AuthorHouse is the premier publishing house for emerging authors and new voices in literature. For more information, please visit www.authorhouse.com.

AuthorHouse sends us the following message:
How to Change Attitudes: Simply Read the Writing on the Wall
Unique New Book Presents Students’ Candid Answers to Simple, Powerful Statements

SAN JOSE, Calif. – In young people can be found the energy, passion, love and willingness to drive humankind toward even greater heights. Often, however, this motivation is overlooked, having been assumed or – worse – completely ignored. The new children’s book edited and narrated by Stephanie Heuer and illustrated by Simon Goodway, I Feel Like Nobody When…I Feel Like Somebody When (now available through AuthorHouse), offers a profound, touching and enlightening glimpse into what is truly important in the lives of children today.

“We must recognize and nurture human dignity in our children; protect it, and preserve it. It must not be lost,” writes Heuer.

Her book offers a simple yet affecting template for change toward a more understanding and accepting world. Heuer, an educator in computer technology, expanded the two statements in the book’s title into a voluntary writing assignment for students in second through fifth grades. She was broadsided by the raw insight in the nearly 300 responses and overwhelmed by their implications and veiled messages. The results had a deep and lasting impact on her feelings about education and prompted positive changes in her own classroom dynamics that benefited all students.

Included in I Feel Like Nobody When…I Feel Like Somebody When are 50 of the anonymous answers to Heuer’s statements. Each page is wonderfully illustrated, bringing to life the students’ heartfelt responses.

“Ms. Heuer and her students have shown us what we must do to make our families and our schools places where human dignity is secure,” writes Robert Fuller, author of Somebodies and Nobodies, Overcoming the Abuse of Rank.

“…this book should be given to all children, parents and educators,” adds Samir Basta, former director of UNICEF’s European office. “It is an excellent tool for understanding the feelings children experience.”

Heuer is a computer literacy educator, mother and advocate for human dignity around the globe. She is a core team member on the Human DHS organization, which is dedicated to eliminating humiliating practices around the world. She has lived in Japan, Venezuela and Norway. I Feel Like Nobody When…I Feel Like Somebody When is her first book, and Heuer is now dedicated to taking its exciting and uplifting message around the world.

EDITORS: For review copies or interview requests, contact:
Promotional Services Department
Tel: 888-728-8467
Fax: 812-961-3133
Email: pressreleases@authorhouse.com
(When requesting a review copy, please provide a street address.)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I feel like nobody when…
I feel like somebody when…

This book can be read for pure enjoyment or also for changing and recognizing behaviors we would like to preserve, or in some cases, modify. Here’s a simple process that can be followed which allows for interaction, input, dialog, and hopefully some great stories.

READ: Do a complete read through of the book the first time, from start to finish.

RELATE: Everyone who reads this book, has a story to tell of their own, either feeling like a nobody or a somebody. Find the ones in the book you can tell your own personal story about. Relate to the emotions you felt at the time.

RECOGNIZE: Try to recognize the LIFESKILLS™ that are being used, or ignored in the different paired scenarios. Here is a list of some of the core foundation ones for reference. Feel free to add your own.

Trustworthiness Truthfulness Active Listening
No Put-Downs Personal Best Caring
Common Sense Cooperation Courage
Curiosity Effort Flexibility
Friendship Initiative Integrity
Organization Patience Pride
Problem Solving Respect Resourcefulness
Responsibility Sense of Humor Loyalty

REINFORCE: After discussing a certain Nobody/Somebody, or a few, reinforce the LIFESKILLS at play, or what ones could be useful in order to prevent, overt, or counter act a situation. Some situations, obviously, we can’t control, however, we need to find our ‘voice’ and begin to say it is not okay to make us feel certain ways. It is equally important to reinforce those skills that are giving us and the ones around us, the most happiness and sense of self.

This book is meant to be used as an interactive communication tool which facilitates the finding and development of that voice.

AfricAvenir News are kindly sent out by Eric Van Grasdorff:

Liebe/Liebe Freunde,

Nach einer gut besuchten Filmvorführung von „Max and Mona“ im Filmtheater Hackesche Höfe möchten wir Sie hiermit gleich zu zwei weiteren Veranstaltungen im Rahmen unserer Reihe „African Perspectives“ in dieser Woche einladen.

Am Donnerstag, den 03. November, 19.30 Uhr lädt AfricAvenir zu einem Vortrag mit anschließender Diskussion ins Mosaik (Oranienstr. 35). Die nigerianische Journalistin Ibiba DonPedro setzt sich in ihrem Vortrag "Nigeria: African Renaissance in Danger?" mit der Frage auseinander, ob und wie das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Völker in einem Land wahrgenommen werden kann, das von einer Diktatur regiert und zunehmend mit Gewalt konfrontiert wird. Sie referiert über Armut und Hoffnungslosigkeit der Menschen im Niger-Delta, deren Lebensraum von der Öl-Industrie zerstört wird, erörtert aber ebenso Möglichkeiten, wie die Talente der Jugend produktiv genutzt werden könnten, um die Situation der Einwohner zu verbessern. Ibiba DonPedro erhielt 2001 den „Lorenzo Natali Prize for West African Journalism“, 2003 wurde sie zur „CNN African Journalist“ ernannt. Sie ist auf Einladung der Initiative Pro Afrika und des Göthe Instituts derzeit in Deutschland. Die Veranstaltung findet mit freundlicher Unterstützung der Landesstelle für Entwicklungszusammenarbeit bei der Senatsverwaltung für Wirtschaft, Arbeit und Frauen statt.

Am Freitag, den 04. November, 20 Uhr laden AfricAvenir und abok zu einer außergewöhnlichen Lesung in die Mehringhöfe (Gneisenaustr. 2a). Aus Anlass des 10-jährigen Jahrestages der Ermordung des nigerianischen Bürgerrechtlers Ken Saro Wiwa lesen Nisma Cherrat und Lusako Karonga aus seinen Werken: „Die Sterne dort unten“ und „Flammen der Hölle“. Der Universitätsprofessor, Menschrechtsaktivist und Schriftsteller Ken Saro Wiwa erhielt 1994 den Alternativen Nobelpreis und wurde 1996 für den Friedensnobelpreis nominiert - ein Jahr nach seiner Hinrichtung durch Sani
Abachas Militärjunta.

Weitere Informationen finden Sie unter www.africavenir.org

Wollen Sie Fördermitglied von AfricAvenir International e.V. werden? Kontaktieren Sie Ann Kathrin Helfrich, Fon: 030-80906789, a.helfrich@africavenir.org

Redaktion des Newsletters: Eric Van Grasdorff, e.vangrasdorff@africavenir.org

AfricAvenir International e.V. ist nicht für die Inhalte externer Webseiten
verantwortlich.

Peace, Literature, and Art
Section in the UNESCO-EOLSS Encyclopedia

Editor: Ada Aharoni , Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, The S. Neaman Institute for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology, PCC: The Peace Culture and Communications Commission of IPRA, Israel

Peace Culture Required for Sustainable Global Development
Ada Aharoni, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, The S. Neaman Institute for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology, PCC: The Peace Culture and Communications Commission of IPRA, Israel

Women in the Pursuit of Peace
Ada Aharoni, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, The S. Neaman Institute for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology, PCC: The Peace Culture and Communications Commission of IPRA, Israel

Universal Obstacles to Peace Education
Sara Zamir, Ben-Gurion University, Eilat., Israel

Peace Education: Definition, Approaches, and Future Directions
Ian M. Harris, Department of Educational Policy and Community Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA

The Construction of a New Culture of Peace Through Literature and Art
Maria Cristina Azcona, IFLAC ARGENTINA, Argentina

Peace Through Literature and Culture - An Oriental Perspective
Li Dingjun, College of Foreign Languages and Literature, Fudan University, China

Peace Through Literature and Culture - An Oriental Perspective
Yang Hongsheng, Institute of Philosophy, Academy of Social Sciences, China

Hungering for Peace
Rose Lord, USA

Creating Partnership Organizations
Cynthia E. King, Communication Catalysts, USA

IFLAC Paves the Way to Peace
Celine Leduc, Canada

A Hero for the Twenty-First Century
Jacqueline Haessly, Peacemaking Associates and The Milwaukee Peace Education Resource Center, USA

Regenerating, Renewing, Reviving the Heart of Human Society
Hilarie Roseman, Australia

Interfaith Encounter in the Service of Peace
Yehuda Stolov, The Interfaith Encounter Association, Israel

Peace Education through Literature
Maria Cristina Azcona, IFLAC ARGENTINA, Argentina

Promoting a Culture of Peace
Jacqueline Haessly, Peacemaking Associates and The Milwaukee Peace Education Resource Center, USA

Peace Humour with Particular focus on Vietnam and Iraq
Christopher A. Leeds, France

Dignity: Cornerstone of the Culture of Peace
Carolyn Handschin-Moser, Switzerland

Hungering for Peace Part II: The Ongoing War Against Hunger
Rose Lord, USA

Conflict Care: Preventive-Curative-Recuperative Dimensions
S.P. Udayakumar, South Asian Community Center for Education and Research (SACCER), India

Nonkilling Global Society
Glenn Durland Paige, Center for Global Nonviolence, USA

Using Peaceful Language: From Principles to Practices
Francisco Gomes de Matos, Brazil America Association, Brazil

Valuing Peace
Jacqueline Haessly, Peacemaking Associates and The Milwaukee Peace Education Resource Center, USA

Equality - Development - Peace Women 60 Years with the United Nations
Hilkka Pietilä, Associated with Institute of Development Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland

Resolution of Family Conflicts Through Literature
Maria Cristina Azcona, IFLAC ARGENTINA, Argentina

Understanding Nonviolence in Theory & Practice
Ralph Victor Summy, The Australian Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies, The University of Queensland, Australia

Towards a Definition of Intercultural Dialogue
Aviva Doron, The University of Haifa, Israel

AfricAvenir News are kindly sent out by Eric Van Grasdorff:

Liebe Freunde!

hiermit möchten wir auf ein von AfricAvenir in Kooperation mit der INISA e.V. und der Gesellschaft für Politische Bildung e.V. organisiertes Seminar zum Thema "Das Filmschaffen in Afrika und die jungen afrikanischen (Film)kulturen" aufmerksam machen. Anhand von Vorträgen und ausgesuchten Filmen wird Einblick ermöglicht in die Filmproduktion Afrikas, in Traditionslinien, Konflikte und Innovationen, die den afrikanischen Film bis heute geprägt haben. Ziel ist, entgegen der eurozentrischen Perspektiven den Kontinent mit dem Medium Film als heterogenen Kulturraum vorzustellen und ein - besonders für den gesellschaftspolitischen Diskurs relevantes - differenziertes Bild Afrikas und seiner reichhaltigen Kulturen zu erzeugen.

Weitere Informationen finden Sie unter www.africavenir.org

Außerdem möchten wir Sie auf unsere nächste Filmvorführung am Sonntag, den (30.10.2005, 17.15 Uhr, Filmtheater Hackesche Höfe) erinnern. Wir zeigen - in Premiere! - den südafrikanischen Film "Max & Mona" in Kooperation mit der INISA e.V., dem South Africa Club Berlin und mit freundlicher Unterstützung des DGB Bildungswerks (Nord-Süd-Netz), der Landesstelle für Entwicklungszusammenarbeit bei der Senatsverwaltung für Wirtschaft, Arbeit und Frauen und des Berliner Entwicklungspolitischen Ratschlags (BER). Anschließend findet eine Diskussion mit Prof. Kum' a Ndumbe III. statt!

----------------------------------

E i n l a d u n g

Die Gesellschaft für Politische Bildung e.V. veranstaltet in Kooperation mit AfricAvenir International e.V. und der Initiative Südliches Afrika e.V. (INISA) vom 11.11.2005 bis 13.11.05
W 4501 in der Akademie Frankenwarte, Würzburg ein Seminar zum Thema
"Das Filmschaffen in Afrika und die jungen afrikanischen (Film)kulturen".

Voraussetzung für die Teilnahme sind (passive) Kenntnisse der englischen Sprache.

Leutfresserweg 81 - 83
97082 Würzburg
Postfach 55 80
97005 Würzburg
Fon: 0931 / 80464 -214
Fax: 0931 / 80464 - 77
info@frankenwarte.de
www.frankenwarte.de

www.AfricAvenir.org
Wollen Sie Fördermitglied von AfricAvenir International e.V. werden?
Kontaktieren Sie Ann Kathrin Helfrich, Fon: 030-80906789, a.helfrich@africavenir.org

Redaktion des Newsletters: Eric Van Grasdorff, e.vangrasdorff@africavenir.org
AfricAvenir International e.V. ist nicht für die Inhalte externer Webseiten verantwortlich.

People's International Initiative For Departments of Peace in Governments Around the World

London, England

Dear Friends,

As you may know, October 16 -19, 2005, The Peace Alliance participated in the first international People’s Summit for Departments of Peace, in London, UK. There were forty people from twelve countries: Australia, Canada, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Netherlands, Palestine, Romania, Spain, United Kingdom, United States of America, with written support from Nepal, Nigeria and Uganda. Presently there are five working groups with campaigns for Departments of Peace: Australia, Canada, Japan, United Kingdom (Ministry for Peace), and the United States. Throughout the four days it was evident that ‘we the people’ are ready, willing, and able to be together and communicate with one another in ways that demonstrate the change we wish to see.

I return to the States with renewed vigor and a deepened commitment to help create an infrastructure for peace. Our part to play in this unfolding is to continue to work for a Department of Peace in the USA. Our campaign was recognized as an inspiration and help to many in attendance at the London Summit. There was particular interest in and enthusiasm for the grassroots aspect of it.

It was good to talk about our organizational structure, the recent conference in DC, our successes and challenges, and to receive such a positive response from many who are struggling to understand the present policies and actions of the United States. People particularly loved to hear stories of youth interest and involvement, and it is heartening to know that youth are becoming involved all over the world. It gives one hope.

On the final day of the Summit, the participants launched an on-going partnership for global action, called the People’s Initiative for Departments of Peace. The London Summit then concluded in a public meeting at the Grand Committee Room in the Houses of Parliament. After videos from Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Marianne Williamson, and talking about The Peace Alliance, I read the formal Declaration (reproduced below) and presented it to John McDonnell MP (member of parliament) who, inspired by Congressman Kucinich, has introduced legislation in the UK calling for a Ministry for Peace. [more below...]

Peace-building and conflict transformation technology and skills already exist and there are people in countries around the world who, like us, are demanding a dialogue to find a way together to create a world that works for everyone. In July the United Nations hosted the largest ever gathering of Civil Society where a Global Action Agenda for the Prevention of Violent Conflict was presented to the Secretary-General. The global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict is calling on governments to work with civil society in building a safer, more peaceful world (www.gppac.net).

The next Summit is planned for June 20-21, 2006, in Victoria, Canada, preceding the first World Peace Forum in Vancouver, where the People’s Initiative for Departments of Peace will offer a presentation.

Our day-to-day efforts are making a difference! Thank you for all you continue to do to bring this historic legislation to the forefront of politics in the United States. Let us continue to focus on our national campaign, now strong in 50 states with almost 300 congressional district team leaders, as we extend the hand of cooperation and stand with others around the world who are working for Departments of Peace in their respective countries.

There is a momentum for peace and justice that is unstoppable.

In the Spirit of Peace,
Dot

Dot Maver
Executive Director
The Peace Alliance

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIRST PEOPLE’S SUMMIT
FOR DEPARTMENTS OF PEACE
London, 19 October 2005

Today, we announce the launch of an international initiative for the creation of Departments of Peace in governments throughout the world.

Violence of all kinds is increasing.

There is an urgent need to find responsible solutions, expanding on past and present peace-building successes.

This international initiative will both provide resources and support for existing national Department of Peace campaigns, and assist new ones as they appear in other countries.

While the exact role of the department will differ in each country, its basic functions will be the same:

To foster a culture of peace;
To research, articulate and help bring about non-violent solutions to conflicts at all levels; and
To provide resources for training in peace-building and conflict transformation to people everywhere.
We, the undersigned, joyfully vow to support and encourage each other, to share information, to enrich each other’s experience, to listen to one another and to celebrate our commonalities and differences in our journey together towards a culture of peace.

Department of Peace, Australia
Working Group for a Federal Department of Peace, Canada
ministry for peace, United Kingdom
The Peace Alliance, Campaigning for a US Department of Peace, United States of America
Delegation from Israel
Binnie D’egli Innocenti, WWGHM, Italy
Federation of Damanhur, Italy
Global Peace Campaign, Working for a Ministry of Peace in Japan
Ank Mesritz, House of Peace, Netherlands
Paul van Tongeren, European Centre for Conflict Prevention, Netherlands
Zoughbi Zoughbi, WI’AM, Palestinian Conflict Resolution Centre, Palestine
Romanian Department of Peace Initiative
Jo Berry, Building Bridges for Peace, United Kingdom
Rolf C Carriere
Simonetta Costanzo Pittaluga

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

www.ThePeaceAlliance.org/

Dear Friends!

Evelin

Search for Common Ground Update
October 2005

Search for Common Ground - Nestle Partnership in Nigeria
Recognized by Former President Bill Clinton
at Clinton Global Initiative

Last month in New York City, 40 heads of state and almost 1,000 religious, business and nonprofit leaders came together at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) for three days of in-depth discussions in an effort to address and seek solutions for the world's critical issues: extreme poverty, climate change, problems in governance, and religion as a source of conflict. The talks concluded with the announcement of "commitments" totaling $1.25 billion in pledges for specific initiatives that address these global problems.

Described as "Davos with a difference," Clinton said this is just the beginning. The former president's goal is to secure between 500 to 1,000 commitments to action each year. If this can be sustained for a decade he believes "we can make a huge dent in some of the world's biggest problems."

Clinton singled out the commitment from Nestle to fund Search for Common Ground's TV drama series in Nigeria, and invited SFCG President John Marks and Klaus Wachsmuth, Managing Director of Nestle Nigeria PLC, to the stage to recognize this model of corporate and NGO partnership for effecting positive social change.

Search for Common Ground TV Series in Nigeria
SFCG is currently producing two TV series in Nigeria. Our aim is to promote inter-ethnic tolerance and respect, and to encourage non-violent resolution of conflict. The Station is a 26-part drama about the adventures of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious group of Nigerian TV reporters - Yorubas, Hausas, Ibos, and others - working together as a news team to cover Nigeria's most pressing problems, such as AIDS and corruption, through the prism of finding common ground. The series focuses on socially relevant themes through entertaining soap opera drama that will appeal to large audiences. The initial production is a 20-part reality series called The Academy, which is intended to build an audience for The Station. The Academy is centered on a nationwide talent search leading to the final selection of the cast for The Station. Over 50,000 applicants answered the open casting call. Both series will be aired on Nigerian national TV, with the direct support of President Obasanjo.

The scripts were written by Nigerian writers who worked within a common ground framework. Both reality TV series and the drama series will be aired on Nigerian national television, with the direct support of President Obasanjo.

We have the power to do more
At the end of the extraordinary three days, Clinton said in his closing comments, "I asked you here because I think that all of us have an unprecedented amount of power to solve problems, save lives and help people see the future. I hope you will leave here with a sense of humility about how much better we could do. We are so arrogant because we are obsessed with the present. I've reached an age now where it doesn't matter whatever happens to me. I just don't want anybody to die before their time anymore."

To read more about this story please visit our website www.sfcg.org.

NEWSLETTER FROM THE HUMAN RIGHTS HOUSE NETWORK

1) Belarusian journalist found dead from traumatic brain injury
Last week, Vasil Hrodnikau from the independent newspaper Narodnaya Volya was found dead. The circumstances surrounding his death are under investigation by Belarusian police. - This is the third violent death among independent Belarusian journalists since 2000, Andrej Dynko, editor of Nasha Niva, reminded the audience at a seminar at the Human Rights House in Oslo.
See also: Belarusian Helsinki Committee further harassed by its authorities

2) Ministers dismissed before election in Azerbaijan
The run-up to the parliamentary election on November 6th is chaotic. Last week the Azeri President Ilham Aliyev dismissed two of this Ministers and arrested the former Minister of Finance. He was charged with financing opposition clashes against the police before the planned return of the opposition leader Rasul Guliev. Guliev has denied any contact with the Ministers.

3) A 60th anniversary for the UN, a 10th for Aung San Suu Kyi
As the UN celebarates its 60th anniversary, and the world should have been able to mark vast human rights advances, Aung San Suu Kyi has been held in house arrest in Burma for a total of ten years since 1989. Even during her spells of relative freedom, she has suffered severe violations of her rights, including tight restrictions of movement.
See also: Take Burma to the UN Security Council, say Burma activists worldwide

4) Tunisian journalists on hungerstrike
Seven dissidents, among them Lotfi Hajji, the leader of the Independent Union of Journalists, has gone on hunger strike in Tunisia. The seven demand the introduction of freedom of assembly, opinion and expression, the media and information. They also request the release of all political prisoners before the opening of the World Summit on the Information Society to take place in Tunisia in three weeks.

5) - My horror pushes me to speak out
Rebyia Kadeer, the Uighur spokesperson of the Xinjiang province in China, and last year´s Rafto Prize laureate, was released in March after six years imprisonment. - I will not let my horror silence me. Indeed, my horror pushes me to speak out, she said when she visited the Human Rights House in Oslo last week. Read Kadeer's full speech

6) What's in a word? Turkey and the Armenia problem
The anniversary of the 1915 events in Armenia has generated more public debate on both sides of the issue than ever before. The disagreement over the semantics of the matter has assumed what to many seem absurd proportions. The Turkish authorities are ready to settle for the term 'massacre'; the Armenian diaspora insists on the use of 'genocide'. Index on Censorship reports.

7) Russia: Shamil Basaev claims responsibility for the Nalchik raids
On 13-14 October, armed people seized hostages and occupied the administrative buildings of the police, the local departments of the FSB and of internal affairs and other places within the city. The average age of the insurgents was 18-20 years. The exact number of injured and killed people is still being counted. The resonance of the events in Nalchik has divided the Russian society.

