provocation. In contrast to this, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 'war on terror', and Guantanamo Bay are all 'justified' by the necessities of war and self-protection. The debate is set out (arguably by both sides) with clear lines of right and wrong, with no question of the other side being justifiable or reasonable.

I like these silly quizzes, I don't tend to take them too seriously, but occasionally they strike a nerve and make one think, because such clear-cut distinctions are not merely the province of facile internet memes, but of politicians, governments and states, and so they become problematic.

Quote of the Day - 16.12.2013

So, here we stand as a small group representative of millions of apathetic people who didn't do the right thing.
Antjie Krog, Quoting Amnesty Applicants in Country of My Skull


The problem with reading a book from cover to cover for an essay is it often takes several days, so apologies for posting from the same book two days in a row. In this quotation Krog quotes six young black men who applied for amnesty on the basis of omission, arguing that it was precisely because they had not got involved in the struggle for liberation in South Africa that they required amnesty.

This is an interesting concept for me because it seems to strike at the heart of something we have yet to fully know how to process here in the West, how does one deal not with wrongdoing, but with the absence of 'right-doing'?

I'm sure anyone who has grown up in Britain will remember a school assembly at which the following poem by Martin Niemöler has been read and discussed:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

Within our society we struggle at times to come to terms with our inaction, there is a sense deep within us that we should speak out against injustice and oppression, or that we should have spoken out in the past, but no real method of dealing with this guilt. Instead we do guilt very well, we revel in it. At 21 I was born long after the British Empire had officially fallen, and yet was raised in a culture that still at once celebrates it and revels in our guilt for its very existence.

Antjie Krog, having related this episode goes on to write that 'With applications like this, the amnesty process has become more than what was required by law. It has become the only forum where South Africans can say: We may not have committed a human rights abuse, but we want to say that what we did - or didn’t do - was wrong and that we're sorry'. And whether others agree with her or not, I think the need for a space such as this is vital.

It can be found in places, there are prayers in my own tradition that allow me to say not just Father forgive me for what I have done, but for what I have failed to do. But as a society, we have no such outlet. And such an outlet is vital. We must be able to stand up and say my apathy was wrong, there must be some method of atoning for it. Maybe the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was that for some South Africans. Where is the space for us?

Quote of the Day - 15.12.2013

'What you believe to be true depends on who you believe yourself to be'

Antjie Krog, Country of my Skull

This appeals to me for much the same reasons as the memory quote in my last post does, thought it implies a greater degree of self-determination and -definition. It is however, equally true, how we perceive the world depends to a large degree on who we perceive ourselves as being. As a white-middle-class-Oxford-graduate-master's-student, I approach with world with the basic assumption that my being female will not hold me back. As a lefty-liberal-hippy-do-gooder type, I see things that are easy to change, and cannot understand why others don't. 

Today I read a New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/invisible-child/?smid=tw-nytimes#/?chapt=1) about a homeless girl in New York and her family. I read it with a growing anger that what happened to her, and to so many like her was so easy to fix, finding the fact that no-one was utterly incomprehensible. This is because, in part, I view my relative affluence as a mark not of hard work but of luck, I happened to be born to a family where the primary breadwinner brought in a more than sufficient wage. My parents in turn happened to be born into families where the same was true. Though I presume at some point in my family's past there was a point where someone had to beat the odds to succeed, arguably neither myself, my sisters or my parents did. Poverty, likewise, is not generally the fault of the poor (as I believe we discovered over a century ago now, yet still the same views are propagated - people just need to work harder). Though often those in poverty make arguably bad decisions, they are probably no worse than many of my peers made at similar ages, we just have a better buffer against such decisions being our ruin. 

Once one views poverty not as a choice, then you can begin to see the ways to help those who are not currently as lucky as you. The article mentions the huge sums raised to refurbish the mayor's mansion in New York, paid for by private philanthropy. Why such philanthropy could not be directed toward refitting the shelter in which this girl has spent a quarter of her life is a question that immediately springs to mind. And the question, I fear, is that people don't care. They look at people who live in such places, see the bad money decisions, the drug addiction, the alcoholism, and do not stop to consider, whether maybe, if I were in the same position, would I turn to such comforts. Its easy to make good life choices when the consequences of bad ones are so minimal, so much harder when your balancing on a precarious line, treated as less than human, your complaints ignored, your petitions for help disregarded. 

Though I understand solving such problems is complicated and difficult, still I cannot shake my basic worldview and the truths that restricts me to: 

I am lucky, privileged and fortunate. I worked hard to get where I got to today. But others are not, and can work just as hard, and not get anywhere, because they were born in the wrong place, in the wrong circumstances, or simply made a bad decision which I could easily have escaped. Given this, society should be ordered to help them before me, to listen when they speak in the way that I can make people listen when I do, to view their situation as one we could so easily end up in ourselves and thus prevent anyone suffering in this way.