8) - Misplaced loyalty is Ugandan media's biggest problem
- Even if limitations of the freedoms of opinion and information, expression, speech and the media are a reoccurring problem, the biggest weakness, and what really keeps the people of Uganda away from learning what is going on in their own country, is the media's misplaced loyalty towards the authorities and even worse; poor journalism, says Niels Jacob Harbitz from the Human Rights House Foundation, who is leaving for Uganda today.

9) Norway strengthens its support to human rights defenders
The Norwegian government is making a booklet for its embassies on how to support and protect human rights defenders internationally. The Human Rights House Foundation welcomes the initiative, and asks its government to ensure adequate reporting and transparency.

10) Roma in Croatia still suffer discrimination
The majority of the Roma population in Croatia is deprived of basic communal infrastructure, lack citizenship papers, are uneducated, unemployed and with minimum or no social care benefits or health insurance. For them, every day is a struggle, according to a report presented Friday by the Croatian Law Centre, B.a.B.e and the Croatian Helsinki Committee, working to set up a Human Rights House in Zagreb.

11) First verdict in Poland on compensation for 'wrongful birth'
For the first time, the Supreme Court in Warsaw issued a verdict 13 October on compensation for so called “wrongful birth”. The Court considered an extraordinary appeal of Mr and Mrs Wojnarowski, drawn up by lawyers cooperating with the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, and returned the case for re-consideration by the Court of Appeals in Bialystok.

******************************************************************

Free of charge news and background service from the Human
Rights House Network, an international forum of cooperation between
independent human rights houses. It works to strengthen cooperation and
improve the security and capacity of the 80 human rights organizations in
the Network. The Human Rights House Foundation in Oslo is the
secretariat.

To subscribe, please send an email to:
newsletter-subscribe@humanrightshouse.org

More news and background on www.humanrightshouse.org

******************************************************************

Sent by:
Borghild Tønnessen-Krokan
Editor
Human Rights House Foundation (HRH)
Address: Menneskerettighetshuset,
Tordenskioldsgate 6b, 0160 Oslo, Norway
Tel: (+47) 22 47 92 47, Direct: (+47) 22 47 92 44,
Fax: (+47) 22 47 92 01
Website: http://www.humanrightshouse.org,
http://www.menneskerettigheter.no

Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH)
October 25, 2005

The Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH) is distributing the enclosed articles to build bridges of understanding between the West and the Arab World and countries with predominately Muslim populations. Unless otherwise noted, all copyright permissions have been obtained and the articles may be reproduced by any news outlet or publication free of charge. If publishing, please acknowledge both the original source and CGNews, and notify us at cgnewspih@sfcg.org.

**********

ARTICLES IN THIS EDITION:

5. “Female firefighters find they can take the heat in Iran” by Scott Peterson
Scott Peterson, a staff writer at the Christian Science Monitor, describes the new all-female unite of Iranian firefighters as “pragmatic progressivism in Iran that is rarely matched elsewhere in the region,” particularly when it comes to Islam and gender issues. Hopefully, these women suggest, their success in this industry will encourage other women in the region to take on jobs usually reserved for me.
(Source: The Christian Science Monitor, October 19, 2005)

**********

ARTICLE 1
Terminal Debate
Bernard Haykel

New York - When Iraq's most notorious terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared a "full-scale war" on Iraq's Shiites on Sept. 14, he appeared to be speaking for all or most jihadis. But Mr. Zarqawi's war on Shiites is deeply unpopular in some quarters of his own movement. In fact, growing splits among jihadis are beginning to undermine the theological and legal justifications for suicide bombing. And as that emerging schism takes its toll on the jihadi movement, it could well present an opportunity for Western governments to combat jihadism itself.

The simple fact is that many jihadis believe the war in Iraq is not going well. Too many Muslims are being killed. Images of that slaughter, conveyed by satellite television and the Internet throughout the Muslim world, are eroding global support for the jihadi cause. There are strong indications from jihadi Web sites and online journals, confirmed by conversations I have had while doing research among Salafis, or scriptural literalists, that the suicide attacks are turning many Muslims against the jihadis altogether.

The movement's leadership is sensitive to Muslim public opinion. Mr. Zarqawi's mentor, Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi, has denounced the campaign against Shiites as un-Islamic. Other prominent radical Islamists have advanced similar criticisms. And in a letter made public last week, Al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, cautioned Mr. Zarqawi against particularly gruesome executions and attacks on Iraqi civilians for fear of their negative impact on the global jihadi cause.

To be sure, the alternatives these critics recommend are no less violent. Rather, many of the movement's dissidents suggest that jihadis diminish their efforts in Iraq and revert to spectacular attacks in the West, like those that took place on Sept. 11. These, such thinkers maintain, are singularly popular among Muslims and the only effective means of doing long-term damage to the West.

Still, Western governments should encourage the debate among jihadis because, if the promise of absolute salvation through suicide attacks is thrown into question by some within the jihadi movement, potential recruits may come to doubt the wisdom of engaging in such tactics.

The prevailing jihadi theoretical argument consists in saying that there is religious sanction for the killing of Muslim civilians, and that neither the innocent victims nor the bombers are doomed to suffer in hell. Jihadi claims about the certainty of salvation are the most important tools in their recruitment efforts. But they are also so fractious and unstable as to comprise the movement's Achilles' heel. In order to sustain these claims, theorists quote examples from the Prophet Muhammad's time that permit the targeting of Muslim civilians in war. They then draw tendentious analogies between these cases and today's political situation. For example, jihadis falsely claim that Iraqi civilians are being held as human shields by the occupying forces.

Furthermore, in Iraq, the jihadis bank on the fact that their attacks primarily kill Shiites. The fighters presume that their Sunni brethren, who consider Shiites to be heretics, will either approve or turn a blind eye. This policy is clearly failing, except among the radical Salafis in Saudi Arabia whose hatred for Shiites exceeds even that for the United States.

Not only are some jihadis queasy about targeting Shiites, but particularly following the London bombings, some jihadis have questioned the targeting of civilians more generally. One major jihadi ideologue, Abu Baseer al-Tartusi, has issued a fatwa arguing that all suicide bombing that targets Muslims, or innocent non-Muslims, is unlawful.

Abu Baseer, a Syrian who lives in Britain, no doubt fears that in Britain's changing legal climate, he might be extradited to his homeland, where he would face certain imprisonment and torture. Some jihadis have excoriated him on Internet message boards for placing self-preservation above religious conviction. But the important point is that real chinks are widening in the jihadi ideological armor, whether by the real consequences of suicide attacks or because the religious justifications that have underpinned them are becoming untenable.

Arguments can be built on Abu Baseer's position that suicide attacks inevitably involve the killing of innocent civilians, including Muslims living in the West, and that these are difficult to justify in Islamic law. Rather than expelling him from his asylum in Britain, concerned authorities ought to allow Abu Baseer to remain in Britain and make his case, which amounts to one of the first principled arguments by a jihadi thinker against suicide bombings since 9/11. Any would-be suicide bomber will have to weigh these arguments.

The West needs to understand that reasoned debates take place within jihadi circles and that such reasoning can change minds. Indeed, Al Qaeda's most recent statements, like that of Mr. Zawahiri, betray an anxiety about these splits within the movement and seek to reassert the legitimacy of suicide attacks both in Iraq and in the West.

The West should refrain from interfering in this evolving debate. Western governments should not shut down jihadi Web sites or expel the movement's dissenters, many of whom reside in the West or write from prisons in the Middle East. Rather, they should allow this process to take its course. By employing extreme tactics, the jihadis have laid bare the contradictions within their own movement. Their internal debates about suicide tactics are a sign of weakness - and of the fraying of the consensus Al Qaeda so carefully built over the last decade.
###
* Bernard Haykel, an associate professor of Islamic Studies at New York University and a 2005 Carnegie Scholar, is the author of "Revival and Reform in Islam."
Source: New York Times, October 11, 2005
Visit the website at www.nytimes.com
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Cpyright © 2005 by The New York Times Co. Reprinted with permission.

**********

ARTICLE 2
A Homeland is a State of Mind, not a Place
Talajeh Livani

Washington, DC - In the late 1980s, my family and I left our homeland of Iran and made a new home for ourselves in Sweden. Our knowledge of this northern European country was limited. Like most people, we had heard old stories about Vikings and we had been warned about the cold climate but we didn't know much more than that. All we knew was that we would start a new life, hopefully a better one, in this country. When we arrived, the concept of immigration was still fairly new to Scandinavia. There were clear lines between the Swedes and non-Swedes. Either one was ethnically Swedish or one was an immigrant - and if you had immigrant parents, you were placed in the "immigrant" category. Sweden was as foreign and unfamiliar to us as we and our culture were to them. Questions such as "do you have cars in Iran?" or "do you have universities?” were common. Swedes of my parents' generation viewed Iran only through the lens of the Iranian revolution, but there was and is more to Iran than the Ayatollah.

Yet they also assumed all immigrants came only because of financial hardship at home, and thought it was their duty to help. The enormous generosity the government and people of Sweden showed us helped us feel at home. Native Swedes were often surprised to hear that we already had what they thought we had come to their country to gain.

People of my generation were very different from those of my parents. Sweden was slowly becoming multi-cultural, and barriers were beginning to come down. My Swedish friends increased in number with the passing of each year. Still, there were occasions when cultural differences made it challenging to establish deep friendships. Middle Eastern parents were stricter with their children, and did not like the fact that Swedish parents allowed young Swedes to stay out as late as they liked at night, drink alcohol, and date freely. This attitude extended into adulthood - Swedish children were independent and were expected to separate from their families at the age of 18. They could then live as they liked while we had to continue taking our families into consideration for many personal decisions.

As a teenager, it was a struggle to reconcile identities that were so often in conflict. I loved certain aspects of Iranian culture but found other aspects to be illogical and impossible to accept. Like myself, many Middle Eastern-Swedish children were also trying to find a balance between their two nationalities. Despite our different cultures, we - Persians, Arabs, Turks and Kurds for the most part- felt like one people. We bonded because we were all only fifty percent Iranian, Arab, or Turk, and also because we were minorities and didn’t quite fit into the picture that Swedish culture portrayed as ideal. We realized that being a minority worked to one’s disadvantage, especially when it came to finding employment.

With the start of the new millennium, I moved to the United States to pursue higher education. Like most people, I wanted to see the "melting pot" and experience the "land of opportunity." I was amazed at how people of all colors were integrated into American society. I would meet people from the Middle East and ask them where they were from, expecting to hear the name of a Middle Eastern country, and was always surprised to hear the name of an American city. For the first time, I started using the term "Iranian-Swedish" to describe myself. In Sweden, I had always and only been an Iranian so I was excited about being able to use a term that described exactly what I was, that is Iranian AND Swedish. It was fascinating to have come to a place where my appearance alone didn't prove that I was a "foreigner."

But then came the 9/11 tragedy and everything changed. Once again, I found myself to be one of “them.” This time, the stakes were much more serious. It was no longer a question of curfew times or other family matters - now thousands were dead, and Americans were stupefied. American friends from school approached me with a million questions. They wanted to know more about Islam, the Middle East, and the "terrorists" and their ideology. I wanted to explain, not justify, the attacks but when conversations turned toward American foreign policy, the smallest criticism was viewed as evidence of support for the terrorists. American nationalism was at a peak. I witnessed many instances of prejudice, which led me to adopt a defensive, even nationalistic position. I became more vocal about my pride in being Iranian. I also became interested in knowing more about Islam, and attended every lecture I could find on the Middle East, US foreign policy, and Islam. My “Iranian identity” was being brought to the surface and winning out over my other identities – nationalism was giving rise to more nationalism. Ironically, when I returned to Europe, I was accused of supporting American positions.

The pattern had become obvious. In the US, I was perceived to be Iranian and European. In Europe, I was Iranian and American, and with the Persian crowd, I was considered somewhat “Western.” It seemed that everywhere I went the things that were different about me stood out more than the things I had in common with the community. Or perhaps, in every society, I had attempted to represent the part of my identity which I felt was least manifested, or simply be a bridge between different nations. I am proud to say that I’m Iranian, Swedish, and even partly American. I’m fortunate to have been exposed to and benefited from the best of several cultures. As a result I have been able to become a unique and strong person, a person with a vast and inclusive “homeland” of my own creation. I am living proof that cultural barriers can be transcended and that bridges to other cultures can be built. And I am not alone. Millions of children in Europe and America come from backgrounds similar to mine – criss-crossing between cultures, sometimes easily, sometimes with difficulty, but always with the knowledge that there are many worlds on this earth, worlds that can be brought together when there is enough will and desire to do so.

###
* Talajeh Livani is a recent graduate of the School of International Relations at George Washington University.
Source: CGNews-PiH Youth Views, October 25, 2005
Visit the website at www.sfcg.org
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

ARTICLE 3
Journalists and the plague of being identified with interviews
Daoud Kuttab

Ramallah - It has always been a problem for journalists: how to carry on the profession of journalism without being accused of sympathizing with the person you are covering. Every journalist who covers a conflict can't help but have some sympathies for his subject. Internationally famous New York Times columnist Tom Friedman once told me that a good journalist always shows his subject that he is genuinely interested in what he is saying. You have to give the person you are interviewing the feeling that you are hanging on every word he or she is saying, he explained.

Professional journalists of course have a responsibility to reflect what their subjects are saying and not what they themselves are thinking. Likewise, journalists covering a murder are not murderers, and those interviewing thieves are not criminals. We are simply messengers and therefore we should not be judged by the message, even if it is a very ugly one.

I read in detail the verdict of the Spanish court against Al-Jazeera journalist Tayser Allouni and it seems clear that the most important issue involved in the case is the exclusive interview he had with Osama bin Laden. True, the court also talked about a $4,000 cash transfer he made by hand to a fellow Arab. Anyone familiar with the cultural habits of the peoples of the Middle East would not consider such an action anything other than a normal, everyday act of helping someone out. Even the tightened security surrounding current travel has not materially abolished the habit of generations by which Arabs transport small gifts, and especially money, for others. And $4,000 is scarcely an amount to be equated with funding terrorism. In fact, the verdict gives so much importance to the issues connected to the interview that it is impossible for me to believe that he has been punished for seven years in jail for anything more that for appearing to be supportive of bin Laden.

Allouni is a journalist who seeks a scoop and for me his personal thoughts and sympathies are his right and are protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Such a punishment largely for his thoughts reminds us of the worst days of American McCarthyism or those under the Franco dictatorship

The leading world organization, the International Press Institute (IPI), also agrees. In a statement issued following the conviction, IPI blasted the Spanish court. "Although acquitted of being a member of Al-Qaeda, Tayser was convicted for allegedly collaborating with Al-Qaeda. The arrest, detention, and conviction of Tayser are clear signs of the witch-hunt taking place against Muslims today, whereby even journalists are punished for simply doing their job," the statement said.

In the 1980s, Abie Nathan, an Israeli peace activist who in 1973 had run the Voice of Peace radio station ship as close as possible to the fighting and broadcast appeals for both sides to lay down their arms, was jailed for six months because his interview with Yasser Arafat in Lebanon was declared a violation of an Israeli law that considered sympathy for the PLO equal to support of a terrorist organization. Peace supporters, including many in

Spain, denounced this imprisonment.

As a Palestinian journalists I have often found myself having to defend why I am interviewing Israelis. Closed-minded Arab nationalists consider such interactions with Israelis tantamount to sleeping with the enemy and attacked me for what they considered "normalization of relations with the Zionists aggressors."

Journalists are professionals whose main job is to seek the truth and to present all points of view. This is what we try to teach young Arab journalists who are trying to break out of the once- closed Arab media. Al-Jazeera was a breath of fresh air to supporters of independent media because it provided a badly needed outlet that had been denied to Arabs for many years. By presenting the points of views of both governments and opposition, Al-Jazeera and the other new media outlets greatly weakened Arab government media monopolies.

The verdict of the Spanish court must raise the blood pressure of every lover of independent media the world over. Supporters of freedom of expression and the right of all, including those whose opinions we might not like, must not let this judgment pass. If showing sympathy when interviewing bin Laden is a crime, one day mere sympathy with anyone opposed to the government's point of view or that of the majority will become a crime. The model of a tolerant Spain and that of an enlightened Europe has been tainted in the eyes of many true Arab democrats. The sooner this cloud moves away, the sooner we can get back to the efforts of getting our governments to respect our rights to produce independent media that reflects the opinions and thoughts of all.

###
* Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian journalist and the director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University in Ramallah. This review is the first of four reviews on the documentary The Shape of the Future.
Source: AMIN.org, October 12, 2005
Visit the website at www.amin.org
cistributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Cpyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

ARTICLE 4
This time, the ballot is an act of faith
Jane Arraf

Nw York - The last time Iraqis voted in a referendum, it was to ratify Saddam Hussein's rule. As I went to the polling center near the Information Ministry that day three years ago to talk to Iraqis, a sedan was pulling away - Uday Saddam Hussein had just cast his ballot for his father.

Not to vote was dangerous in that test of loyalty to Saddam's regime; it as even more dangerous to vote "no." " It was a painful exercise, one Iraqi told me later: "The 'yes' was bitter, and the 'no' was bitter."

For many Iraqis this weekend's voting on ratifying a constitution was still a bitter choice. It was a vote on a document that few had read and fewer understand; a document that may ultimately lead to the death of the idea of a unified Iraq. A document that met a U.S.-imposed deadline only by being so ambiguous that it left to governments yet to be elected many of the hardest questions about what Iraq will be like.

But in a vote that in many places required immense bravery simply to show up, casting a ballot was as much the point as the result. The fact that millions of Iraqis believe enough in the process to go out and cast their ballots, however they voted, speaks to a belief in their future that suicide bombs, kidnappings and dashed hopes have not fully eroded.

There are many Iraqs now. The Iraq knitted together by Saddam's web of fear and control has shattered into countless pieces. There is a Shiite identity, a long-standing Kurdish identity and, to some extent, a Sunni identity defined by the feeling of exclusion. But the Iraqi cities and towns in which I've spent the past two years defy easy labels. That's partly why there is no one leadership that speaks for the Sunnis.

In Baquba, in the heart of what is considered the Sunni triangle, I saw Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and Christians coming out to vote in parliamentary elections in January. Communities where Sunni and Shiite, Turkomen and Kurds and ancient religious groups most Americans have never heard of are still living in the same neighborhoods without killing one another.

The constitution looks likely to pass. It is a legitimate victory for those understandably eager to speed Iraqi further along its political timetable. But those ballots being counted by the light of U.S.-supplied lanterns don't mean by themselves that the 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq can come home any sooner.

The political timetable is perhaps the least important aspect of an equation that relies on Iraqi troops to replace them and a functioning economy that creates jobs.

There are still vast areas of the country near the Syrian border where there is essentially no law except the U.S. military. After destroying and then disbanding the Iraqi army, the United States is finding it more difficult than many expected to build it again from scratch.

American politicians and military leaders trying to put a positive spin on Iraq like to say that 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces are peaceful, that the violence is overblown. I wonder if they'd say all was well in the United States if Washington, New York and Chicago were wracked with violence.

It's hard to overemphasize the cumulative effect of two years of fighting in some of Iraq's major cities. For most Iraqis, major combat was nothing compared to this. In Baghdad, almost every family has been touched by the violence. Almost every family has had a relative killed by insurgents or by U.S. forces, or their home raided or destroyed, or knows someone who has had. To go through Baghdad now is to pass a gauntlet of security barriers, barbed wire, demolished buildings and reminders everywhere of an ever-growing list of friends and acquaintances dead before their time.

The Baghdad most Iraqis know isn't the Iraq of the expensive constitutional ad campaigns on television with soothing music over inspiring scenes. The soundtrack of the city too often is sirens, gunshots, and the messy, inconsolable grief of mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers finding the remains of their loved ones.

Iraqis and Americans have never been well-served by false hopes and selective praise. What's inspiring about the weekend's voting is not the constitution itself or what it says about the state of the country, but that so many Iraqis took the risk - not just of going to the polling stations, but of believing in a future for their country.

###
* Jane Arraf, a longtime Baghdad correspondent for CNN, is a visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
Source: International Herald Tribune, October 18, 2005
Visit the website at www.iht.com
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

ARTICLE 5
Female firefighters find they can take the heat in Iran
Scott Peterson

Karah, Iran - The rewards are great - and the disappointments as powerful as any felt by firefighters around the world.

But at Station No. 9 in Karaj, west of Tehran, a small unit prides itself on being like few others: the only squad of women firefighters in the Middle East.

Not every rescue requires a feminine touch. But in the Islamic Republic, which tolerates little public mixing of the genders, the 11 women here are breaking new ground and creating a model for cities across the country. They also represent a strain of pragmatic progressivism in Iran that is rarely matched elsewhere in the region.

Women are still subject to a strict Islamic dress code here, though at the moment it is loosely enforced. But there is a women's police division. Women parliamentarians and even vice presidents and a Nobel Peace Prize winner voice their opinions loudly. And in Iran's roiling political atmosphere, women can be criticized as harshly as men.

Wearing polished silver helmets - with only a head scarf underneath to distinguish their garb from the men's - this squad slides down the fire pole when the alarm sounds, just like their male peers.

"When we rescue a child, and the mother cries and comes to us to thank us, we feel so good," says Mahboubeh Khoshsolat.

Finding a balance between Islam and gender issues is easier in Iran than in some other Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, where women are not allowed to drive, much less hold office.

A women's unit might have made a difference in the holy city of Mecca in March 2002, during a blaze at a girls' school. Some 15 girls died and 50 were injured when Saudi religious police, according to eyewitnesses, beat the girls and kept them from leaving the burning building because they were not wearing "correct" Islamic dress.

Firefighters here in Iran, men and women alike, say men have not hesitated to help in gender-sensitive situations. "Of course we still do it," says Ali Aghayari, a mustachioed 25-year veteran of the department. "It can be a matter of life and death."

But the women think their presence inspires others to take on jobs usually reserved for men. "100 percent," says Zahra Haji, who has been with the Karaj force since the women's unit was created three years ago.

The women are part of a department that includes 11 stations and 375 firefighters. Divided into three shifts, they work 24 hours on, 48 hours off.

While they respond to every alarm alongside the men, these women also describe rescues in which their gender helped get the job done - such as the time a large woman had fallen into an narrow underground septic tank, up to her neck in sewage, and needed rescue with a harness and ropes.

I've seen them in action and they are good, they are strong - sometimes they are better than the men," says Mr. Aghayari. When they are in protective gear, fighting alongside the men, he says he can barely tell the difference.

"Physically we can manage it, we don't think we are anything less [than the men]," says Zeinab Karimi. Her father's tales of his work as a firefighter shaped her as a girl. When ads for the positions appeared, he mentioned them to Karimi, who had never thought she'd fight fires herself. "We believe in our abilities."

Those abilities are honed by training the same way as the men's, rappelling down a multistory training wall, jumping from heights, carrying the injured, and finding escape routes. Members of the unit have long experience with competitive sports, and their daily routine includes 30 minutes of vigorous exercise.

Such preparation can pay off. Karimi remembers a call at 3:30 a.m. A gas truck was burning so hot that a neighboring building caught fire.

"The whole area was lit up like day, and it was tough. [T]here was the possibility of an explosion," recalls Karimi. "It was so frightening, but [we] controlled the fire. Even our gloves were burning"

Not all stories end happily. Ms. Haji relates a call this summer when the unit was unable to resuscitate a toddler who had fallen in a pool. Several of the women went to the boy's funeral to offer comfort. "It was my first bitter experience," says Ms. Haji. "But they were appreciating us."

Such performance has not gone unnoticed elsewhere in Iran, where a number of cities have expressed interest. "Karaj is a good model," says Gholamreza Abbasi, head of the program. "The [Islamic] system will accept it, and people want it."

###
* Scott Peterson is staff writer of the Christian Science Monitor.
Source: The Christian Science Monitor, October 19, 2005
Visit the website at www.csmonitor.com
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Reprinted with permission. Further reprint permission can be obtained by contacting Lawrenced@csps.com.

**********

The Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity, brought to you by Search for Common Ground, seeks to build bridges of understanding between the West and the Arab World and countries with predominately Muslim populations. This service is one outcome of a set of working meetings held in partnership with His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal in June 2003.

Every week, CGNews-PiH will distribute 5 news articles, op-eds, features, and analyses that aid in developing and analyzing the current and future relationship of the West and Arab/Muslim world. Articles will be chosen based on accuracy, balance, and their ability to improve understanding and communication across borders and regions. They will also reflect the need for constructive dialogue around issues of global importance. Selections will be authored by local and international experts and leaders who will analyze and discuss a broad range of relevant issues. We invite you to submit any articles you feel are compatible with the goals of this news service.

Partners in Humanity also regularly publishes the work of student leaders and journalists whose articles strengthen intercultural understanding and promote constructive perspectives and dialogue in their own communities through its Youth Views column. Student journalists and writers under the age of 27 are encouraged to write cbinkley@sfcg.org for more information on contributing.

We look forward to hearing from you, and welcome any questions, concerns, or comments you may have about this service. Please forward this message to colleagues and friends who may also wish to subscribe to the service. To subscribe, send an email to subscribe-cgnewspih@sfcg.org with subscribe in the subject line.

If you are a member of the media, please join us in promoting constructive dialogue to improve understanding and perceptions. Unless otherwise noted, all copyright permissions have been obtained and the articles may be reproduced by any news outlet or publication free of charge. If you choose to republish any of the articles, please acknowledge both the original source and CGNews, and notify us at cgnewspih@sfcg.org

The views expressed in these articles are those of the authors, not of CGNews or its affiliates.

Common Ground News Service
1601 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Suite #200
Washington, DC 20009 USA
Ph: +1(202) 777-2207
Fax: +1(202) 232-6718

Rue Belliard 205 bte 13
B-1040 Brussels, Belgium
Ph: +32 (02) 736-7262
Fax: +32(02) 732-3033
E-mail: cgnewspih@sfcg.org
Website: http://www.commongroundnews.org

Editors:
Emad Khalil
Amman Editor

Juliette Schmidt
Beirut Editors

Elyte Baykun & Leena El-Ali
Washington Editors

Michael Shipler & Chris Binkley
Youth Views Editors

**********

This is a not-for-profit list serve.
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone you think would like to see these articles.
To subscribe, send an email to subscribe-cgnewspih@sfcg.org with subscribe in the subject line.

Citizens’ Summit on the Information Society (CSIS)
Tunis, November 16-18, 2005

First announcement and call for support
CSIS Press release – October 24, 2005

A Citizens’ Summit on the Information Society (CSIS) will be held in Tunis, on November 16-18, 2005, coinciding with the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

The CSIS will be another milestone in the long tradition of UN conferences and Summits being complemented with events organized by citizen groups. Previous such events met with great success, for example during the Cairo Conference on Population and Development (1994), the Beijing Conference on Women (1995) or the Monterrey Summit on Financing for Development (2002).

The CSIS objectives are twofold:

To send a strong message of support and solidarity from international civil society to the local civil society and citizens;
To address the main issues being debated at the WSIS, from the perspective of citizen groups and the public.
Based on earlier precedents, this event will offer an excellent opportunity to promote the Information Society and the basic principles on which it must be based, as articulated in the first phase of the World Summit on the Information, namely: human rights and social justice.

Invitation and Call for support:

Citizen groups, Civil society organizations, National, Regional and International Institutions, Government Delegations, and all other interested parties and individuals are invited to participate in the Citizen’s Summit on the Information Society. All are strongly encouraged to express their support for and solidarity with the CSIS by, e.g.:

Signing-on as a supporter,
Offering a donation,
Proposing a contribution to the CSIS program,
Reading a statement of support to CSIS, in a WSIS parallel event they may organize
Disseminating CSIS news through websites and mailing lists,
Or any other means of support they may suggest.

Practical information:

The Citizen’s Summit on the Information Society will begin on November 16th at 16:00, with an opening ceremony, continue all day on November 17th, with the closing session on November 18th morning. The CSIS program will consist of a series of panels and conferences addressing main WSIS issues from the public perspective.

The detailed program and practical information will be circulated by early November, together with a list of CSIS supporters.

First list of CSIS organizers and supporters:

AMARC (World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters), ANND (Arab NGO Network for Development), APC (Association for Progressive Communications), ARTICLE 19 (Global Campaign for Free Expression), CJFE (Canadian Journalists for Free Expression), Comunica-ch (WSIS Swiss Civil Society Coalition), CPSR (Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility), CRIS Campaign (Communication Rights in the Information Society), FIDH (International Federation of Human Rights Leagues), FrontLine (International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders), HR Caucus (WSIS Civil Society Human Rights Caucus) HRW (Human Rights Watch), ICHRDD (Rights and Democracy), Index on Censorship, IteM (Instituto del Tercer Mundo), Norwegian PEN, OMCT (World Organization against Torture), WAN (World Association of Newspapers), WPFC (World Press Freedom Committee), in coordination with independent Tunisian civil society organizations.

CSIS International Organizing Committee:

Pablo Accuosto, Karen Banks, Roberto Bissio, Steve Buckley, Rikke Frank Jørgensen, Wolf Ludwig, Antoine Madelin, Meryem Marzouki, Seán Ó Siochrú, Chantal Peyer, in coordination with independent Tunisian civil society organization representatives.

Contact:

Expressions of support: support@citizens-summit.org
Press enquiries: press@citizens-summit.org
General contact, questions: contact@citizens-summit.org
Website: http://www.citizens-summit.org

Technical Communicators for Peace and Justice (tc4pj@comm.cudenver.edu) is a grassroots network of academics and practicioners in the fields of technical communication, human-computer interaction, usability, and information architecture. The inspiration for this list came from the group Rhetoricians For Peace.

tc4pj fosters an environment where participants may:

identify and discuss the ways that technical language, practices, user interfaces, information architectures, and technological artifacts instill ideologies that promote intimidation, conflict, economic disparity, and social inequality
discuss strategies for directing our unique skills to promote civility, social justice and peaceful conflict resolution
network with others dedicated to open inquiry, peace, environmental and social justice

tc4pj is a moderated list. Membership proceeds through list owner approval. The list of participants will be unavailable to the general public. Exceptions to this rule may occur contingent upon violation of policies of the Communication Department at the University of Colorado at Denver (where the list is hosted). Participants who do not engage in civil discussion will be removed from the list. Spam will not be tolerated and will result in immediate removal from the list.

AfricAvenir News are kindly sent out by Eric Van Grasdorff:

Liebe/Liebe Freunde,

Im Rahmen der Filmreihe „African Perspectives“ lädt AfricAvenir in Kooperation mit der INISA und dem South African Club am Sonntag, den 30. Oktober 2005 um 17.15 Uhr zur Vorführung des Films ‚Max and Mona’ (Premiere!) von Teddy Mattera ein. Nach der Vorführung besteht die Möglichkeit zur Diskussion mit Prof. Kum' a Ndumbe III.
Mit freundlicher Unterstützung des DGB Bildungswerks (Nord-Süd-Netz).

Max and Mona
Regie: Teddy Mattera, ZA 2004, 98 Min., OmU (engl.)
Ort: Filmtheater Hackesche Höfe (Rosenthaler Str. 40/41; 10178 Berlin)
Eintrittspreis: 5 Euro

Max und Mona ist ein besonderes Vergnügen; eine unterhaltsame, perfekt ausgewogene Kombination von Kummer, Liebe und Tod zusammengefügt in einer unnachahmlichen afrikanischen Komödie. Max ist der Schatz seines Dorfes. Obwohl noch jung, hat er eine besondere Gabe als Trauernder geerbt. Die Vorfahren anrufend, kann Max das steinernste Herz zu einem Fluss von Tränen auflösen. Doch er muss seinem Ruf folgen und Medizin in der großen Stadt studieren. Max erreicht die Stadt beladen mit einer meckernden heiligen Ziege, passender Weise Mona genannt, doch kann seine Universitätsgebühren nicht rechtzeitig zahlen. Völlig verzweifelt kontaktiert Max seinen notorisch-betrügerischen Onkel Norman. In der Zwickmühle steckend, wird Max durch Norman, den Drogenboss des Townships, manipuliert, seine gottgegebenen Talente für die Tilgung Normans finanzieller Nöte zu gebrauchen.

Über den Regisseur
Teddy Mattera ist Südafrikaner, der in den USA, Grossbritanien und Europa Film studiert hat. Der erste Film, bei dem er als Praktkant mitgewirkt hat, war Hoop Dreams, welcher 1993 für einen Oscar nominiert wurde. Er hat seitdem verschiedene Dokumentarfilme für SABC (South Africa), BBC, Channel Four (UK) und andere Fernsehsender gemacht. Ebenso war er, meist als Co-Regisseur, an diversen Kurzfilmen, Werbespots und Musikvideos beteiligt. Der südafrikanische Fernsehsender MNET zeigte den Kurzfilm „Waiting for Valdez“, für welchen Mattera das Drehbuch geschrieben hatte, im Rahmen seiner im Jahre 2001 ausgestrahlten Serie“ New Directions“. Zuletzt führte Mattera im Kurzfilm „Norman Comes To Jozi“ Regie, sowie bei einigen Folgen der Serie „ Vuyani Mzansi“ des Senders SABC2.

Festivalteilnahmen
• Toronto International Film Festival - Democracy 10 Sidebar
• London International Film Festival - Official Invitation
• Amiens Film Festival - Official Hors De Competition Selection
• Festival Do Rio - In Main Competition
• Sithengi Film Festival - In Main Competition
• Goteborg Film Festival - Official Selection
• FESPACO - In Main Competition

Pressestimmen zum Film

"The story is absolutely brilliant, with sharp wit, tongue-in-cheek satire and a clever plot" -The Herald

"Max and Mona is a funny and profound South African fable, and my favourite South African film so far" - The Business Day

"Max and Mona triumphs at FESPACO" - The Daily News Tonight

"Acclaimed writer, Teddy Mattera, has created a South African comedy that has already proved to be a hit at International Film Festivals" - The Big Issue

"New Local Film Entertains" - Rekord Mamelodi

-----------------------------------------

Weitere Veranstaltungen:

Dialogforum
03. November, 19.30 Uhr, Mosaik (Oranienstr. 35)
Ibiba DonPedro: Nigeria: African Renaissance in Danger?

Literarische Begegnungen
04. November, 20 Uhr, in den Mehringhöfen (Gneisenaustr. 2a)
„Die Sterne dort unten“ und „Flammen der Hölle“
Lesung aus den Werken von Ken Saro Wiwa

Literarische Begegnungen
11. November, 20 Uhr, Galerie der Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
Kinjeketile - „MajiMaji – Widerstand gegen die deutsche Kolonialmacht“
Szenische Lesung aus dem Werk von Ebrahim Hussein

Filmreihe (Premiere!)
13. November, 17.15 Uhr, Filmtheater Hackesche Höfe
Drum

Filmreihe
27. November, 17.15 Uhr, Filmtheater Hackesche Höfe
Manga Bell – Verdammte Deutsche!

Dialogforum
01. Dezember, 19.30 Uhr, Mosaik (Oranienstr. 35)
Wim van Binsbergen: Possibilities and Contradictions of the African Renaissance

Filmreihe (Premiere!)
11. Dezember, 17.15 Uhr, Filmtheater Hackesche Höfe
U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha – Carmen in Khayelitsha

Literarische Begegnungen
18. Dezember, 17 Uhr, Galerie der Heinrich Böll Stiftung
Brixton Stories
Szenische Lesung aus dem Werk von Biyi Bandele

Filmreihe
29. Januar, 17.15 Uhr, Filmtheater Hackesche Höfe
Little Senegal

www.AfricAvenir.org
Wollen Sie Fördermitglied von AfricAvenir International e.V. werden?
Kontaktieren Sie Ann Kathrin Helfrich, Fon: 030-80906789, a.helfrich@africavenir.org

Redaktion des Newsletters: Eric Van Grasdorff, e.vangrasdorff@africavenir.org
AfricAvenir International e.V. ist nicht für die Inhalte externer Webseiten verantwortlich.

Dear Friends!

Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble:

They write:

The book has just gone to our publishers and will be released the first
week of January 2006. We are excited about the new information and
analysis it contains and we think you will be, too. With the issues of
rising oil prices and climate change getting ever more attention, we
believe this book meets a key need—a plan to move us quickly onto a
sustainable economic path.

We thought you might like to preview the new book, so we have posted on
our website Chapter 1 “Entering a New World” (in pdf)
http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB2/pb2ch1.pdf
and the Table of Contents for Plan B 2.0
http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB2/Contents.htm.

Feel free to download it or email it to friends and colleagues. And let us
know if you think we’re on the right track.

Below is the introduction to Chapter 1.
Again, thanks for your patience.
Sincerely,
Les Brown and the Earth Policy Institute staff
www.earthpolicy.org

Chapter 1. Entering a New World

Our global economy is outgrowing the capacity of the earth to support it,
moving our early twenty-first century civilization ever closer to decline
and possible collapse. In our preoccupation with quarterly earnings
reports and year-to-year economic growth, we have lost sight of how large
the human enterprise has become relative to the earth’s resources. A
century ago, annual growth in the world economy was measured in billions
of dollars. Today it is measured in trillions.

As a result, we are consuming renewable resources faster than they can
regenerate. Forests are shrinking, grasslands are deteriorating, water
tables are falling, fisheries are collapsing, and soils are eroding. We
are using up oil at a pace that leaves little time to plan beyond peak
oil. And we are discharging greenhouse gases into the atmosphere faster
than nature can absorb them, setting the stage for a rise in the earth's
temperature well above any since agriculture began.

Our twenty-first century civilization is not the first to move onto an
economic path that was environmentally unsustainable. Many earlier
civilizations also found themselves in environmental trouble. As Jared
Diamond notes in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, some
were able to change course and avoid economic decline. Others were not. We
study the archeological sites of Sumerians, the Mayans, Easter Islanders,
and other early civilizations that were not able to make the needed
adjustments in time.

Fortunately, there is a consensus emerging among scientists on the broad
outlines of the changes needed. If economic progress is to be sustained,
we need to replace the fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway
economy with a new economic model. Instead of being based on fossil fuels,
the new economy will be powered by abundant sources of renewable energy:
wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, and biofuels.

Instead of being centered around automobiles, future transportation
systems will be far more diverse, widely employing light rail, buses, and
bicycles as well as cars. The goal will be to maximize mobility, not
automobile ownership.

The throwaway economy will be replaced by a comprehensive reuse/recycle
economy. Consumer products from cars to computers will be designed so
that they can be disassembled into their component parts and completely
recycled. Throwaway products such as single-use beverage containers will
be phased out.

The good news is that we can already see glimpses here and there of what
this new economy looks like. We have the technologies to build
it—including, for example, gas-electric hybrid cars, advanced-design wind
turbines, highly efficient refrigerators, and water-efficient irrigation
systems.

We can see how to build the new economy brick by brick. With each wind
farm, rooftop solar panel, paper recycling facility, bicycle path, and
reforestation program, we move closer to an economy that can sustain
economic progress.

If, instead, we continue on the current economic path, the question is not
whether environmental deterioration will lead to economic decline, but
when. No economy, however technologically advanced, can survive the
collapse of its environmental support systems.

To read the full chapter in pdf
http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB2/pb2ch1.pdf

Educating for a Culture of Peace:
A European Perspective

A free three-part colloquia series sponsored by the Peace Education Center featuring distinguished visiting Professor Dr. Werner Wintersteiner.

Wednesday, November 9, 2005, 3 – 5pm

Peace Education in Europe: Achievements and Perspectives

History, Contents, New Developments …

Room 273A Grace Dodge - Teachers College Columbia University

Thursday, November 17, 2005, 3 – 5pm

Bertha von Suttner: Lessons for Peace Educators Today

1905 – 2005: Centenary of the first female Nobel Peace Prize Winner.

Room 172 Macy - Teachers College Columbia University

Tuesday, November 29, 2005, 3 – 5pm

Peace Education Teacher Training

The Experience of EURED

Room 539 Grace Dodge - Teachers College Columbia University

For more information on the sessions above please visit
www.tc.edu/PeaceEd/pe-europe.htm

Prof. Werner Wintersteiner, Klagenfurt University, Austria

Prof. Dr. Werner Wintersteiner, is a teacher trainer at the Department for German at Klagenfurt University and is the founding director of the Klagenfurt University “Centre for Peace Research and Peace Education.” He is a member of the Global Campaign for Peace Education and of the editorial board of the “Journal of Peace Education.”

His writings include many articles and several books on intercultural and peace education in different languages. His English publications include: Wintersteiner, Werner / Vedrana Spajić-Vrkaš / Rüdiger Teutsch (eds.). 2003. “Peace Education in Europe: Visions and experiences.” Münster: Waxmann (European Studies in Education, 19).

Sponsored by the Peace Education Center, Teachers College Columbia University
www.tc.edu/PeaceEd

CENTRE DE COOPERATION FRANCO-NORVEGIENNE EN SCIENCES SOCIALES ET HUMAINES

MAISON DES SCIENCES DE L’HOMME, 54, Boulevard Raspail, 75270 Paris Cedex 06, France
Tél.: 01 49 54 22 16 Fax: 01 49 54 21 95 Web: http://www.uv.uio.no/paris
__________________________________________________________________

Directrice : Saphinaz-Amal NAGUIB, professeur
Marit MELHUUS, professeur
Responsable administratif : Kirstin B. SKJELSTAD

Programme automne 2005
(rev. 14.10.2005)

Septembre

22 – 25 septembre: Language between nature and culture. Journées Wittgenstein à Bergen organisées par Arild Utaker, professeur à l’université de Bergen et Antonia Soulez, professeur à l’université de Paris 8.
Responsable au Centre de Coopération Franco-norvégienne: Saphinaz-Amal Naguib

26 – 28 septembre : Relecture de l’histoire culturelle comme métode, seminaire organisé par Anne Eriksen et Arne Bugge Amundsen, professeurs au Département d’études culturelles et langues orientales de l’université d’Oslo.
Responsable au Centre de Coopération Franco-norvégienne: Saphinaz-Amal Naguib

Octobre

3 octobre : Réunion du conseil d’administration du Centre de coopération franco-norvégienne.

4 octobre : Réunion avec le Centre de coopération universitaire franco-norvégienne.

13 – 14 octobre Doing Ethnography in Latin America. Young scholars forum. Colloque international organisé par Marit Melhuus, professeur à l’université d’Oslo/ Centre de Coopération Franco-norvégienne en collaboration avec l’ Institut des Hautes Études de l’Amérique latine, Université Paris III et le Centre de recherches sur le Brésil contemporrain, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme.
Responsable au Centre de Coopération Franco-norvégienne: Marit Melhuus

26 – 27 octobre : Séminaire organisé par l’école doctorale dans les disciplines Art et Culture des universités de Trondheim, Bergen, Tromsø et le collège universitaire d’Agder.
Responsable au Centre de Coopération Franco-norvégienne: Saphinaz-Amal Naguib

Novembre

3 – 4 novembre: Welfare, gender and practice in the Middle East, 1800-2000. Two hundred years of entrepreneurship, Colloque international organisé par Inger Marie Okkenhaug et Nefissa Naguib, Université de Bergen en collaboration avec Hamit Bozarslan, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales/Institut d’études de l’Islam et des Sociétés du Monde Musulman (IISMM).
Responsable au Centre de Coopération Franco-norvégienne: Saphinaz-Amal Naguib.

7 – 9 novembre: In search of excellence. Supporting research - the French perspective, journées d’étude organisées par la direction de la Faculté des Sciences Humaines, Universiteté d’Oslo.
Responsable au Centre de Coopération Franco-norvégienne: Saphinaz-Amal Naguib.