It would be easy to read the New York Times article, and comfort ourselves with the knowledge that 'things like that don't happen in Britain'. Recent figures showed that for the first time in the UK most of the people in poverty are in work. This is unacceptable. We have a record number of food banks this year, while ministers sit by and say 'its not as a result of our policies'. Poverty is an ever increasing endemic in the UK, and we can no longer comfort ourselves with the 'truth' that it is elsewhere, we perceive ourselves to be liberal, but in the name of austerity have allowed for a raft of cuts to those who need it most, while we in the middle remain essentially cushioned from the excesses of economic distress. This is a perception that needs to be changed to allow us to see the truth in all its uncompromising devastation. 

Quote of the Day - 12.12.2013

If one controls people's memory, one controls their dynamism.
Michael Foucault, 'Film and Popular Memory'

This will be a short one today and I apologise for missing yesterday, I did not work and thus had no quote to use (the aim is always to use something I have read that day, so requires one to do some actual reading!).

For my dissertation I hope to write on the idea and power of memory, and of the role of forgetting in the practice of conflict transformation. My undergraduate studies in English ingrained in me a deep understanding of the vital importance of memory in shaping who we are, but also of the potential for memory to be manipulated both in ourselves and in others to shape a particular world view. What matters is not just what we choose to remember, but also how we choose to remember it and why.

Our memories and understanding are so shaped by our political culture, dangerously so at times. For one of my undergraduate coursework's I wrote on how the linguistic framing of Tony Blair's statements after 9/11 and 7/7 set the limits of the debate, preventing various lines of questioning, and shaping how we as a nation, and certainly I as a 9 and 13 year old viewed the world. 9/11 is, and will remain one of the defining moments of my childhood, in a way that the siege of Sarajevo, the Rwandan genocide or the Darfur crisis will not, simply because of how their cultural memories were shaped in me, through speeches such as Blair's, through news reports, through continued remembrance and framing of them.

What my coursework taught me to begin to do, more than I had ever acknowledge before, was to question my understandings and assumptions, to think critically about how things are presented to me and what they are encouraging me to think. To attempt to retain, to an extent, control of my own memory.

Quote of the Day - 10.12.2013

The rainbow people of God
Desmond Tutu, The Rainbow People of God: The Making of a Peaceful Revolution

I intend here to more reflect on something that watching the UN panel on genocide sparked yesterday. Namely: the notion that the definition of genocide should be extended to include people discriminated against on the basis of sexuality. In this panel was cited the recent example of an unnamed African leader stating that the greatest threat faced at present was homosexuality and he would do his utmost to ensure it was eradicated from his territory.

Tutu's quote, originally relating to the fact that all people, regardless of race or skin colour belong to the same family, and should work, live and play together. I think in today's culture it takes on a further meaning. Though western countries are slowly waking up to the discrimination against sexual orientations, (and I am pleased to note that the first equal marriages will take place in April next year), the progress is slow, and it is a battle that is largely unnoticed. 

I myself am part of a Church that is only just taking baby steps towards potentially acknowledging that God loves us all - rainbow or not. And while I praise them, I silence the voice inside me that says perhaps I should be doing more. That it is unacceptable to punish anyone for aspects of themselves that are beyond their control. I act in my limited way. I refuse to go to a church where the priest is known to be anti-gay, one of the questions I ask myself when I walk into a new church is 'Would my best friend be welcome here?', if she wouldn't be, then I won't be either. But at the same time it is easy to make excuses for my inaction, I do my best, don't I? I do my bit. I'll leave the rest up to the activists.

But this isn't enough. I need to stand up against injustice wherever I find it, I need to stop being afraid to explain my views to those who might not agree. And we need, as a society, to stand up and say that this is not ok. That persecution on the basis of sexuality is as abhorrent as we now find persecution on the basis of race, ethnicity of gender. Individually we must make a stand, because until individuals unite in this, there is no hope that our governments will stand up, impose sanctions, or take action against countries promoting this form of persecution. 

We need to all acknowledge that we are not doing enough, that more must be done, that one day we might truly be able to say 'we are the rainbow people of God'.

Quote of the Day - 09.12.2013

We were never meant to be neutral, we are just impartial
Ivan Šimonović* (UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights)

This, I think, I think is of fundamental importance when it comes to the UN, and indeed anyone intervening in the affairs of states (conflict resolution practitioners for example). The point is not strict neutrality, which as we saw in the Balkans (to name one) ends up serving not the victims but the aggressors, but impartiality. I will not be a neutral actor, coming as I always will from the biased perspective of wanting the conflict to end. I will almost certainly always be on the side of the victim (where they can be determined), and in favour of those who need protecting from people who seek to harm, demean or otherwise damage them.