24 - 25 novembre: Contemporary perspectives on European Kinship. Colloque international organisé par Marit Melhuus, professeur à l’université d’Oslo/ Centre de Coopération Franco-norvégienne et Enric Porqueres, maître de conférences à l’EHESS/ Laboratoire d’Anthropologie des Institutions et des Organisations Sociales (LAIOC)
Responsable au Centre de Coopération Franco-norvégienne: Marit Melhuus.

30 novembre : Langage et violence. Table ronde organisée par Arild Utaker, professeur à l’université de Bergen, Olivier Remaud, EHESS, François Rastier, CNRS.
Responsable au Centre de Coopération Franco-norvégienne: Saphinaz-Amal Naguib.

Décembre

1-3 décembre : Colloque du Syndicat des chercheurs de l’université d’Oslo, organisé par Karin Gundersen, professeur à l’université d’Oslo.

8 – 10 décembre : Feminism, Democracy, Freedom, colloque international et interdisciplinaire arrangé par Ellen Mortensen, professeur à l’université de Bergen.
Responsables au Centre de Coopération Franco-norvégienne: Saphinaz-Amal Naguib et Marit Melhuus.

Programme printemps 2006
(19.09.2005)

Janvier
24 - 26 janvier: La linguistique de Bernard Pottier: Bilan, critiques, perspectives. Colloque international organisé par Aboubakar Ouattara, maitre de conferences de l’Université de Tromsø.
Responsable au CCFN :

Février
3 - 5 février : Colloque: Phonologie du français contemporain. Organisé par : Chantal Lyche, OFNEC (Caen), Jacques Durand (Toulouse) og Bernard Laks (Paris).
Responsable au CCFN :

16 – 19 février: Colloque Social Autonomy – Systems, Movements, Interventions, organisé par Ingerid Straume, chercheur en sciences de l’éducation, Université d’Oslo
Responsable au CCFN :

Mars
Avril

Mai
22 – 24 mai: Colloque Littérature et art visuel organisé par Knut Ove Eliassen, professeur à l’université de Trondheim.
Responsable au CCFN:

29 – 31 mai: Colloque Syndicat des chercheurs à l’université de Trondheim, organisé par: Annlaug Bjørsnøs, maître de conférences, Departement des langues étrangères modernes, Université de Trondheim.
Responsable au CCFN:

Juin

AUTOMNE

30 novembre – 1 décembre Colloque autour de Henrik Ibsen organisé en collaboration avec le Ministère norvégien des Affaires Étrangères, l’ambassade de Norvège à Paris, la Sorbonne et le Centre Ibsen, Oslo.

Program høsten 2005
(rev. 14.10. 2005)

September

22. – 25. september: Konferanse i Bergen Language between nature and culture, Wittgenstein. Arrangert av professorene Arild Utaker, Universitet i Bergen og Antonia Soulez, Université de Paris 8.
Ansvarlig ved Senteret: Saphinaz-Amal Naguib

26-28 september: Forskerutdanning seminar: Nærlesning av kulturhistorisk metode, arrangert av professorene Anne Eriksen og Arne Bugge Amundsen, Institutt for kulturhistorie og orientalske språk, Universitetet i Oslo.
Ansvarlig ved Senteret : Saphinaz-Amal Naguib.

Oktober

3. oktober: Styremøte Senter for fransk-norsk forskningssamarbeid innen samfunnsvitenskap og humaniora.

4. oktober: Møte med Senter for universitets- og høgskolesamarbeid med Frankrike.

13. – 14. oktober Doing Ethnography in Latin America. Young scholars forum. Internasjonalt seminar arrangert av professor Marit Melhuus, Senter for fransk-norsk forskningssamarbeid/Universitetet i Oslo i samarbeid med l’Institut des Hautes Études de l’Amérique latine, Université Paris III og Centre de recherches sur le Brésil contemporrain, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme.
Ansvarlig ved Senteret: Marit Melhuus.

26. – 27. oktober: Forskerutdanningseminar ved Den nasjonale forskerskolen innenfor kunst- og kulturfag, arrangert av NTNU, UiB, UiT og Høgskolen i Agder.
Ansvarlig ved Senteret: Saphinaz-Amal Naguib

31 oktober: Conférence - débat CERI, "Les résaux transnationaux développement"

November

3.november: program "Henrik Ibsen - le commencement et la fin"

3. – 4. november : Welfare, gender and practice in the Middle East, 1800-2000. Two hundred years of entrepreneurship, seminar arrangert av Inger Marie Okkenhaug og Nefissa Naguib, Universitetet i Bergen i samarbeid med Hamit Bozarslan, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales/Institut d’études de l’Islam et des Sociétés du Monde Musulman.
Ansvarlig ved Senteret: Saphinaz-Amal Naguib

7. – 9. november: In search of excellence. Supporting research - the French perspective, seminar arrangert av administrasjonsledelsen ved Det humanistiske fakultet, Universitetet i Oslo.
Ansvarlig ved Senteret: Saphinaz-Amal Naguib

24. – 25. november: Internasjonal seminar Contemporary perspectives on European Kinship, arrangert av professor Marit Melhuus, Senter for fransk-norsk forskningssamarbeid/Universitetet i Oslo og Enric Porqueres, maître de conférences ved École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) / Laboratoire d’Anthropologie des Institutions et des Organisations Sociales (LAIOC).
Ansvarlig ved Senteret: Marit Melhuus.

30. november : Langage et violence. Seminar organisert av professor Arild Utaker, Universitetet i Bergen, Olivier Remaud, EHESS, François Rastier, CNRS.
Ansvarlig ved Senteret: Saphinaz-Amal Naguib.

Desember

8. - 10. desember: Feminism, Democracy, Freedom, internasjonalt tverrfagligseminar arrangert av professor Ellen Mortensen, Universitetet i Bergen.
Ansvarlige ved Senteret: Saphinaz-Amal Naguib og Marit Melhuus.

Program vår 2006
(19.09.2005)

Januar
24.-26. januar: Seminar: La linguistique de Bernard Pottier: Bilan, critiques, perspectives. Ansvarlig Aboubakar Ouattara, Universitetet i Tromsø.
Ansvarlig ved Senteret:

Februar
3. - 5. februar : Seminar : Phonologie du français contemporain. Ansvarlige : Chantal Lyche, OFNEC (Caen), i samarbeid med Jacques Durand (Toulouse) og Bernard Laks (Paris).
Ansvarlig ved Senteret:

16. – 19. februar: Seminar Social Autonomy – Systems, Movements, Interventions, arrangert av Ingerid Straume, Utdanningsfakultetet, Universitetet i Oslo
Ansvarlig ved Senteret:

Mars
April

Mai
22. – 24. mai: Seminar Estetiske fag arrangert av professor Knut Ove Eliassen, NTNU.
Ansvarlig ved Senteret:

29. – 31. mai: Seminar forskerforbundet ved NTNU, ved: Annlaug Bjørsnøs, Institutt for moderne fremmedspråk (IFS), NTNU
Ansvarlig ved Senteret:

Juni

HØSTEN 2006
30.november – 1. desember. Ibsen seminar arrangert i samarbeid med UD, den norske ambassaden i Paris, Ibsensenteret og Sorbonne universitetet.

Dear Colleague,

Greetings!

Please visit the website that I am developing for the international conference on Iraq.The link is http://www.cpcs.umb.edu/rsci/index.html

Take care.

Regards,

Adenrele

___________________________________________

Adenrele Awotona
Dean & Professor
College of Public and Community Service
University of Massachusetts Boston
100 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, MA 02125-3393
Telephone: (617) 287-7100
Fax: (425) 984-7100
E-mail: adenrele@adenreleawotona.us

Dear Colleagues and Peace Education IED concentration students and graduates,

Dr. Werner Wintersteiner (Klagenfurt University, Austria) is a visiting scholar at the Peace Education Center currently conducting research on the history of peace education developments at Teachers College.

He has asked that I send to you, as current students, graduates and/or individuals familiar with the work of the Center and peace education at Teachers College, the attached short questionnaire to aid in his research. He also welcomes comments and thoughts on anything outside the questions included. This information will aid him in understanding the history of peace education at Teachers College and how individuals who have been connected with us are able to apply their learning.

More information on Dr. Wintersteiner and his research is included in the attached. We appreciate you help in aiding him with his research.

Below is a brief introductory note from Dr. Wintersteiner. You may contact him directly by email at ww2165@columbia.edu.

Best regards,

Tony Jenkins
Director of Administration & Research
Peace Education Center
Teachers College Columbia University

********

Dear colleagues and fellow peace educators,

I am a professor specialized in peace education based at Klagenfurt University, Austria (http://www.tc.edu/peaceed/staff/visiting.htm). I am working now as a Fulbright visiting scholar at Peace Education Center Teachers College/Columbia University. I am conducting research on the history of peace education at Teachers College. Thus, I am interested to know what alumni think about their peace education studies. Basically, I want to know two things:

a. How do you assess the peace education studies that you have done at Teachers College?

b. In which way these peace education studies have influenced your further professional and/or avocation life?

Therefore, I need your help. Please take a couple of minutes and fill out the attached questionnaire. I believe that this can help very much to the improvement of peace education at Teachers College.

Thank you in advance!

Werner Wintersteiner

Prof. Dr. Werner Wintersteiner New York, October 2005
c/o Peace Education Center
Grace Dodge Hall
Teachers College, Columbia University
Phone: (212)6788116
ww2165@columbia.edu

Dear colleague,

Please let me introduce myself:
I am a professor specialized in peace education at Klagenfurt University, Austria.
In this autumn, I am working as a Fulbright visiting scholar at Peace Education Center Teachers College/Columbia University.

Description of the research
My aim is a critical inquiry on the history, the philosophy, the practice and the organisation of the peace education concentration in the International Educational Development Program and the Peace Education Center at Teachers College. Basically, I am using the documents to investigate the history of the peace education activities.
But beside this, I will also try to find out what alumni think about their studies in peace education. Basically, I want to know two things:
a. How you assess the peace education studies that you have done at Teachers College.
b. In which way these peace education studies have influenced your further professional and/or avocation life.
Therefore, I need your help.
Please take a couple of minutes (about 10 ms) and fill out this questionnaire.

Confidentiality
I am using the data basis of alumni of the peace education center in an indirect way. This means I submit the questionnaire to Tony Jenkins who is sending it out. Thus, you answer to me as an anonymous person. You send your data directly to me, not to the Center. Thus, the Center is unable to identify who answers to the questionnaire.
In the questionnaire, there are no questions about your personal identity. When I ask for the gender, this is to find out whether or not there is a gender gap in the assessment of the studies as well as in their use for a future career.

The research and survey is voluntary. Your choice to participate is a sign of your consent.
The confidentiality of your answer will be preserved. The data will only be used for professional purposes.

I ask you, please, to be sincere and critical! This study is not about getting friendly comments but reflective statements. This may not only help to conduct my research but is also intended to improve the quality of the peace education studies offered.

The results of the whole study, including the feed-back of the alumni, will hopefully be published as an article in a journal dealing with peace education issues.

Please send the questionnaire back to me as soon as possible, not later than by October 31, 2005!

Thank you in advance!

With peaceful regards

Prof. Werner Wintersteiner, Ph.D.

Questionnaire on Peace Education at Teachers College/Columbia University
1. Personal data:
1.0. Gender:
1.1. Previous degrees (and topics) before entering graduate school:
1.2. Work experience before entering graduate school:
1.3. Which degree did you complete at T.C.: M.A., Ed.M., Ed.D., Ph.D.?
1.4. Which year did you finish your studies:
1.5. How were you involved in peace education (multiple answers are possible):
o Workshops
o International Institute for Peace Education IIPE
o Degree courses
o Degree specialization
1.6. Current profession:
1.7. Is there any relation to your peace education studies in your current profession:
1.8. Do you have peace education related avocation (which one):
2. Interests and expectations: (please use additional paper when space is too small)
2.1. Reasons why you decided to study peace education:

2.2. Topic of your final thesis / dissertation

2.3. What are – for you personally – the most important points of interest in peace education:
(Please describe which aspects, field, way of working or method are the most interesting for yourself rather than giving a scientific definition.)

3. Assessment of your study experience: (please use additional paper when space is too small)
3.1. Were you satisfied with your studies (please choose one):
Very satisfied Quite satisfied Not really satisfied
3.2. What did you like the best (e.g. content, methodology, climate, personality of teachers):

3.3. What didn’t you like or what could be improved:

4. Outcome:
4.1. In what ways did your studies contribute to changes in your personal life (awareness, attitudes, behaviour, activities …):

4.2. How did your studies influence or improve your professional development, job or career goals:

Thank you very much!
Please return to ww2165@columbia.edu not later than by October 31, 2005

Greetings!

The Herbert C. Kelman Seminar on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution welcomes you to attend the second seminar of the fall series. The theme for this year’s series is: Negotiation, Conflict and the News Media.

On Tuesday, October 25, 2005, Rami Khouri, Editor-at-Large of the Beirut-based Daily Star and Antonia Chayes, Visiting Professor of International Politics and Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy will be sharing a panel discussion entitled, “The Role of the Expert in Terrorism Reporting”.

The seminar will be held at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs in its new location in the Center for Government and International Studies (CGIS) at 1737 Cambridge Street in Cambridge, MA in room N354 from 4-5:30 PM.

Also note that the seminar series this year is co-sponsored by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy, the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program, as well as the Boston area members of the Alliance for International Conflict Prevention and Resolution.

We hope to see you there.

Donna Hicks,
Chair
--
Donna Hicks
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs
Email: dhicks@wcfia.harvard.edu
Web site: http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu

For Better at The UN
by Ron Kraybill

The editor of my local newspaper rarely misses an opportunity to bash the UN. At least once a month, it seems, he trashes the only body set up to serve not one nation, but all. I scratch my head at these rants. When I can get past the irony of a small-town editor with little experience of the world beyond the borders of his own country pontificating about a global structure, I admit the man has a point. The UN is frustratingly complex, hidebound, and politicized. My friends who work there struggle constantly with the limits of bureaucracy.

But I see things my editor does not. Take my friend Chris, a South African with years of experience in that political transition. Living for the last two years in Guyana, Chris heads a UNDP project to help prepare for upcoming elections. Guyana has experienced broad violence over the election period in every election since independence. Roving bands of youth attack opposition candidates at rallies and stir cycles of revenge. Hundreds die; tens of thousands are terrified. One of the gentlest, most hard-working people I know, and a man of deep religious faith, Chris risked his life many times in South Africa to defuse street violence during the tense years of the political talks in the 1990s. Today he is doing the same thing in Guyana.

In August I was resource person in a workshop he and UNDP staff set up to coordinates strategies among civil society leaders to head off the violence in the upcoming election. I was deeply touched by the dedication of the group of twenty who contributed a week of their time to participate. They worked from morning till night to assess the dangers ahead, describe a common vision they called “the spirit of Guyana”, identify vulnerable areas in their society, create working groups in each of these areas, and develop strategies to address them. In the months since, they have continued to work as individuals, leading workshops with local groups, and setting up committees to address tensions. In late October they will meet again for another week of training to prepare them for many more months of work. They are unpaid volunteers, with nothing to gain but a peaceful homeland. If this is not human beings at their competent best, working hard to take responsibility for the problems of their nation, I don’t know what is.

And it is happening because of the UN.

Flawed as it is, the UN contributes daily to the wellbeing of our world. A report released this week gives encouraging news about the number of combat deaths in war, which have declined steadily since the 1950s. “The wars that dominated the headlines in the 1990s were real – and brutal – enough,” writes Andrew Mack, its author. “But the global media have largely ignored the 100-odd conflicts that have quietly ended since 1988. During this period, more were stopped than started.” And further good news is that the number of combat deaths have declined sharply as well. “In 1950….the average conflict killed 38,000 people; in 2002 the figure was 600, a 98% decline.”

Why? The report, which can be read at http://www.humansecurityreport.info/, credits this encouraging trend to three factors: the end of colonialism, the end of the Cold War, and an upsurge in UN-led peacebuilding efforts. For all the mistakes in Rwanda and Kosovo, it seems the UN also gets some things right.

There is definitely room for improvement. The critics need to keep the pressure on. But they also need to keep a perspective. The bigger the system, the harder it is to coordinate and manage things efficiently and fairly. One country that some of us care deeply about – the most powerful and wealthy one at that – has just shown the world how ineffective its bureaucracy for handling its own disaster response is. Why be surprised or despairing if an organization mandated to work with the problems of the entire world, and limited by the endless politicking that takes place among nations, often disappoints?

The UN has problems, big problems. But the world and its problems are big. Difficult though it is to create a global body, it is essential to have a place where nations talk, plan, and act together to address the issues bigger than any one nation’s ability to address alone. It is the only organization remotely capable of addressing the tightly interwoven issues of environment, technological growth, hunger and need, transportation, and conflict that face our world.

Critics should tell us the whole truth rather than deceiving us with partial truth. For all its limits, there are many good things happening because of the UN. We need to hear about these, for in neglecting to tell them, critics kill hope in the possibility that human beings can cooperate on behalf of the common good of all.

They also need to be as articulate about what they are for as they are about what they are against.

How do we want our children and grandchildren to live with each other as populations grow and communication presses everybody into ever closer contact? What structures and processes do we want to see created to help solve the problems they will face? How can we move the only organization existing to address these questions to do so more effectively? How do we improve our own national efforts to build understanding and cooperation among nations?

Evidence shows human beings can reduce violence and build the peace. But not by merely cursing darkness. In telling the full truth of the good as well as the bad, and in asking constructive questions that point towards creative change, those who address the public can spark candles of hope that will light the path to a more peaceful world.

Ron Kraybill teaches in the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia.
--------------------------------------------------
This may be reprinted or re-posted on the web so long as the following credit appears with it in its entirety: Copyright 2005 by Ron Kraybill, kraybilr@emu.edu. See this and other essays by the author on security, religion and conflict; and conflict resolution topics including group facilitation, tools for dialogue and consensus, and a conflict style inventory at www.RiverhouseEpress.com

Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH)
October 18, 2005

The Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH) is distributing the enclosed articles to build bridges of understanding between the West and the Arab World and countries with predominately Muslim populations. Unless otherwise noted, all copyright permissions have been obtained and the articles may be reproduced by any news outlet or publication free of charge. If publishing, please acknowledge both the original source and CGNews, and notify us at cgnewspih@sfcg.org.

**********

ARTICLES IN THIS EDITION:

1. “Building Bridges With Americans” by Khaled Batarfi
Khaled Batarfi, Saudi journalist and managing editor of the Al Madina newspaper, considers how the media often highlights only the negative, thus influencing perceptions of entire countries. Writing about his experience studying in the United States and participating in a meeting with American visitors to Saudi Arabia, however, he finds similarities that enabled the participants to connect.
(Source: Arab News. October 2, 2005)

2. “The ‘Ugly American’ and the Arab Without a Nose” by Mona Eltahawy
Mona Eltahawy, a former correspondent for the Reuters News Agency in Cairo and Jerusalem and frequent contributor to opinion pages in the US and abroad counters the Arab caricature of the ugly American with the image of an Arab, out of spite, cutting off his nose in order not to look like an American. She agrees with Hughes’ deputy, Dina Habib Powell, that even a global superpower needs help, and that only when Americans and Arabs both pitch in will it be possible to meet the goals of both sides.
(Source: Asharq Alawsat, October 4, 2005)

5. “Nazar: Stories in pictures from the Arab world” by Adla Massoud
Adla Massoud, a special contributor to the Daily Star from New York, identifies one way that Arabs are countering the broad stereotypes and overarching stories that play out in the media on a daily basis. This exhibition of photographs portrays the “small stories behind the 'breaking news' and acts as a mirror in which Arabs can see who they are today and decide who they want to be tomorrow. “
(Source: The Daily Star, October 10, 2005)

**********

ARTICLE 1
Building Bridges With Americans
Khaled Batarfi

JEDDAH — American visitors to Saudi Arabia come with their baggage of perceptions and get their first cultural shock on day one — especially those who come for the first time. Thanks to media and education, our image as backward, savage, and fundamentalist persists. Misperception leads to perception and if repeated enough times and long enough it becomes reality. Once in the news, you’re always in the news and it is difficult to remove the stigma once it sticks.

Some reporters and researchers write their reports during the long flight to Saudi Arabia, and come here to fill the gaps. They look around every corner for political tension, religious extremists, battered women and street wars. They do find, now and then, what they look for and jump on it. That would be fine if at the same time they report the other side of the story, which represents the norm more than the spicy stuff.

Just imagine if, after a visit to America, I write only about drugs, crimes and racial discrimination. While those problems exist in America as in any other society, they are not what America is about. The same is here. We have our share of social ills such as fundamentalism, extremism, marginalizing minorities, consumerism, drug abuse, abuse of women and foreigners. But we also have our bright spots. Look around you and you will see the inspired and inspiring people, young and old, men and women, liberal and conservative, Sunni and Shiite.

Such was the case with a visiting group of American intellectuals. We met in the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry last week. Our group, the International Relations Committee, is made of concerned citizens volunteering to build a bridge of communication and understanding with the rest of the civilized world. The chairman of the committee, Amr Khashoggi, is an intellectual businessman, educated in American universities, like most of us, father to two bright kids who have just graduated and returned home to serve their country. They were all present at the meeting and at another gathering with Karen Hughes, US undersecretary of state for public diplomacy.

Committee members come from different business, academic and government backgrounds. They include economist Dr. Nahed Taher, businessman Eng. Omar Khalifaty, journalist Ms. Maha Akeel, merchant Dr. Ghazi Binzagr, psychotherapist Assia Khashoggi, and political scientist, Ms. Ranya Bajsair.

Guests and hosts talked in a spirit of openness and friendship. Some were emotional, apologetic or frank. However, all expressed their sorrow, anger, disappointment, confusion, misunderstanding and criticism in a civilized way. At the end, we all felt like hugging each other. It was great group therapy.

Alta Schwartz, director of Outreach program in Georgia Middle East Studies Consortium touched my heart. She expressed her dilemma as a Jew trying to reach out to us. She told me about a recent visit to Gaza and her shock and dismay at the Israeli abuse of Palestinians. How could she dissociate herself from Israeli policies and actions? She wants to rescue her religion from the extremists who have hijacked Judaism in Israel and America. She spoke about that tense moment when she tells an Arab she is a Jew and how she got used to the frank discussion that follows and the friendship that results.

I told her of my experience in America when my best friend suddenly told me that he was a Jew as well as a Communist! I had that double-shock moment but it passed quickly. It really didn’t matter what his religion was as long as he treated me right. As it turned out, we ended up helping each other in school projects and learned a great deal about one another’s perspectives. After reviewing my dissertation about US media bias toward Israel, he thanked me for moderating his views about Middle East history. I thanked him for standing up for me. He, and other colleagues, advocated changing class schedules to accommodate my Ramadan fasting hours. Similar tense moments became easier, like when I found out that the wonderful doctor and nurse who took care of my newborn daughter were Jews. Alta liked my calling her a cousin. I explained to the rest that Jews and Arabs are Semite cousins. An American pointed out that we are all cousins. What stands between us can easily be torn down. The biased media, ignorant intellectuals, inconsiderate politicians, and geographic, cultural and political barriers can be overcome with a simple smile, hello and a handshake.

As soon as we talk and visit each other’s homes and meet with family members, we will discover how strikingly similar we all are. We all wake up every day worrying about school grades and job security, family well-being and neighborhood safety.

We go through our days striving for a better life, and a brighter future. And when we sleep, we get nightmares about losing the ones we care about, and confronting those we don’t. We dream about an environment of peace, love and prosperity.

If we just understand these basic facts about each other, it is the perfect win-win. Only the merchants of hate, war and misery lose out in this eventual battle of bridge-building for the sake of all humanity.

###
* Khaled Batarfi is a Saudi journalist and managing editor of the Al Madina newspaper.
Source: Arab News, October 2, 2005
Visit the website at www.arabnews.com
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

ARTICLE 2
The “Ugly American” and the Arab Without a Nose
Mona Eltahawy

CAIRO — As Karen Hughes, the newly appointed head of U.S. public diplomacy, began her first visit to the Middle East last week, an Arab newspaper published a cartoon of the “Ugly American”. It showed President George Bush sitting in front of a mirror, with a thick layer of make up on his face. He turns to Hughes and asks her for more make up and a strong perfume.

The message was: America cannot hide its ugliness. Its arrogance and actions carried out without thought to consequence have made it so unattractive that nothing will turn an ugly face pretty.

If I was a political cartoonist I would have drawn a cartoon showing an Arab standing in front of a mirror cutting off his nose. I would label the mirror "America." The Arab is oblivious to the blood that flows from his nose and the disfigurement he is inflicting on himself. All he cares about is that he does not look like the image that the mirror "America" has reflected to him.

My message embodies the English saying "to cut off your nose to spite your face," which means to perform an action – usually to prove a point - that makes you suffer the most. In the case of my cartoon, it means we will do anything to stand up to America and prove a point to America, forgetting in the meantime that ultimately we’re hurting ourselves the most.

And nowhere is this more obvious than in the Arab world’s reaction to the bloodbath that is washing over Iraq.

More than two years have passed now since that invasion of Iraq but too many people –in the Arab world and in the United States – are still stuck arguing over whether the Bush administration was right or wrong to invade Iraq.

In the United States, the arguments often have little to do with Iraqis themselves. I rarely see Iraqis on American television speaking for themselves and I rarely read their opinions in U.S. papers. Instead, it is the supporters and opponents of Bush who argue.

The Americans have not even bothered to count how many Iraqis have died since the invasion.

But one thing is obvious: the United States needs help in Iraq.

Here in the Arab world, we don’t have the luxury to argue endlessly over whether Bush was right or wrong. Firstly, it is up to the Iraqi people themselves to decide if the invasion was good for them or not.

In America, there is a blind spot towards Iraqis. Here in the Arab world we have a blind spot of our own towards the Shia of Iraq. Muslim terrorists slaughter fellow Muslims in Iraq but the Arab world – where many of these terrorists come from - issues weak and meaningless condemnations because it is mostly Shia who are dying.

Terrorists drag Shiite teachers from their classrooms and shoot them dead. Terrorists sadistically lure poor Shia labourers looking for work and blow up 200 of them. Where is the outrage?

But this is what the Arab world forgets: while it stands by wanting the Americans to suffer defeat in Iraq, it is the Arab world that is being defeated by the terrorists who have turned their guns on the Shia of Iraq.

What the Arab world forgets is that those guns can just as easily be turned against the rest of us, just as the suicide bombings that were once used against Israel only are now being used against everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim.

Karen Hughes described her visit to the Middle East as a “listening tour”. It quickly turned into a “dialogue of the deaf” with neither side properly listening or talking to the other.

An Egyptian journalist told me an incident that gives me some hope. Of all the people that Hughes met in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the least “intellectual” or elite of them were a group of Egyptian students attending the American University in Cairo on American scholarships. These students are not the stereotypical AUC students who are usually from wealthy or upper class families. Many of the students who met Hughes came from outside of Cairo.

They asked her why America, the world’s only superpower, stumbled so badly after Hurricane Katrina. Hughes – ever the loyal Bush aide – defended her boss but ended up losing the students by getting into the details of domestic American politics that didn’t interest them.

Hughes’ deputy Dina Habib Powell came to the rescue. Dina is an Egyptian American and she understood what the students were getting at. She told them that even the world’s only superpower needs help, that we must all help each other during disasters and that the United States appreciated very much the help that Arab countries sent. The Egyptian students loved hearing this and applauded heartily.

I didn’t read about this incident in any of the U.S. press coverage of the meeting.

Iraq is a bloodbath. America needs the help of the Arab world. The Arab world needs America too – how many people insist that America pressure their governments to reform? And ultimately, it is in no one’s interest to see Iraq fail.

So maybe the American isn’t so “ugly” when he asks for help. It is also useful when he or she looks a bit more like us and can make that cultural connection in the way Dina Habib Powell did.

And maybe the Arab will stop cutting off his nose when he realizes that his interests and those of America can actually intersect and that being anti-American for the sake of it is ridiculous and ultimately hurts him more than anyone else.

America and the Arab world need each other.

###
* Mona Eltahawy was a correspondent for the Reuters News Agency in Cairo and Jerusalem and also wrote for the Guardian newspaper from the Middle East. Mona is also a frequent contributor to opinion pages in the US and abroad.
Source: Asharq Alawsat, October 4, 2005
Visit the website at www.asharqalawsat.com/english
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

ARTICLE 3
Nations, like houses, cannot be built on sand
Amin Howeidi

CAIRO— To build is a difficult activity. It requires sound planning and an ability to overcome obstacles. The whole process must be carefully timetabled, and attention focused from the moment the foundations are laid until the roof is finished. To pull down, on the other hand, is simple.

To establish a successful factory is hard. As well as the construction and equipping of the plant workers must be trained and markets for the final product explored and accessed. Compared to which selling a factory, even finding a single strategic purchaser, is a relatively simple procedure.

However difficult it is to erect a single building it is harder by far to build a nation. While nation building can never outstrip the developing country's capacity, the sum of its strength in various fields, it can all too easily fall behind these capacities. The mere existence of ability is no guarantee of success for that ability must be capitalised, and that requires a degree of creative flexibility.

But why speak of nation building now?

No issue could be more significant at a time when the Egyptian regime is creeping towards modernisation. Few would deny the seriousness of the difficulties in which we find ourselves. But to move beyond the problems requires that we take a long, hard look at the realities we face. As other nations advance they inspire our envy, forcing us to question why we are being left behind. Sadly, the political illiteracy displayed in the platforms of the majority of candidates in the recent presidential elections suggests that we have a vast amount of space to cover if we are to catch up.

In the context of nation building it might be useful to examine the experience of the United States. How did it manage, in just two centuries, to climb to the apex of the global system? There are certainly enough states that seek to emulate American success, coveting American democracy, the open American market and even American traditions and customs. We cannot object to their ambitions, as long as they don't set about achieving their goals by simplistic imitation.

Restricting the role of the state, unleashing market forces and allowing an unregulated private sector to dominate and drive the economy will not see developing nations advance far along the US path to success. To do so simply apes what America does now, without considering how it reached the point at which it can do the things it does. What stages did the US pass through to reach its present position? It did not simply jump to the top of the heap using economic liberalism as its springboard.

We must examine closely the ascent of America, the course it navigated through the shadows of 19th and early 20th century European dominance as it slowly climbed the ladder, exploiting both circumstance and its abilities to its own advantage.

Wise leaders are those who bring out the strengths of their peoples. Wise leaders build nations and they do so by learning from the experience of others and benefiting from their stumbles and falls.

After the war of independence the leaders of the nascent United States of America realised that the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans furnished the country its greatest security, which lay in its distance from the only potential threat, Europe. It exploited this geo- strategic advantage, pursuing a policy of isolationism as far as Europe and its wars were concerned. And wars there were plenty as Europe engaged in endless attempts to maintain a balance between its component states. Alliances, like that between Russia, Austria and Prussia, came and went, and the continent was torn apart by regular conflict, most notably during the Napoleonic wars.

America chose to distance itself from this policy of alliances and remained neutral towards Britain and France. France was lord of the land, due to the superiority of its army, while Britain ruled the sea thanks to the strength of its navy. America left the two to fight it out like roosters without allying itself to either. The strategy was successful, and America exploited its distance from the European threat to expand.

America annexed Florida, Texas, Mexico, Alaska and Louisiana, then all the land west of the Mississippi. It gained power without expending any -- which was convenient since it had little to begin with.

What is surprising is that it expanded its area without enlarging its army which, initially at least, was limited by Congress to 25,000 men and a small naval fleet. As late as 1890, America was in the 14th place in international league tables in terms of the size of its armed forces, and its navy was weaker than that of Italy. Yet its industrial production was 13 times that of Italy.

A policy of isolationism and limited expenditure on arms allowed America to focus on developing its productive base. By 1885 its industrial production had outstripped that of Britain, and by the end of the 19th century its consumption of oil had surpassed that of Germany, France, Austria, Russia, Japan, and Italy. Its population doubled thanks to immigration.

The newly born republic could not remain isolated forever and was soon ready to take on an international role. President Theodore Roosevelt declared that America had a voice in global politics. The time had come, he declared, to "view our national security from a global perspective."

"The breadth of the two oceans is not enough to hold back the reach of America. Life is a struggle for survival and the strongest and fittest win, as Darwin said. What a nation cannot protect through its own ability international forces cannot protect. It is better for our policy to be like that of Frederick the Great and Bismarck rather than that of Wilson. If I had to choose between a policy of milk and water and of steel and blood I would choose the latter."

America, then, came to believe in flexing its muscles only after it had developed them. Before that it had used isolationism to protect its domestic base so that it could strengthen it into a stable launching pad for its international ambitions.

Not that I am suggesting that in building our nation we opt for either isolation or the arrogance of force. Such a policy is no longer tenable in the face of globalisation. I am simply saying that as it faces the future Egypt must decide in what direction it wants to head and then formulate the strategies that will enable it to pursue that journey. Where does Egypt want to be? How does it intend to get there?

Once the goal has been identified it will be possible to build the kind of state institutions that allow that goal to be reached. We need to develop a realistic strategy and timetable to get us to where we want to be. Without identifying the destination, let alone the means that will allow us to reach it, we will expend all our energies reacting to developments on a daily basis.

What is our strategy up to 2010 or 2020? If there is one it should be made public. If there is not then one must be devised, and today rather than tomorrow. The world is moving fast, while we continue to crawl like a tortoise.

###
* Amin Howeidi is former Egyptian minister of defence and chief of general intelligence.
Source: Al Ahram, 6 - 12 October 2005
Visit the website at www.ahram.org.eg/english
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

ARTICLE 4
Beyond homesickness: Western wives in Egypt
Sara Khorshid

CAIRO — With Karen's niqab (veil) covering up most of her face, you can still see bitterness in her eyes. You can hear resentment in her voice as she tells her story.

She refuses to have her real name and nationality published, but she claims to speak on behalf of many Western women living in Egypt, married to, or divorced from, Egyptians.

After converting to Islam, Karen moved to Egypt with a few other women who shared with her idealistic ideas about living in a Muslim-majority country. They were soon confronted with the reality about the people's "ignorance of Islam" and deviation from its teachings.

Her first year as a foreigner on her own in Cairo was the most difficult. "I have never felt as lonely as I felt here in this city with 16 million people," she says. "Being a woman as well as a foreigner put me in a double disadvantage. It's a men's country, [where] men don't take women seriously ... and tend to take advantage of them."

She decided she couldn't stay in Egypt unless married and she accepted a marriage offer by an Egyptian man, a decision that she regrets. "Marriage itself is difficult, cross-cultural marriage is more difficult, and when you don't understand the other's culture, you have a third degree of difficulty."

Cultural differences resulted in her divorce.

Egypt's culture, in Karen's opinion, is one of manipulation, not directness. "Egyptians are obsessed with covering their back. In the West we are direct because we have a system that covers us up." As a result, she says, "The [Egyptian] husband [of a Western woman] thinks, 'My wife is not respecting me' when all what she is doing is being direct."

Cultural differences made Karen feel "oppressed" in her marriage: "The Western woman enters the relationship on a 50-50 basis, whereas men in Egypt tend to be brought up to feel they are superior to the girls in the family.

"For example, she expects the husband to hold the baby while she cooks something, but men in Egypt don't accept that. They won't do what's qualified as 'women's work'."

"Yes they will," says Kris Johnson, speaking of her Egyptian husband, who gives her a hand when she needs assistance. They have lived in harmony for more than 11 years, proving that Karen's husband does not represent all Egyptian men.

"It's wrong to generalize," says Hawa Irfan, the head of the Cyber Counseling service of IslamOnline.net. "Within Egypt, the northern man differs from the southern man," then men differ from one city to another; and even inside Cairo, they differ from one area to another -- let alone personality differences apart from social environments.

Irfan, a foreigner living in Egypt herself, believes that a Western wife suffers when she sees herself "separate or different from the social system she has married into."

An American from Minnesota, Kris doesn't consider herself "foreign" in Egypt: "I have a dual personality. I am Egyptian here and American when I go to the States."

But she doesn't give up her own culture completely. "Inside, I am no longer American but I am not so Egyptian that I forget my country and my family.... Look at my kids: They are half and half."

The family live with two cultures in one house, taking pride in their ability to "combine the two cultures successfully."

To Kris, the key to a foreign woman's success in Egypt is conformity: "I have foreign friends in Egypt fighting against what they don't like; they end up feeling lost and frustrated. If you don't conform, you will be on the outside. If you don't go with the status quo in Egypt, you will be rejected." She points out that Egyptians refuse to cope with what's foreign, what they don't know.

The Western wife's success, says Irfan, depends, again, on "how she identifies with the social circle she has married into."

As strong family ties hold Egyptian society together, Western wives living in Egypt have to constantly deal with their in-laws. How the wife manages her relationship with her husband's family, shapes her marital life.

If she doesn't identify with the social circle of her husband, says Irfan, "she ends up not only alienating herself, but also forcing her husband to make choices between her and the social circle he belongs to."

Karen's husband made his choice: "His family came first," she says. "If you think I am going to put you before my family, you are out of your mind," he once told her.

The case is different for the Irish wife Aisha Fitzpatrick. She maintains warm ties with her in-laws, who live with her on the same building. "They are very good, kind people.... They appreciate my coming from Ireland to live with their son here in Egypt," she says.

Her Belgian friend, Sumaya Mommerency, has a normal relationship with her husband's family, but she finds difficulty in convincing them with her opinion. "They think they know everything better and that I don't know anything while I am only different from them," Sumaya says.

Aisha advises her, "You just have to be yourself but in a nice, polite way."

Their American friend Umm Mustafa (Mustafa's mother) is not close to her husband's parents after living with them for 15 years. "We don't really talk." Umm Mustafa and her in-laws speak different languages and share no interests to talk about in the first place. "We are not enemies, but not friends," she says.

This group of Western women in Egypt seek refuge in a weekly gathering that strengthens their friendship. "It's nice to meet foreigners like myself and speak with them in English," says Aisha.

Their Canadian friend Cathy Hanafy agrees: "It's an excellent group that provides an excellent support system." Having lived in Egypt with her husband for more than 13 years, she has never had a true friendship with an Egyptian. "With Egyptian women, there seems to be something missing. I don't know what it is, but it's difficult for me to have a solid relationship with an Egyptian woman," she says.

The circle of Western women friends provides a social-support mechanism that prevents them feeling isolated, "which, in turn, impacts [their] marriage," says Irfan.

It gives Sumaya another advantage: "You can speak your mind about Egypt," she says.

She hates Egypt's bureaucracy, hypocrisy, and intolerance of what's foreign and different. She likes its hospitality and slow pace.

Cathy likes the Egyptians' friendliness. She misses Canada's nature and cleanliness.

Karen, who chose to remain in Egypt after her divorce, likes the Egyptian people's kindness. "I have never had my car break on the road, for example, without finding someone coming to help."

"There are a lot of good people here, especially from the low and middle classes," she adds. She likes the religious basis that bounds them. "If there is any problem, you can always refer to Islam and remind people of Allah. Even those who are not religious will know exactly what you are saying." It was her decision to wear niqab -- uninfluenced by her ex-husband -- out of religion-related motives.

Karen also likes the "healthy family structure" in Egypt. She encourages her kids to socialize with their father's family. "It's a support system that prevents them from feeling alone."

As for Kris, she loves Egypt's unexpectedness. "Everyday in Egypt brings something different, undetermined. Everyday can be exciting. Life in Egypt is an adventure. America is boring" with a routine way of life, she says.

Yet, she holds on to a "one-year rule" that enables her to visit her country: "I can't stay more than one year in Egypt, or I will find myself baring my teeth on the street and getting mad at everybody."

"I think Egyptians will love this one-year rule too," she says with a laugh.

###
* Sara Khorshid is a staff writer for IslamOnline.net.
Source: Middle East Times, October 14, 2005
Visit the website at wwwww.metimes.com
Dstributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

ARTICLE 5
Nazar: Stories in pictures from the Arab world
Adla Massoud

NEW YORK — Powerful, striking, heartbreaking, symbolic and most of all discreet are the images taken by 18 Arab contemporary photographers on show in "Nazar: Photographs of the Arab World" at the Aperture Foundation's gallery in New York. Images that reflect on everything from the political to the documentary to portraits - urban landscapes and cityscapes subtly mirror the elusive and traditional yet contradictory life of the Middle East for a Western audience.

Organized by the Noordlicht Foto Festival, "Nazar" (the Arabic word for "seeing" or "insight"), is the largest collection of Arab photographs that has ever been exhibited in the United States.

The show is as complex and fascinating as the region it covers. Through the lens, the photographs reveal the small stories behind the 'breaking news' in an area that comprises 22 countries all sharing Arabic as a common language.

Farida Hamak's photo essay "Traces of War - Dahesh Palace - Beirut" focuses on the desperate plight of a forgotten Shiite community living in the dilapidated Dahesh Palace. In one of the photographs, "Fatma in her room with Oum Khalil," the subject's despair is emphasized with a quotation: "Here we squat for free. We laugh on the outside but we are very tired on the inside." According to Hamak, an Algerian photojournalist, "although the Lebanese authorities would like their 'guests' to leave, the Shiites have no other place to go."

Greta Torossian takes us into a world of destruction and reconstruction with her series "Real Visions." Torossian photographed Beirut in 1999. Her images show how often the classic ruins are swallowed up in modern urban planning and how a city gets a new personality through the merging of the past and present.

"In these things," she says, "the soul, the personality of a city can be found."

The hope revealed in Torossian's images of reconstruction is undermined in Rawi Hage's "Developing and the Underdeveloped." Hage who left Lebanon at a very young age and currently lives in Canada, believes little has changed in Lebanon since the French Mandate in 1920: the colonial elite has been replaced by a national elite. Hage converted his critique into a series of photographs in which he had a number of wealthy Lebanese families pose with their household employees to underline existing class differences. "The one becomes an element in the household of the other - a symbol of stature, cleanliness and beauty" he says.

Palestinian photojournalist, Ahmad Jadallah displays a far more over political agenda. He has taken thousands of pictures of life in the Gaza Strip and sees it as his mission to have the world "share the despair of the Palestinian people." His powerful color photographs "Home Base Gaza" capture incredibly tender, painful, violent moments of bereaved children and women, wounded men and dead people. Jadallah, who nearly lost his legs from a tank shell, won in 2003 first prize in the Daily News category of the World Press Photo competition.

In Lalla Essaydi's strikingly large-scale prints collectively titled "Converging Territories," seven women fill the frame entirely. The women depicted in the photographs become pages and chapters in Essaydi's story. They mark a grinding rebellion. Essaydi uses henna in calligraphic writing, marking the subject's body with this sacred Islamic art that is usually inaccessible to women. The photographs were taken over a four year period in the house where women from her family were sometimes locked up for weeks if they had disobeyed or stepped outside the rules of Islam. "Through my photographs, I am able to suggest the complexity of Arab female identity, as I have known it, and the tension between hierarchy and fluidity that are at the heart of Arab culture" she says.

Ultimately "Nazar" is an exhibition that cuts to the core of the preconceived and perceived ideas of life in the Middle East. Explored by television, mapped by Polaroid, invaded by home videos, photographs surround our daily lives. They appear gratuitously in magazines, newspapers, reports, family albums - the list is endless.

Yet in this powerful exhibition's reflection of the world, "Nazar" forces us to face the true nature of and reality of living in the Middle East. As much as in any moment in our past, today the Arab world needs that mirror. By seeing who we, as Arabs, are today, we can decide who we want to be tomorrow.