I will never be neutral. But this does not mean I cannot be impartial. Impartiality implies a lack of pre-judgement, a decision not to chose sides or favour one conflict party over another. I will however seek to protect those outside of the conflict, from the worst of its effects. I will work with conflict parties to mediate the end of violence. I will not decide which is right, but I will act on the occasions when one of them has acted wrongly. As is necessary in the protection of human rights. For, as was seen in the case of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, both sides in the conflict had violated human rights, and in choosing to deal with those who had done so (whether through amnesty or punishment) they were no longer neutral, but in treating all actors equally, they did remain impartial. 


*(There is a small possibility that it was someone else speaking on the UN meeting on the Human Rights Commission today, if so, I apologise)

Quote of the Day - 08.12.2013

Love is a decision

(Unknown - Maid of Honour Speech)

So this isn't from my academic reading, but from my research into a Maid-of-Honour speech as I have to make one in the not too distant future, and I am struggling with where to start.

I think this quote is true, at least some of the time. Sometimes love is easy, it fits and feels right, and works. But at least as often, love is difficult, it requires work, asks us to look past the things that are difficult at the moment to remember why we are in this. It is not always an irrational emotion but a rational decision, we weigh up the alternatives and decide that ultimately I am better off loving this person, be they partner, sister, brother, friend. It is a decision, perhaps more so than it is an emotion. 

Quote of the Day - 07.12.2013

The cause is fear. We are afraid of having to make decisions on our own responsibility. 
(Morris Ginsberg, 'The Concept of Justice')

Ginsberg explains here the positivist point of view on Justice -that justice cannot be ascribed to an a priori ideal, but is governed by the emotions of a particular society and expressed in its laws. Nothing is intrinsically just or unjust, if it follows the law it is just, if it doesn't it is. These laws will be set by the society based on emotion, but these emotions cannot be said to be given by a greater authority (God, for example).

For scholars of this school of thought, the need to ascribe such views on what is and isn't right to a higher authority is due to fear. There is nothing intrinsic about the beliefs, they are the product of a society which write laws which form justice. We claim a higher moral authority because we are incapable of claiming for ourselves what we feel to be true unless we can back it up.

This view is, as Ginsberg points out, unsustainable. Certainly there is an innate understanding of right and wrong, we can look around us and see that things are unjust, wrong, even if they are legal. Thus, for example, we condemn corporations that don't pay tax fairly. Fairness being somehow caught up with the equally intangible concept of justice.

In terms of this quote however, what I would argue that ascribing something to a greater moral code is not a fearful response. Thought it is an argument I have come across many times in my life. As an Anglican (Christian) I have often been accused of using faith as a crutch to protect myself from the world. In this particular case, the suggestion is that my belief in a higher power somehow abrogates me of responsibility for justice. But nothing could be further from the truth. If I believe that my views on right and wrong come from an infinitely wise and powerful being I don't have less responsibility, I have more. I have to live up to those views, and fight against injustice elsewhere.

If justice is just the law then I will not fight to change the world around me, regardless of how wrong it is. When justice becomes something more than that I must protect and promote it. It is not a cowardly belief that protects me, but one that challenges me, removes my comfort zone and tells me to be better, try harder and consider people other than myself.

Quote of the Day - 06.12.2013

'But we really were like a bunch of prima donnas, frequently hypersensitive' 

Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness

I chose this one out of the several options possible today because it struck a chord, other options were humorous or spiritual, they made me smile or made me feel closer to God. This one however, emphasises humanity. It highlights not the undoubted greatness, moral worth or status of the Commissioners of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but their humanity.

On a day when the world mourns the passing of one of the great leaders of our time, a man who inspired many to stand up and fight against oppression and injustice, what strikes me as most important to remember is not just Mandela's greatness, but his humanity. If we raise him up to be an ideal, a lofty hero, a great colossus, we place him out of our reach. He becomes someone we can admire, but not someone we can ever hope to be. And we should hope to be, we should strive to be as great, in magnanimity, in forgiveness, in speaking out against injustice wherever we encounter it and fighting for what we believe in.

Too often we look at people like Mandela, and think they are great, they are blessed by God in order to be able to see the world in that way, to fight so hard for what they believe in, to forgive; and in doing so we forget that we ourselves are capable of the same, that we can be strong, and fight for what we believe in, and love our neighbour, and forgive those who hurt us. Humanity unites us all, as it did the Commissioners and the testifiers at the TRC, and we must remember that.