"Nazar: Photographs of the Arab World" is currently showing at Aperture's new Gallery in Chelsea, New York City.

###
* Adla Massoud is a special contributor to the Daily Star from New York.
Source: The Daily Star, October 10, 2005
Visit the website at www.dailystar.com.lb
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

The Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity, brought to you by Search for Common Ground, seeks to build bridges of understanding between the West and the Arab World and countries with predominately Muslim populations. This service is one outcome of a set of working meetings held in partnership with His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal in June 2003.

Every two weeks, CGNews-PiH will distribute 2-5 news articles, op-eds, features, and analyses that aid in developing and analyzing the current and future relationship of the West and Arab/Muslim world. Articles will be chosen based on accuracy, balance, and their ability to improve understanding and communication across borders and regions. They will also reflect the need for constructive dialogue around issues of global importance. Selections will be authored by local and international experts and leaders who will analyze and discuss a broad range of relevant issues. We invite you to submit any articles you feel are compatible with the goals of this news service.

Partners in Humanity also regularly publishes the work of student leaders and journalists whose articles strengthen intercultural understanding and promote constructive perspectives and dialogue in their own communities through its Youth Views column. Student journalists and writers under the age of 27 are encouraged to write cbinkley@sfcg.org for more information on contributing.

We look forward to hearing from you, and welcome any questions, concerns, or comments you may have about this service. Please forward this message to colleagues and friends who may also wish to subscribe to the service. To subscribe, send an email to subscribe-cgnewspih@sfcg.org with subscribe in the subject line.

If you are a member of the media, please join us in promoting constructive dialogue to improve understanding and perceptions. Unless otherwise noted, all copyright permissions have been obtained and the articles may be reproduced by any news outlet or publication free of charge. If you choose to republish any of the articles, please acknowledge both the original source and CGNews, and notify us at cgnewspih@sfcg.org

The views expressed in these articles are those of the authors, not of CGNews or its affiliates.

Common Ground News Service
1601 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Suite #200
Washington, DC 20009 USA
Ph: +1(202) 777-2207
Fax: +1(202) 232-6718

Rue Belliard 205 bte 13
B-1040 Brussels, Belgium
Ph: +32 (02) 736-7262
Fax: +32(02) 732-3033
E-mail: cgnewspih@sfcg.org
Website: http://www.commongroundnews.org

Editors:
Emad Khalil
Amman Editor

Juliette Schmidt
Beirut Editor

Elyte Baykun & Leena El-Ali
Washington Editors

Michael Shipler & Chris Binkley
Youth Views Editors

**********

This is a not-for-profit list serve.

Please feel free to forward this message to anyone you think would like to see these articles.

To subscribe, send an email to subscribe-cgnewspih@sfcg.org with subscribe in the subject line.

AfricAvenir News are kindly sent out by Eric Van Grasdorff:

Liebe/Liebe Freunde,

Bitte um Weiterleitung!

AfricAvenir International e.V., die Stiftung Haus der Demokratie, die Initiative Südliches Afrika und die Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung laden Sie am kommenden Mittwoch, den 19.10.2005 um 18.00 Uhr ein zu einer Diskussion mit Luli Callinicos. Thema ist die Geschichte des Freiheitskampfes und die politische Bedeutung für das heutige Südafrika. Die Veranstaltung findet im Haus der Demokratie und Menschenrechte und in englischer Sprache statt. Der Eintritt ist frei.

The political meaning of the ANC liberation struggle for the new South Africa
Mrs. Luli Callinicos, Vorsitzende des südafrikanischen Rates für Kulturerbe und Oliver-Tambo-Biographin

Mittwoch, 19. Oktober, 18 Uhr, im Haus der Demokratie und Menschenrechte, Vorderhaus, 1. Stock, Raum 106

Luli Callinicos, Vorsitzende des südafrikanischen Rates für Kulturerbe, stellt auf einer Informationsreise in Deutschland ihre Biographie zu Oliver Tambo vor, dem bedeutenden und langjährigen Führer des ANC .

Weitere Informationen zu Veranstaltungen finden Sie auf folgenden Internetseiten:
www.africavenir.org
www.inisa.de
www.hausderdemokratie.de

----------------------------------------------

African Perspectives

Diese Veranstaltung ist Teil von "African Perspectives", eine Reihe von Dialogforen, Literarischen Begegnungen und Filmvorführungen, in deren Zentrum die Präsentation afrikanischer Sichtweisen steht. Thematischer Rahmen ist die Afrikanische Renaissance - Philosophie und Praxis politischer und kultureller Selbstbestimmung Afrikas. Aktuelle Termine entnehmen Sie bitte wie immer unserer Website: www.africavenir.org

Nächste Termine:

30.10.2005
Max & Mona
Regie: Teddy Mattera, ZA, 2004, 98 min.
Im Filmtheater Hackesche Höfe, 17.15 Uhr, Eintritt: 5€

03.11.2005
The African Renaissance in the Nigerian Media
Ibiba DonPedro (Nigerianische Journalistin)
Im "Mosaik" (Oranienstr. 35), 19.30 Uhr, Eintritt frei

04.11.2005
"Die Sterne dort unten" und "Flammen der Hölle"
Lesung aus den Werken von Ken Saro Wiwa
In den Mehringhöfen (Gneisenaustr. 2a), 20.00 Uhr, Eintritt: 3€

www.AfricAvenir.org
Wollen Sie Fördermitglied von AfricAvenir International e.V. werden?
Kontaktieren Sie Ann Kathrin Helfrich, Fon: 030-80906789, a.helfrich@africavenir.org

Redaktion des Newsletters: Eric Van Grasdorff, e.vangrasdorff@africavenir.org
AfricAvenir International e.V. ist nicht für die Inhalte externer Webseiten verantwortlich.

Diesen Newsletter haben Sie erhalten, weil Ihre E-Mailadresse in den Newsletter von AfricAvenir eingetragen wurde. Falls dies ohne Ihr Einverständnis erfolgt ist oder wenn Sie keine weiteren Newsletter erhalten möchten, klicken Sie bitte auf folgenden Link, um Ihre E-Mailadresse aus unserer Mailingliste auszutragen:
Emailadresse austragen

The WMD's DemocracyNews
Electronic Newsletter of the World Movement for Democracy - www.wmd.org

POSTING NEWS:
We welcome items to include in DemocracyNews. Please send an email message to world@ned.org with the item you would like to post in the body of the message.

******************************************************************

Dear World Movement Participants:

The next issue of DemocracyNews will go out on November 8, 2005. In order to make DemocracyNews as useful as possible, we ask you to send us any items related to democracy work that you think would be of interest to others.

The next deadline for submitting items is ** October 28** Please send items to: world@ned.org.

You are encouraged to submit items under any area of democracy work. We welcome items announcing publications, upcoming events, reports on research, new Web sites, and other information, and we are most interested in posting requests for partnerships between organizations on collaborative projects, brief descriptions of collaborative projects already underway or completed, and ideas for new initiatives in which others may be interested. We hope DemocracyNews will be a source not only for information about participants' activities, but also for new ideas about strategies to advance democracy.

Please share this message with your colleagues.

******************************************************************

To subscribe send an email to subscribe-democracynews@lyris.ned.org.

If you do not have access to the Web and would like to access the materials mentioned above, please contact us by e-mail (world@ned.org) or fax (202-293-0755).

UN Study Introduces New Kind of Refugees
http://travelwirenews.com/eTN/17OCT2005.htm

By Saifuddin Ismailji

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (eTurboNews) -- By 2010, there will be a need for a category called "environmental" refugee as deteriorating environment could leave some 50 million people homeless, a United Nations (UN) study revealed.

About 12,000 global weather-related disasters since 1980 have caused over 618,000 fatalities at a cost of US$1.3 trillion, with US$567 billion over the last ten years alone.

Rising sea levels, hurricane storms and Desertification, linked to climate change might displace hundreds of millions of people, according to the report by the U.N. University's Institute for Environment and Human Security.

Disasters from climatic change have already affected millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa, India and Asia, according to the report.

Among the threats-- the Gobi desert in China is expanding by more than 3,900 sq mile a year.

The low-lying Pacific island state of Tuvalu has struck a deal with New Zealand to accept its 11,600 population, if the sea rises.

Hans van Ginkel, U.N. under secretary-general and director of the U.N. University, said in the report, "We should prepare now, however, to define, accept and accommodate this new breed of refugees."

Average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration reached 377.4 ppm by volume, up 19 percent since Mauna Lao, Hawaii Observatory started measurements in 1959 and up 35 percent since the beginning of industrial era.

Ten warmest years on record all occurred after 1990, and 160,000 die annually due to climatic change, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Mountain glaciers are shrinking faster each exceeding year. Arctic temperatures have risen at almost twice global average in last the few decades.

US energy related emissions rose almost 16 percent from 1990-1993, while China's emissions rose 47 percent since 1990.

American geologists Roger Bilham and Kali Wallace of the University of Colorado, in a conference in India, suggested that the entire Himalayan region from the eastern Indian plate boundary in Myanmar to the western plate boundary through Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan, could experience a future earthquake of a magnitude more than 8 on the Richter scale.

Further, seismic activity along the Indian plate boundary has become highly active recently-- the 9.3 magnitude Sumatra quake in December 2004, three months after seismic activity has hit back with an 8.6 magnitude quake. Most recently, Muzzafarabad, Pakistan is the site of South Asia’s strongest quake in 100 years, at 7.6 on the Richter scale. Newly opened fissures and huge cracks were seen in the mountains surrounding Muzaffarabad. As the helicopter hovered over the battered city the pilot pointed downwards to indicate another tremor.

Human Security Report:

COMPREHENSIVE THREE-YEAR STUDY SHOWS SURPRISING EVIDENCE OF MAJOR DECLINES IN ARMED CONFLICTS, GENOCIDES, HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE, MILITARY COUPS AND INTERNATIONAL CRISES, WORLDWIDE.

The Number of Armed Conflicts Has Dropped 40% since 1992.

The Report can be downloaded from www.humansecurityreport.info It will be published by Oxford University Press in November 2005.

NEW YORK, October 17, 2005—Confounding conventional wisdom, a major new report reveals that all forms of political violence, except international terrorism, have declined worldwide since the early 1990s.

Supported by five governments, published by Oxford University Press and released today, the Human Security Report is the most comprehensive annual survey of trends in warfare, genocide, and human rights abuses. The Report, which was produced by the Human Security Centre at the University of British Columbia, shows how, after nearly five decades of inexorable increase, the number of genocides and violent conflicts dropped rapidly in the wake of the Cold War. It also reveals that wars are not only far less frequent today, but are also far less deadly.

In tracking and analyzing these trends the Report draws on specially commissioned studies and confirms the little-publicized findings of earlier research to explode a number of widely believed myths about contemporary political violence. The latter include claims that terrorism is currently the gravest threat to international security, that 90% of those killed in today's wars are civilians and that women are disproportionately victimized by armed conflict.

Analyzing the causes of the improvement in global security since the early 1990s, the Report argues that the UN played a critically important role in spearheading a huge upsurge of international conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peace building activities.

Although marred by much-publicized failures, these efforts have been the major driver of the reduction in war numbers around the world. The Report examines alternative explanations for the decline and finds them wanting.

Professor Andrew Mack, who directed the Report project, says that these extraordinary changes have attracted little discussion because so few realize that they have taken place. 'No international agency collects data on wars, genocides, terrorist acts, or core human rights abuses,' he said. 'The issues are just too politically sensitive. And ignorance is compounded by the fact that the global media give far more coverage to wars that start than those that quietly end.'

KEY FINDINGS

Patterns of Political Violence Have Changed

The number of armed conflicts has declined by more than 40% since 1992. The deadliest conflicts (those with 1000 or more battle-deaths) dropped even more dramatically—by 80%.

The number of international crises, often harbingers of war, fell by more than 70% between 1981 and 2001.

Wars between countries are more rare than in previous eras and now constitute less than 5% of all armed conflicts.

The number of military coups and attempted coups has declined by some 60% since 1963. In 1963, there were 25 coups or attempted coups; in 2004, there were 10. All failed.

Most armed conflicts now take place in the poorest countries in the world, but as incomes rise the risk of war declines.

The period since the end of World War II is the longest interval without wars between the major powers in hundreds of years.

The UK and France, followed by the US and Russia/USSR have fought most international wars since 1946.

Burma and India have suffered the greatest number of ‘conflict-years’ since 1946. (If a country fights two separate wars in one calendar year this counts as two ‘conflict-years’.) In 2003, India suffered more ‘conflict-years’ than any other country in the world.

Most of the world’s conflicts are now concentrated in Africa. But even here there are signs of hope. A new dataset compiled for the Human Security Report finds that between 2002 and 2003 (the last year for which there is data) the number of armed conflicts in Africa dropped from 41 to 35.

The drop in armed conflicts in the 1990s was associated with a worldwide decline in arms transfers, military spending and troop numbers.

Wars have become dramatically less deadly over the past five decades. The average number of people reported killed per conflict per year in 1950 was 38,000; in 2002 it was just 600––a decline of 98%.

In the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s by far the highest battle-death tolls in the world were in the wars in East and Southeast Asia. In the 1970s and 1980s, most of the killing took place in the Middle East, Central and South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. By the end of the 1990s, more people were being killed in sub-Saharan Africa’s wars than the rest of the world put together.

The new dataset created for the Report finds that between 2002 and 2003 the number of reported deaths from all forms of political violence fell by 62% in the Americas, 32% in Europe, 35% in Asia and 24 % in Africa.

The biggest death tolls do not come from the actual fighting, however, but from war-exacerbated disease and malnutrition. These ‘indirect’ deaths can account for as much as 90% of the total war-related death toll. Currently there are insufficient data to make even rough estimations of global or regional ‘indirect’ death toll trends.

Not withstanding the horrors of Rwanda and Srebrenica, Bosnia, the number of genocides and other mass killings plummeted by 80% between the 1989 high point and 2001.

International terrorism is the only form of political violence that appears to be getting worse. Some datasets have shown an overall decline in international terrorist incidents of all types since the early 1980s, but the most recent statistics suggest a dramatic increase in the number of high-casualty attacks since the September 11 attacks on the US in 2001. The annual death toll from international terrorist attacks is, however, only a tiny fraction of annual war death toll.

Why We Have Fewer Wars

The Human Security Report identifies three major political changes over the past 30 years that, Andrew Mack says, "have radically altered the global security landscape."

First, was the end of colonialism. From the early 1950s to the early 1980s, colonial wars made up 60-100% of all international conflicts depending on the year. Today there are no such wars.

Second, was the end of the Cold War, which had driven approximately one-third of all conflicts in the post-World War II. This removed any residual threat of war between the major powers, and Washington and Moscow stopped fueling "proxy wars" in the developing world.

Third, was the unprecedented upsurge of international activities designed to stop ongoing wars and prevent new ones starting that took place in the wake of the Cold War. Spearheaded by the UN these activities included:

A six-fold increase in UN preventive diplomacy missions (to stop wars starting).

A four-fold increase in UN peacemaking missions (to end ongoing conflicts).

A four-fold increase in UN peace operations (to reduce the risk of wars restarting).

An eleven-fold increase in the number of states subject to UN sanctions (which can help pressure warring parties into peace negotiations).

The UN did not act alone, of course. The World Bank, donor states, regional organizations and thousands of NGOs worked closely with UN agencies––and often played independent roles of their own. But the UN, the only international organization with a global security mandate, has been the leading player.

As this upsurge of international activism grew in scope and intensity through the 1990s, the number of crises, wars and genocides declined, despite the much-publicized failures.

The evidence that these initiatives worked is not just circumstantial. A recent RAND corporation study, for example, found that two thirds of the UN’s peace building missions had succeeded. In addition, the sharp increase in peacemaking efforts led to a significant increase in the number of conflicts that ended in negotiated settlements. Approximately half of all the peace agreements negotiated between 1946 and 2003 have been signed since the end of the Cold War.

The annual cost of these changes to the international community has been modest––well under 1% of world military spending. In fact, the cost of running all of the UN’s 17 peace operations around the world for an entire year is less than the United States spends in Iraq in a single month.

The Report argues that, in the long run, equitable economic development, increased state capacity and the spread of inclusive democracy play a vital role in reducing the risk of political violence. But it also argues that these factors cannot explain the dramatic post-Cold War reduction in armed conflicts.

Why Today's Wars Kill Fewer People

The explosion of international activism after the Cold War helps explain the subsequent decline in the number of armed conflicts, but it doesn’t tell us why they became so much less deadly. Here the explanation is related to changes in the nature of warfare and (possibly) in the international refugee regime:

The major wars of the Cold War era typically involved huge armies, heavy conventional weapons, and massive external intervention. They killed hundreds of thousands––sometimes millions.

The overwhelming majority of today’s wars are low-intensity conflicts fought with small arms and light weapons. They typically pit weak government forces against ill-trained rebels and rarely involve major engagements. Although often brutal, they kill relatively few people compared with the major wars of the Cold War era––typically hundreds rather than tens or hundreds of thousands.

The decline in the battle-death toll is probably also related to the huge increase in the number of refugees and Internally Displaced Persons in the 1980s. By 1992, the peak year, the worldwide total of displaced people exceeded 40 million––up from little over 10 million at the end of the 1970s. Displacement is a humanitarian tragedy, but had these millions not fled their homes, hundreds of thousands––possibly far more––could have been killed. So the increase in displacement is likely one of the reasons for the decline in battle-deaths.

Finally, we know that countries ruled by authoritarian regimes have higher levels of violent internal repression and gross human rights abuses than do democratic regimes. At the end of the 1970s some 90 countries around the world were governed by authoritarian regimes; by 2003 there were just 30. The decline was steepest in the post-Cold War years when the numbers of genocides and other mass killings started to drop rapidly. In addition, the Report, finds that human rights abuses declined in 5 out of 6 regions in the developing world after the mid-1990s.

No Grounds for Complacency

Despite the positive changes it documents, the Report makes clear that there are no grounds for complacency.

Although wars and war-deaths are down, there are still some 60 armed conflicts raging around the globe. There are still gross abuses of human rights, widespread war crimes, and ever-deadlier acts of terrorism. And because the underlying causes of conflict are too rarely addressed, the risk of new wars breaking out, and old ones starting up again remains very real.

And, as the many failures of the past––and numerous recent reports––have made clear, the UN remains in urgent need of reform if it is truly to fulfill its mandate to ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’.

That the world is getting more peaceful is no consolation to people suffering in Darfur, Iraq, Colombia, Congo or Nepal. To help them, policymakers need a better understanding of human insecurity. That is the central goal of the Human Security Report.

The Human Security Report provides the data and analysis that can help the international community evaluate the effects of conflict prevention and resolution policies. ‘Without trend data neither international agencies nor governments can tell whether or not their efforts are succeeding’, Mack said.

##

The Report can be downloaded from www.humansecurityreport.info It will be published by Oxford University Press in November 2005.

The Human Security Report 2005 was funded by the governments of Canada, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. It should not be taken to represent the views of these or any other government, or of the UN or any other agency.

Professor Andrew Mack is Director of the Human Security Centre, at the Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia. He was Director of the Strategic Planning Unit in the Executive Office of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan 1998-2001. He has held research and teaching posts at Harvard, the London School of Economics, and the University of California, and in Australia, Denmark, Hawaii and Japan. His career has included periods as a pilot in the UK’s Royal Air Force, as a meteorologist in Antarctica, as a diamond prospector in Sierra Leone and as a journalist with the BBC.

***************
FLASH-FORO N°3 / SÁBADO 15 DE OCTUBRE DE 2005 - ADOPCIÓN DEL PROGRAMA DEFINITIVO DEL FORO INTERNACIONAL SOBRE EL NEXO ENTRE CIENCIAS SOCIALES Y POLÍTICAS (IFSP)
***************

El Comité Directivo del Foro Internacional sobre el Nexo entre Ciencias Sociales y Políticas (IFSP), reunido al mismo tiempo que la 33ª Conferencia General de la UNESCO, los días 4 y 5 de octubre de 2005, en París, ha adoptado el programa definitivo de este Foro que se desarrollará del 20 al 24 de febrero de 2006 en Argentina y Uruguay.

Este Comité Directivo ha seleccionado una centena de propuestas de talleres presentadas como respuesta a una convocatoria pública lanzada en enero de 2005 por el Sector de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas de la UNESCO.

Durante cinco días, el Foro Internacional sobre el Nexo entre Ciencias Sociales y Políticas (IFSP) abordará las transformaciones contemporáneas y los desafíos que éstas implican para las ciencias sociales y para la implementación de políticas públicas. Habrá sesiones plenarias con oradores de alto nivel los días 20 y 24 de febrero de 2006 en Buenos Aires (Argentina). Los talleres, repartidos en cinco áreas temáticas y organizados por universitarios, militantes asociativos y políticos del mundo entero, tendrán lugar del 21 al 23 de febrero de 2006 en cuatro ciudades de Argentina y Uruguay.

Así, se desarrollarán en Buenos Aires los talleres sobre los temas "Políticas sociales" y "Problemas y dinámicas globales"; los talleres sobre "Población y Migraciones" tendrán lugar en Córdoba; sobre "Integraciones regionales" en Montevideo; y la ciudad de Rosario recibirá los talleres del tema "Políticas urbanas y descentralización".

Con el objetivo de asegurar la más amplia participación en los trabajos de este Foro, el Comité Directivo Internacional ha asimismo deseado que aquellas personas que no puedan estar presentes en Argentina o en Uruguay puedan a su vez presentar sus contribuciones vía el sitio Internet del Foro (www.unesco.org/shs/ifsp). Estas contribuciones serán transmitidas a los talleres.

Además, el Comité Directivo Internacional difundirá a partir del 15 de noviembre de 2005 un proyecto de Declaración del Foro con el objetivo de impulsar el debate sobre esta declaración que será promovida como resultado del Foro.

Según Pierre Sané, Subdirector General de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas de la UNESCO, quien presidió la reunión del Comité Directivo junto con el Sr. M. Zola S. Skweyiya, Ministro de Desarrollo Social de Sudáfrica, "este Foro va más allá de una manifestación puntual. El Foro amplificará los esfuerzos de la UNESCO en pro del diálogo entre quienes toman las decisiones políticas, los investigadores en ciencias sociales, y los actores de la sociedad civil. Resulta, en efecto, urgente instalar un verdadero diálogo entre estas diferentes esferas, porque si los desafíos de la sociedad global sobrepasan a las ciencias sociales, sin el conocimiento científico, aquéllos jamás podrán ser resueltos.".

Organizado conjuntamente por la UNESCO y los gobiernos de Argentina y Uruguay, y contando con el apoyo de una amplia gama de entidades académicas, políticas y de ONGs, el Foro Internacional sobre el Nexo entre Ciencias Sociales y Políticas (IFSP) se inscribe en el marco del programa sobre la gestión de las transformaciones sociales (Programa MOST) creado en 1994 por la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura.

----- PARA RECIBIR "FLASH-FORO" EL 1° Y EL 15 DE CADA MES -----
Si Ud. no ha recibido este mensaje de parte de los organizadores del Foro y desea inscribirse en esta lista de difusión, sírvase hacer clic en: mailto:sympa@lists.unesco.org?subject=sub%20ifspnews-shs

----- INFORMACIÓN GENERAL -----
Sitio del Foro: www.unesco.org/shs/ifsp
Christine Allan, Secretariado del IFSP: ifsp@unesco.org

----- CONTACTOS COMUNICACIÓN Y PRENSA -----
·ARGENTINA:
Juan Schjaer y Silvina Seijas, Ministerio de Educación, Ciencia y Tecnología: schjaer@me.gov.ar ; sseijas@me.gov.ar
·URUGUAY:
Cristina Casaubou, Comisión Nacional del Uruguay para la UNESCO: ccasaubou@yahoo.es
Carolina Porley, Universidad de la República: carolinaporley@yahoo.com
·UNESCO:
Cathy Bruno-Capvert, Sector de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas: c.bruno-capvert@unesco.org
Ana Krichmar, Sector de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas: a.krichmar@unesco.org

****************
FLASH-FORUM N°3 / SAMEDI 15 OCTOBRE 2005 - ADOPTION DU PROGRAMME DEFINITIF DU FORUM INTERNATIONAL SUR LES INTERFACES ENTRE POLITIQUES ET SCIENCES SOCIALES (IFSP)
****************

Le comité de pilotage du Forum international sur l'interface entre politiques et sciences sociales (IFSP), qui se réunissait en parallèle de la 33ème Conférence générale de l'UNESCO, les 4 et 5 octobre 2005, à Paris, a arrêté le programme définitif de ce forum qui se tiendra du 20 au 24 février 2006, en Argentine et en Uruguay.

Composé de ministres des gouvernements d'Afrique du Sud, d'Argentine, du Mali, du Pérou et d'Uruguay, ainsi que de responsables de diverses institutions internationales (UNESCO ; UNDESA ; UNRISD ; UNU-CRIS ; OIT ; PNUD ; Banque Mondiale ; FLACSO ; AICARDES ; AASSREC ; CODESRIA ; Commission Européenne ; Fondation Européenne des Sciences ; SAREC; SSHRC; ODI; GASPP; CISS), ce comité de pilotage a retenu près d'une centaine de propositions d'ateliers, formulée à l'issue d'un appel à propositions, lancé en janvier 2005, par le Secteur des sciences sociales et humaines de l'UNESCO.

Durant cinq jours, le Forum international sur l'interface entre politiques et sciences sociales (IFSP) traitera des transformations contemporaines et des défis qu'elles adressent aux sciences sociales et à l'action publique. Des séances plénières autour de conférenciers de haut niveau se dérouleront à Buenos Aires (Argentine) les 20 et 24 février 2006, tandis que des ateliers, groupés en cinq axes thématiques, seront organisés, du 21 au 23 février 2006, par des universitaires, des militants associatifs et des décideurs du monde entier, dans quatre villes d'Argentine et d'Uruguay.

A Buenos Aires, on traitera ainsi des thèmes « politiques sociales » et « problèmes et dynamiques mondiaux » ; à Córdoba, il sera question de « population et migrations » ; à Montevideo d'« intégrations régionales » ; enfin, la ville de Rosario réunira les ateliers liés au thème « politiques urbaines et décentralisation ».

Afin d'assurer la participation la plus large possible aux travaux de ce Forum, le comité de pilotage a également souhaité que des contributions puissent être adressées par celles et ceux qui ne pourraient être présents en Argentine ou en Uruguay, via le site internet du Forum (www.unesco.org/shs/ifsp), et leur teneur restituée lors des différents ateliers.

De plus, il a pris la décision de faire circuler dès le 15 novembre 2005 un projet de Déclaration finale afin qu'il puisse être largement discuté, amendé, et promu à l'issue du Forum.

Selon M. Pierre Sané, directeur-général adjoint de l'UNESCO, qui présidait la réunion du comité de pilotage aux côtés de M. Zola S. Skweyiya, ministre du Développement social d'Afrique du Sud : « ce Forum est bien plus qu'une manifestation ponctuelle. Il amplifiera les efforts de l'UNESCO en faveur du dialogue entre décideurs politiques, chercheurs en sciences sociales et acteurs de la société civile. Il y a, en effet, urgence à installer un véritable dialogue entre ces différentes sphères, car si les défis de la société mondiale débordent de loin les sciences sociales, sans celles-ci, il n'y a aucune chance de les relever. »

Organisé conjointement par l'UNESCO et les gouvernements argentin et uruguayen, avec le soutien de nombreux partenaires universitaires, politiques et associatifs, le Forum international sur l'interface entre politiques et sciences sociales (IFSP) s'inscrit dans le cadre du programme sur la gestion des transformations sociales (programme MOST) créé en 1994 par l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour l'Education, la Science et la Culture.

----- POUR RECEVOIR "FLASH-FORUM" CHAQUE 1er ET 15 DU MOIS -----
Si vous n'avez pas reçu ce message des organisateurs du Forum et souhaitez vous inscrire à la liste de diffusion, merci de cliquer sur le lien suivant: mailto:sympa@lists.unesco.org?subject=sub%20ifspnews-shs

----- INFORMATIONS GENERALES -----
Site du Forum: www.unesco.org/shs/ifsp
Christine Allan, secrétariat de l'IFSP: ifsp@unesco.org

----- CONTACTS POUR LA COMMUNICATION ET LA PRESSE -----
·ARGENTINE :
Juan Schjaer et Silvina Seijas, Ministère de l'Éducation, de la Science et de la Technologie : schjaer@me.gov.ar ; sseijas@me.gov.ar
·URUGUAY :
Cristina Casaubou, Commission Nationale de l'Uruguay pour l'UNESCO : ccasaubou@yahoo.es
Carolina Porley, Université de la République : carolinaporley@yahoo.com
·UNESCO :
Cathy Bruno-Capvert, Secteur des sciences sociales et humaines : c.bruno-capvert@unesco.org
Ana Krichmar, Secteur des sciences sociales et humaines : a.krichmar@unesco.org

*****************
FLASH-FORUM No.3 / SATURDAY OCTOBER 15 2005 - FINALIZATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF THE INTERNATIONAL FORUM ON THE SOCIAL SCIENCE - POLICY NEXUS (IFSP)
*****************

The Steering Committee of the International Forum on the Social Science - Policy Nexus (IFSP) met in parallel with the 33rd General Conference of UNESCO, in Paris , on October 4 and 5 2005, to finalize the programme of the event, which will be held from February 20 to 24 2006 in Argentina and in Uruguay.

The Steering Committee comprises representatives of the Governments of Argentina, Uruguay, South Africa and Mali; UNESCO; UNDESA; UNRISD; UNU-CRIS; ILO; UNDP; the World Bank; FLACSO; AICARDES; AASSREC; CODESRIA; the European Commission; the European Science Foundation; SAREC; SSHRC; ODI; GASPP; and the ISSC. During its meeting, it approved over one hundred workshop proposals submitted in response to an open call launched in January 2005 by the Social and Human Sciences Sector of UNESCO.

Over five days, the Forum will address contemporary social transformations and the challenges they entail for social science and policy. Plenary sessions around keynote speakers will meet in Buenos Aires (Argentina) on February 20 and 24 2006. From February 21 to 23 2006, workshops convened for the five thematic streams of the Forum by academics, activists and decision-makers from all over the world will be will be held in four Argentinian and Uruguayan cities.

Workshops in Buenos Aires will cover "social policies" and "global issues and dynamics", Córdoba will address "population and migrations" and Montevideo "regional integration", while discussion in Rosario will focus on "urban policies and decentralization".

In order to ensure the widest possible participation in the work of the Forum, the Steering Committee expressed the wish that interested persons unable to be present in Argentina or Uruguay should be able to submit contributions through the Forum website (www.unesco.org/shs/ifsp). An overview of online contributions received will be presented during the Forum. Furthermore, the Steering Committee agreed to circulate on November 15 2005 the draft Final Declaration of the Forum in order to provide opportunities for wide discussion, amendment and promotion befoire, during, and after the Forum.

In the words of Mr Pierre SANE, Assistant Director General of UNESCO, who chaired the meeting of the Steering Committee along with Mr Zola S. SKWEYIYA, the South African Minister of Social Development: "this Forum is more than just a one-off event. It will enhance UNESCO's efforts in favour of dialogue between policy-makers, social scientists and actors from civil society. It is a matter of urgency to establish genuine dialogue between these spheres, for while the challenges of global society go far beyond social science, without social science there is no chance of meeting them."

Convened by UNESCO, in conjunction with the Governments of the Republic of Argentina and of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, and with the support of a wide range of academic, policy, and NGO partners, this event is set within the UNESCO MOST Programme on the management of social transformations, created in 1994 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

----- TO RECEIVE "FLASH-FORUM" ON THE 1ST AND 15TH OF EACH MONTH -----
If you didn't receive this message directly from the Forum organizers and wish to subscribe to the mailing list, please click on : mailto:sympa@lists.unesco.org?subject=sub%20ifspnews-shs

----- GENERAL INFORMATION -----
Forum website : www.unesco.org/shs/ifsp
Christine Allan, IFSP Secretariat: ifsp@unesco.org

----- PRESS AND COMMUNICATION CONTACTS -----
·ARGENTINA :
Juan Schjaer and Silvina Seijas, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology: schjaer@me.gov.ar; sseijas@me.gov.ar
·URUGUAY :
Cristina Casaubou, Uruguay National Commission for UNESCO: ccasaubou@yahoo.es
Carolina Porley, University of the Republic: carolinaporley@yahoo.com
·UNESCO :
Cathy Bruno-Capvert, Sector of Social and Human Sciences: c.bruno-capvert@unesco.org
Ana Krichmar, Sector of Social and Human Sciences: a.krichmar@unesco.org

Dear Colleague,

I am writing to solicit your assistance in our annual search for the Oak Human Rights Fellow, which is targeted this year for someone working in the area of THE ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN RIGHTS.

I have copied the announcement below. You can also access it at: http://www.colby.edu/oak .

Each year, we host a human rights professional doing on-the-ground work at some level of personal risk and organize a lecture series around his or her area of expertise. The purpose of the fellowship is to offer activists a respite from their work and spend a semester as a scholar-in-residence at the College, exposing campus community to the issues surrounding the human rights issues on which the Fellow works.

In conducting our annual search, we rely heavily on nominations from NGOs, academics, journalists, and human rights lawyers, since these are the people most likely to know of the work of on-the-ground professionals.

We would like your assistance in disseminating the announcement. Feel free to nominate a suitable candidate or forward the announcement to anyone in the field who could help us. The deadline for applications is January 13, 2006.

Whatever assistance you might provide would be greatly appreciated. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to get back to me. Thank you in advance.

Ken Rodman
Director, Oak Institute
------------------------------------------------------------------

OAK HUMAN RIGHTS FELLOWSHIP AT COLBY COLLEGE

2006 FOCUS: HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

The Oak Institute for the Study of International Human Rights at Colby College is soliciting nominations and applications for the Oak Human Rights Fellowship for the Fall of 2006.

The Oak Fellowship provides an opportunity for prominent practitioners in international human rights to take a sabbatical leave from their work and spend a semester (September - December 2006) as a scholar-in-residence at Colby College. This provides the Fellow time for reflection, research, writing, and teaching. Following the period of the award, it is expected that the Fellow will return to his or her human rights work.

For the fall of 2006, the Oak Institute seeks a human rights practitioner working on environmental issues that affect the rights of individuals and communities. Possible areas of expertise include, but are not limited to: exposing or mobilizing against environmental dangers to human health, preserving ecosystems on which traditional communities depend, environmental justice, indigenous rights and the environment, rehabilitation and compensation for environmental damages, and the application of rights-based approaches to environmental protection.

We especially encourage applications from those who are currently or were recently involved in "on-the-ground" work at some level of personal risk. The Oak Fellow's responsibilities include: teaching an informal course on the human rights issue on which the Fellow works, participation in a lecture series or symposium in the Fellow's area of expertise, and becoming part of the intellectual life of the campus, particularly with our students.

The Fellow will receive a $32,000 stipend and College fringe benefits, including round-trip transportation from the Fellow's home site, housing, the use of a car, and meals on campus. The Fellow will also receive research support, including office space, a computer, library facilities, and a student research assistant.

Nominations and applications should be sent to:
Kenneth A. Rodman, Director or
Kate O'Halloran, Associate Director
Oak Institute for the Study of International Human Rights
5319 Mayflower Hill
Colby College, Waterville ME 04901
Email: oakhr@colby.edu, Phone: 207-859-5310, Fax: 207-859-5229

Completed applications must arrive no later than January 13, 2006.
Final selections should be announced by April 30, 2006.

More information, including application, is available on the Institute's website at:
http://www.colby.edu/oak

--
Prof. Kenneth A. Rodman
Department of Government
5310 Mayflower Hill Drive
Colby College
Waterville, ME 04901
phone: (207) 859-5310
fax: (207) 859-5229

Dear Colleagues:

The World Movement for Democracy's Secretariat is pleased to announce the launch of the Youth Movement for Democracy's two major initiatives: Website (www.ymd.youthlink.org) and Global Youth Democracy Campaign.

1. Website www.ymd.youthlink.org:
The Website includes various useful online resources for young democracy activists who want to build their capacity, organize workshops, engage in advocacy work, and develop innovative ways to enhance political and civic participation of youth. Resources include examples of developing a network of young activists, handbooks on how to conceptualize and implement a program, tips for fundraising, etc. The Website is in English and Portuguese, but will be translated into additional languages in the near future.

2. Global Youth Democracy Campaign:
The campaign will be launched on October 18, 2005, and will include two activities:
* Essay Contest - http://www.ymd.youthlink.org/ymd/contests.html: To share the stories of talented, inspiring youth from around the world and showcase the diversity and motivation of today's young democracy leaders, YMD is hosting an essay contest with the following theme: What do you see as the biggest challenge to democracy in your world, and what can the youth movement do about it?

Essays must be between 500 and 1500 words (like an opinion column or newspaper article); authors must have been born after 1975; submissions are due by midnight (in your time zone), December 1, 2005; and for this contest, essays must be submitted in English. Grammar and writing style are not as important as the ideas presented. The YMD encourage youth with intermediate English skills to contribute with their thoughts as well.

The best essays will be published on the YMD site and highlighted at future YMD events. We hope this visibility will extend special opportunities to essay finalists.

Also, the YMD strongly encourages local, national, and regional chapters to organize essay contests in other languages and send their results to the YMD secretariat.

* Global Youth Conference on Democracy and Political Participation (December 13-15, 2005, Sao Paulo, Brazil) - http://ymd.youthlink.org/ymd/confprogram.html: Youth movements in every part of the world are working for fair elections, greater transparency, less corruption, and political transformation. They are transforming their countries and changing society at the same time. However, at the global level their efforts have been largely disconnected...until now.

As the Secretariat of the Youth Movement for Democracy, the Global Youth Action Network (GYAN) is calling for young people and allies to participate in the first Global Youth Conference on Democracy and Political Participation in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The three-day event will feature skill-sharing workshops, spaces for free expression, and discussion panels on the following themes:
- Education for Democracy
- Overcoming Corruption
- Direct and Representative DemocracyModels of Decision-Making, Democracy, Media and Technology, Building a Global Democratic Order, Intergenerational Dialogue, and a Youth Movement Retrospective
- What does "democracy" mean to young people today? What will it mean to future generations? What changes do we want to see in our communities? In the world? What kind of movement do we want to build?

This conference aims to answer these questions and many others with young people from Brazil and all parts of the world. It will be an event to celebrate diversity and learn from each other; to bring together veteran democracy activists and newcomers to the movement, including emerging political leaders and campaigners; and to start building a global community working together to promote greater youth participation in decision making at all levels.

About the Youth Movement for Democracy: The Youth Movement for Democracy (YMD) is a global community of youth and allies working non-violently for democracy. It was founded by a group of young people who believe in and work for fair elections, free speech, and human rights. They believe they can be stronger by working together. YMD emerged at the Third Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy (Durban, South Africa, February 1-4, 2004). The Brazil-based regional office of the Global Youth Action Network (GYAN) serves as the YMD Secretariat.

How to Help a Child Become the Good Person Within, Through Encouragement and a Democratic Approach
by Aysegül Acar-Dreyer

I am writing regarding the Washington Post article 'Conservatives Ascendant in Charles (County, MD) Schools' of September 16, 2005. Here are two excerpts from that article that prompted me to write this:

"Margaret Young, chairwoman of the (Southern MD) Charles County Board of Education, has at times taught her children at home in Waldorf (MD) using a Christian-based curriculum. She says she wants teachers to stop assigning books that contain profanity and what she believes are immoral messages" and,

"Public schools, (Mark J. Crawford) said, should be teaching students humility and to distinguish between right and wrong". ["Crawford's beliefs were shaped by his family and religious schooling, including his studies at Jerry Falwell's evangelical Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA."]

I would certainly hope that all schools, as well as families, would be teaching children good values and I would highly recommend that Ms. Young and Mr. Crawford, as well as all educators and parents, read about and practice Adlerian child psychology principles at home and in school. There is currently much work being done across the nation on Character Education (see for example Prof. Marvin W. Berkowitz’s work, as well as http://www.character.org/ ). One thing I've learned is that few parents want to punish the child but are very good at it, and most parents want to encourage the child but few know how to do it right. Therefore attending a positive parenting class would be very helpful to most families.

Positive Parenting and Positive Teaching based on Adlerian philosophy (see for example Jane Nelsen's work on Positive Discipline) instill in children as well as in adults, good values and social skills such as empathy, mutual respect, peaceful conflict resolution, cooperation, responsibility for one's actions through the use of encouragement and democratic principles. A truly democratic society has to start with a democratic family and a peaceful world has to start with a peaceful home.

What I found so appealing in the Adlerian approach is that it encourages the child to do the right thing, how to be responsible, kind, etc. because it IS the right thing to do; not because of a reward, a bribe or, a promise - be it a toy, candy or acceptance into heaven... The motivation then lies within the person.

Schools and parents may also want to look into the Montessori philosophy. The Montessori way approaches the child as a "whole", and so, in the classroom, grace, kindness, responsibility for one's actions, respect for one's fellow human beings, respect for life, nature as well as one's physical environment, self-motivation, practical life skills, peaceful conflict resolution, as well as academic knowledge are taught and emphasized. Maria Montessori believed that the purpose of education was to cultivate the child's own natural desire to learn. For a primer I recommend the book The Montessori Way: An Education For Life by Tim Seldin and Paul Epstein. Rather than being elitist (as some critiques claim), this is truly a democratic approach. These quotes by Maria Montessori may give you a clearer picture of the Montessori way:

”Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war.”
“The greatest sign of success for a teacher... is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist.”
“Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed. These words reveal the child's inner needs: "Help me to do it alone."
“Free the child's potential, and you will transform him into the world."
“Discipline must come through liberty... We do not consider an individual disciplined only when he has been rendered as artificially silent as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined.”
“The first idea the child must acquire is that of the difference between good and evil”
“Our aim is not only to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his innermost core.”
“Education should no longer be mostly imparting of knowledge, but must take a new path, seeking the release of human potentialities. It is not enough for the teacher to love the child. She must first love and understand the universe.”
“The first duty of an education is to stir up life, but leave it free to develop.”

The Montessori approach to the spiritual side of the child is summarized in this paragraph:
"One of our fundamental aims is the inspiration of the child's heart. While Montessori does not teach religion, we do present the great moral and spiritual themes, such as love, kindness, joy, and confidence in the fundamental goodness of life in simple ways that encourage the child to begin the journey toward being fully alive and fully human. Everything is intended to nurture within the child a sense of joy and appreciation of life." (from www.montessori.org )

"Families (that apply Adlerian principles) are characterized by positive energy and a sense of purpose and inspire their members with courage, spirit, and hope, empowering them to contribute to others, to their community, and to the larger society." (From PEP http://www.parentencouragement.org/ )

"Adler believed that within each person there is an innate capacity for learning to be socially motivated, for caring about others beyond the self. (He referred to) this capacity as social interest or community feeling. Since this is only a capacity, not yet developed in the child, Adler emphasized the importance of social education in the family, in school and in the community" (Barbara Fairfield, LCMFT)

Adlerian principles strengthen democracy since moral character is the foundation for a truly Democratic society: "The mission of Classical Adlerian psychology is to encourage the development of psychologically healthy and cooperative individuals, couples, and families, in order to effectively pursue the ideals of social equality and democratic living, it balances the equally important needs for individual optimal development and social responsibility." (Henry T. Stein, Ph.D. Director, Alfred Adler Institute of San Francisco http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hstein/

If these are not good family values I don't know what is... Forget Superman: The Adlerian and the Montessori approach can help a child become the good person within, in other words, a "Mensch".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Aysegül Acar-Dreyer
3431 Blair Rd. Falls Church, Virginia 22041
Tel (703) 933-1957
AysegulA@aol.com

"Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little." -- Tom Stoppard

"You should know at least three languages...
think and dream in at least three languages..."
B.R. Eyüboglu ~ Turkish artist & poet (1913-1975)

www.ParentEncouragement.org
Usborne books for children: www.ubah.com/R1476
www.montessori.org
www.alfredadler.org
Jacques Prevert's poetry: http://xtream.online.fr/Prevert/indexeng.html

Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH)
October 11, 2005

The Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH) is distributing the enclosed articles to build bridges of understanding between the West and the Arab World and countries with predominately Muslim populations. Unless otherwise noted, all copyright permissions have been obtained and the articles may be reproduced by any news outlet or publication free of charge. If publishing, please acknowledge both the original source and CGNews, and notify us at cgnewspih@sfcg.org.

**********

ARTICLES IN THIS EDITION:

5. “Reflections on Art and Religion” by Iman Kurdi
Iman Kurdi of the Arab News network, considers the impact of a piece of artwork entitled “God is Great” that was recently removed from the Tate in London, and which consists of pieces of the Qur’an, Talmud and Bible. Looking at the piece from different perspectives, at times as a work of art, at times as it would be viewed by various religious constituents, Kurdi tells the story of how the Muslim voice is perceived in Britain today.
(Source: Arab News, October 3, 2005)

**********

ARTICLE 1
Saudi Women Have Message for U.S. Envoy
Steven R. Weisman

JIDDA, Saudi Arabia - The audience - 500 women covered in black at a Saudi university - seemed an ideal place for Karen P. Hughes, a senior Bush administration official charged with spreading the American message in the Muslim world, to make her pitch.

But the response on Tuesday was not what she and her aides expected. When Ms. Hughes expressed the hope here that Saudi women would be able to drive and "fully participate in society" much as they do in her country, many challenged her.

"The general image of the Arab woman is that she isn't happy," one audience member said. "Well, we're all pretty happy." The room, full of students, faculty members and some professionals, resounded with applause.

The administration's efforts to publicize American ideals in the Muslim world have often run into such resistance. For that reason, Ms. Hughes, who is considered one of the administration's most scripted and careful members, was hired specifically for the task.

Many in this region say they resent the American assumption that, given the chance, everyone would live like Americans.

The group of women, picked by the university, represented the privileged elite of this Red Sea coastal city, known as one of the more liberal areas in the country. And while they were certainly friendly toward Ms. Hughes, half a dozen who spoke up took issue with what she said.

Ms. Hughes, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, is on her first trip to the Middle East. She seemed clearly taken aback as the women told her that just because they were not allowed to vote or drive that did not mean they were treated unfairly or imprisoned in their own homes.

"We're not in any way barred from talking to the other sex," said Dr. Nada Jambi, a public health professor. "It's not an absolute wall."

The session at Dar Al-Hekma College provided an unusual departure from the carefully staged events in a tour that began Sunday in Egypt.

As it was ending Ms. Hughes, a longtime communications aide to President Bush, assured the women that she was impressed with what they had said and that she would take their message home. "I would be glad to go back to the United States and talk about the Arab women I've met," she said.

Ms. Hughes is the third appointee to head a program with a troubled past. The first, Charlotte Beers, a Madison Avenue executive, produced a promotional video about Muslims in America that was rejected by some Arab nations and scoffed at by a number of State Department colleagues. Her successor, Margaret D. Tutwiler, a former State Department spokeswoman, lasted barely five months. A report issued in 2003 by a bipartisan panel chosen by the Bush administration portrayed a dire picture of American public diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim world.

Ms. Hughes, on this first foray, has churned through meetings in which she has tirelessly introduced herself as "a mom," explained that Americans are people of faith and called for more cultural and educational exchanges. Her efforts to explain policies in Iraq and the Middle East have been polite and cautious.

As a visiting dignitary, she had audiences in the summer palaces of Jidda with King Abdullah, Crown Prince Sultan and the foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal. But mostly it was a day that underscored the uneasy Saudi-American relationship, fed by unsavory images the countries have of each another.>

In December, there was an armed attack on the American Consulate in Jidda, leaving five people dead, and that meant that the Americans traveling with Ms. Hughes were cautioned against traveling alone in the city.

At the meeting with the Saudi women, television crews were barred and reporters were segregated according to sex. American officials said it was highly unusual for men to be allowed in the hall at all.

A meeting with leading editors, all men, featured more familiar complaints about what several said were American biases against the Palestinians, the incarceration of Muslims at Guantánamo Bay and the supposed American stereotype of Saudis as religious fanatics and extremists after Sept. 11.

Ms. Hughes responded by reminding listeners that President Bush had supported the establishment of a Palestinian state and asserting that Guantánamo prisoners had been visited by the International Red Cross and retained the right to worship with their own Korans.

Americans, she said at one point, were beginning to understand Islam better but had been disappointed that some Muslim leaders had been "reticent" at first in criticizing the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Now, several years later, we're beginning to hear other voices," she said.

But it was the meeting with the women that was the most unpredictable, as Ms. Hughes found herself on the defensive simply by saying that she hoped women would be able to vote in future elections.

In June, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talked of democracy and freedom in the Middle East but declined to address the question of driving. By contrast, Ms. Hughes spoke personally, saying that driving a car was "an important part of my freedom."

A woman in the audience then charged that under President Bush the United States had become "a right-wing country" and that criticism by the press was "not allowed."

"I have to say I sometimes wish that were the case, but it's not," Ms. Hughes said with a laugh.

Several women said later that Americans failed to understand that their traditional society was embraced by men and women alike.

"There is more male chauvinism in my profession in Europe and America than in my country," said Dr. Siddiqa Kamal, an obstetrician and gynecologist who runs her own hospital.

"I don't want to drive a car," she said. "I worked hard for my medical degree. Why do I need a driver's license?"

"Women have more than equal rights," added her daughter, Dr. Fouzia Pasha, also an obstetrician and gynecologist, asserting that men have obligations accompanying their rights, and that women can go to court to hold them accountable.

Ms. Hughes appeared to have left a favorable impression. "She's open to people's opinions," said Nour al-Sabbagh, a 21-year-old student in special education. "She's trying to understand."

Like some of her friends, Ms. Sabbagh said Westerners failed to appreciate the advantages of wearing the traditional black head-to-foot covering known as an abaya.

"I love my abaya," she explained. "It's convenient and it can be very fashionable."
###
* Steven R. Weisman is the chief diplomatic correspondent of The New York Times
Source: The New York Times, September 28, 2005
Visit the website at www.nytimes.com.
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright © 2005 by The New York Times Co. Reprinted with permission.

**********

ARTICLE 2
Why Saudi Women Do Not Drive
Tasnim Saleh

KUWAIT CITY - Recently, while meeting with women in Saudi Arabia, Karen Hughes, Undersecretary of State and latest Bush appointee to the position of American cultural ambassador to the Muslim world, was reported to be taken aback by the lack of desire on the part of Saudi women to obtain the right to drive. This probably strikes most Americans as odd, if not irrational. The Islamic ideals behind this attitude are difficult to understand, even for some Muslims.

The roots of this Saudi conviction lie in simple brainwashing. Saudi girls are brought up, to a greater extent than many Arab girls, to believe that, by not allowing certain rights, men are protecting them, nurturing them, and even pampering them. When I, a citizen of Kuwait, was eight years old, my school textbooks informed me that a Muslim woman is so precious and so dear that male dominance is a way of protecting and showing how valued they are. It is a privilege for women to be submissive, and an honorable duty for men to protect them.

Many Saudi women, even middle-class women, are quite wealthy in comparison to Western women, much less Arab women elsewhere. When a Saudi woman wants to go to the mall to do some shopping, and her husband is not around to drive her, she rarely needs to fall back on a simple cab, instead she calls, or often has, a limo! No wonder then - anyone would be hard-pressed to want to drive if they had a chauffeur and limo at their beck and call.

Indeed, the Saudis did not have laws forbidding women drivers until 1990, when daredevil feminists drove through town and were arrested, an incident that led Saudi authorities to issue an official ban. However, bureaucracy and erroneous interpretations of Islam have always combined to create additional obstacles for potential women drivers. For women to drive, they would need to have identification cards. But Saudi women usually do not have them, even though they have been permitted to obtain them since 2003.

Most often, Saudi women use what is called a family card, which simply lists the names of the females and their relationships to the dominant male. If a woman is married, the family card will identify her as the wife, and if she is not married, no matter how old she gets, she will be listed under the family card of her father. To Saudi women, getting an I.D. card means first of all getting their picture taken, and even worse, taking the risk that a man will see their picture, which is absolutely unacceptable to Saudis of either sex. Most Saudi women remain covered up all their lives when outside their homes.

At the heart of the matter is an Islamic injunction that women must have chaperons when traveling. While more moderate Muslims believe this restriction applies only to long trips, many conservative Saudis believe that, for a woman, driving a car for an hour is the equivalent of driving the car for 10 or 12 hours. Thus, any length of time in a car is "travel." Again, the problem lies in the interpretation of Islamic law.

All these obstacles are to blame for Saudi women seeing little to be gained from fighting for the right to drive. These may not be legitimate or logical reasons, but this is the way Saudi Arabia works, for better or worse. Karen Hughes should not have been so stunned - if she had known anything about Saudis, she would not have expected a Saudi woman to admit to an American that she is suffering from oppression. Saudi women are not fond of public display of dirty laundry, and they will not admit that an American, a non-believer, could be correct, right or better than they are in any possible way. They may, in fact, secretly hold different ideas, but they will never admit them to a foreigner, especially an American.

Nevertheless, quiet movement for both women's rights and democratization continues. Women even presented themselves as candidates for the recent, controlled elections in Saudi Arabia, in expectation that they would be allowed to vote. Mohammed Al-Zulfa, a pro-reform legislator on the king's Consultative Council, even publicly called for a lift on the ban, though he faced widespread condemnation. But what happens next will have to be a result of action by Saudi women themselves.
###
* Tasnim Saleh is a student at the American University of Kuwait.
Source: CGNews-Pih Youth Views, October 11, 2005
Visit the website at www.sfcg.org
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

ARTICLE 3
The European Union: A quiet but powerful force for reform
Editorial

BEIRUT - While much has been said about Washington's loud and ambitious projects to reshape the Arab world - including the Iraq war and the Broader Middle East Initiative - it is worth noting that the region is quietly being transformed by another powerful global force: the European Union. Through the process of engagement and patient dialogue, the EU has had a measurable impact on the region and will hopefully continue to be a positive force for political reform in the Middle East.

Yesterday, the European Commission announced plans to help revitalize the Palestinian economy in the wake of Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Although the union is already the biggest donor to the Palestinians, the EC recommended that EU states earmark an additional $240 million to $360 million to help build a viable Palestinian state. What's more important is that the money is not a free handout: The EU has identified a number of criteria that need to be fulfilled to justify further EU involvement. These include strengthening government accountability, restructuring the institutions of the Palestinian Authority, reforming the judiciary and developing a strategy to consolidate the rule of law.

We have already seen the benefit of European involvement in the region through its direct interaction with Turkey. Through the framework of negotiations ahead of EU entry talks, the Europeans have prodded the Turks into implementing a number of wide-ranging reforms. Since the start of those negotiations, Turkey has abolished the death penalty, scrapped state security courts, reformed the penal code and allowed Kurdish to be spoken in schools. We can expect even greater progress on the reform front now that Turkey has started EU accession talks.

Apart from the framework of membership negotiations, the EU has also used its partnerships with various regional countries to advance the pace of political reform. The European Neighborhood Policy, which builds on the economic reform initiatives launched in the Barcelona Process, offers privileged relations with the aim of encouraging neighboring states' commitment to the rule of law, good governance and respect for human rights. Incentives such as aid and economic integration have been used to encourage progress on political reforms in Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Syria.

Europe's subtle but significant efforts to promote reform in the region demonstrate that the EU is a powerful reformist force in the Middle East. While the European approach to promoting reform has been understated and less aggressive than that of the United States, it has proven to be equally - if not more - effective. America's efforts to promote reform are often greeted with skepticism or even hostility, while the EU, which has long been engaged in the region, has a greater degree of credibility.

The Europeans recognize the importance of being promoting political reform in the Middle East and Europe's gestures toward the region now need to be reciprocated. Those states which are involved in EU efforts to encourage political reform would do well to heed the advice and recommendations of a friendly neighbor.
###
* This editorial was produced by the Daily Star.
Source: Daily Star, October 06, 2005
Visit the website at www.dailystar.com.lb
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication

**********

ARTICLE 4
Turkey, Europe and the clash of civilisations
Gwynne Dyer

LONDON - "What do you gain by adding 99 per cent Muslim Turkey to the European Union?" asked Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan last month. And then he answered his own question: "You gain a bridge between the EU and the 1.5 billion-strong Islamic world. An alliance of civilisations will start."

You don't have to go very far in Turkey to find people who reject Erdogan's vision: the militant nationalist right, the radical left, religious fanatics and people who just worry that joining the EU will slow down the country's rapid economic growth. And you don't have to go far in the EU to find people who are equally opposed to Turkey's membership. But the official negotiations on Turkey's membership opened nevertheless in Luxembourg on the evening of Oct. 3.

It should have been the morning of Oct. 3, but the bitter argument within the EU went on right down to the wire and beyond, with the Austrian government demanding that Turkey be offered not full membership but only a "privileged partnership". Since any one of the EU's 25 member countries can block a proposal to admit a new member, it took two days of arm-twisting and bribery to get the Austrians to drop their objections, and by the end the Turks were on the brink of walking away themselves.

This "alliance of civilisations" stuff is not easy to do.

It was hardly surprising that it was Austria that was digging its heels in, for Austria was for several centuries the frontier between Christian Europe and the Turkish-ruled Balkans. It was at the second siege of Vienna, in 1683, that the relentless advance of the Turks into Europe was finally stopped, and for Austrians that crisis of more than 300 years ago remains the event that defines their national identity.

Behind the Austrians' arguments that Turkey is too populous and too poor to fit into the European Union (73 million people and only a third of the EU's average per capita GDP), their basic objection was that Christianity and Islam do not mix. Admitting Turkey would turn the EU into a 20 per cent Muslim entity, which is just a recipe for trouble. And that view was shared by a significant minority of Christian conservatives and other sceptics elsewhere, especially in France and Germany.

Pro-Turkish governments in the EU were just as prone to define the argument in "civilisational" and sometimes apocalyptic terms. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told the BBC on Oct. 2 that "we're concerned about a so-called clash of civilisations. We're concerned about this theological-political divide, which could open up even further the boundary between so-called Christian-heritage states and those of Islamic heritage".

And you just want to tell them all to take their medication and calm down.

There is an attractive symbolism in the idea that Turkish membership in the EU would finally begin to repair the split that tore the old classical Mediterranean civilisation in two with the rise of Islam fourteen centuries ago, but it is not really about an "alliance" between Christianity and Islam. On the contrary, it has become possible only because both Western Europeans and Turks have ceased to define themselves solely or even mainly in religious terms. Many people in Western Europe and most people in Turkey are still believers, but it doesn't swallow up their whole identity.

Rejecting Turkey merely on the grounds that it is Muslim would condemn the EU to being just "a Christian club", in Erdogan's cutting phrase, but it would not trigger some vast confrontation between the West and the Muslim world. The Turks would be severely miffed, but most people in other Muslim countries already think of Europe as a Christian club, having no idea of how small a role religion plays in the public life of most EU countries. Small disaster, not many hurt.

The real reasons for the EU to want Turkey in are much more specific. The EU will have need of Turkey's relatively young and growing population as its own population ages, and Turkey's high economic growth rate (eight or nine per cent this year) would help bring up the rather modest EU average. A surprising number of Europeans also care about healing the old rift that tore Europe itself apart - for Turkey, although Muslim, was a European great power for five centuries, and was firmly established in the Balkans long before it conquered most of the Arab world.

For Turks, whose free-trade relationship with the EU already gives them most of the economic benefits of membership, the advantages lie mainly in anchoring the country in a web of supranational institutions and laws that guarantee the country's democratic and secular character. Erdogan has already used the requirements of EU membership as a lever with which to force democratic and human rights reforms on a reluctant army and bureaucracy, and membership negotiation will enable him to go further in the same direction.

When will Turkey actually join? Certainly not before 2015, by which time the economic gap between Turkey and the richer EU countries may have narrowed considerably - and maybe never, for the entry negotiations are not guaranteed to succeed. But the fact that negotiations have finally started sends all the right signals, and the talks themselves are a useful tool for Turkish reformers. That's enough for the moment.
###
* Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
Source: Jordan Times, October 6, 2005
Visit the website at www.jordantimes.com
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

ARTICLE 5
Reflections on Art and Religion
Iman Kurdi

LONDON - London’s Tate Britain decided last week to pull an artwork titled “God is Great” from its latest exhibition. The reason? The artwork might offend Muslims. And quite possibly it might. The artwork, by the British artist John Latham, consists of a large piece of glass into which have been placed pieces of the Qur’an, Talmud and Bible.

As a piece of art, I cannot comment on it. I’ve not seen it, I’ve only seen photographs and what I’ve seen leaves me rather baffled. The artist has described the concept for the artwork as showing that all religions have the same source. Of course he means the People of the Book as we call them, and it is the very books that define us that he has chopped up and displayed artfully in glass.

The concept of Judaism, Christianity and Islam having the same root is neither news, nor is it contentious to Muslims. But is this piece of art offensive to Muslims? As a concept I don’t think so. It does not attack Islam, neither does it portray Muslims in a derogatory manner, nor does it repulse or repel. If anything the idea that the artist is trying to express is laudable.

The problem is in the execution. I do take issue with Holy Scripture being used as raw material for art. God’’ words are not paint or clay to be modeled by the artist’s hands. Our Book is sacred and should not be tampered with for the sake of art. Indeed the reason cited by Tate Britain for withdrawing the artwork is that the cutting of the Holy Book could be seen as offensive. I can see their point, but what I find more interesting is why a piece that was created ten years ago and which has been displayed in galleries in London, Oxford and Venice without attracting the attention of the book-burning brigade should now be deemed too offensive to display. And, more crucially, why this piece should be thought of as potentially offensive to Muslims, but not to Christians and Jews?

Somehow there is a pervasive belief that we Muslims are an easily-offended lot whose passions, once roused, can easily turn to violence and rage. It is notable that Tate Britain withdrew the piece not because it had received complaints about it but because it was worried that it might. This was purely a defensive move given the “sensitive” current climate since the terrorist attacks of July 7. And that is what I find worrying though not surprising: The way Muslims have been singled out as potential troublemakers.

You don’t have to go far to find the roots of this belief. There is a vocal Muslim minority who overreact to any hint of offense, underlined by a quiet Muslim majority whose religious sensibilities are easily offended. You have ample evidence of what happens when Muslims rightly or wrongly believe that their religion has been attacked. Link that with the terrorism that has now been associated with our name and you can see why the Tate was worried.

It has become too easy for us to talk hate and consequently easy for us to be feared.

But more fundamentally art is a cultural fault line, and the visual arts in particular. There is an important difference in the role that art plays in society. In Western culture, art is revered sometimes to the point of religion. It is seen as justification in its own right. By contrast in Middle Eastern culture art is not given this exalted role; art is more of a mirror than a process, its role more to illustrate than to challenge.

Similarly while Christian tradition ascribes to art a transcendental role, Islam takes the polar opposite view of seeing religious iconography as idolatry. Consequently we have radically different attitudes to art. The idea of art as a gateway to human development is not one that sits easily with Muslim thinking; we are far more likely to take art at face value. Perhaps that is why we tend to get offended. But are we being oversensitive? Is it not the meaning that matters? Take Latham’s piece. Its meaning is not problematic, it is the means he has used to express his artistic will that is difficult for us to accept. Had he painted a book rather than used a real copy of the Qur’an, no one would have raised an eyebrow.

I don’t like the idea of John Latham taking scissors to a copy of the Qur’an. Nor do I like the Tate pulling out an exhibit simply because it fears a potential Muslim backlash. But what I find most significant about this story is what it represents in terms of how the Muslim voice is perceived in Britain today. Muslim views and feelings have zoomed up to the center of the spotlight, but for all the wrong reasons.
###
* Iman Kurdi is a member of the Arab News network.
Source: Arab News, October 3, 2005
Visit the website at www.arabnews.com
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

The Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity, brought to you by Search for Common Ground, seeks to build bridges of understanding between the West and the Arab World and countries with predominately Muslim populations. This service is one outcome of a set of working meetings held in partnership with His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal in June 2003.

Every weeks, CGNews-PiH will distribute 5 news articles, op-eds, features, and analyses that aid in developing and analyzing the current and future relationship of the West and Arab/Muslim world. Articles will be chosen based on accuracy, balance, and their ability to improve understanding and communication across borders and regions. They will also reflect the need for constructive dialogue around issues of global importance. Selections will be authored by local and international experts and leaders who will analyze and discuss a broad range of relevant issues. We invite you to submit any articles you feel are compatible with the goals of this news service.

Partners in Humanity also regularly publishes the work of student leaders and journalists whose articles strengthen intercultural understanding and promote constructive perspectives and dialogue in their own communities through its Youth Views column. Student journalists and writers under the age of 27 are encouraged to write cbinkley@sfcg.org for more information on contributing.

We look forward to hearing from you, and welcome any questions, concerns, or comments you may have about this service. Please forward this message to colleagues and friends who may also wish to subscribe to the service. To subscribe, send an email to subscribe-cgnewspih@sfcg.org with subscribe in the subject line.

If you are a member of the media, please join us in promoting constructive dialogue to improve understanding and perceptions. Unless otherwise noted, all copyright permissions have been obtained and the articles may be reproduced by any news outlet or publication free of charge. If you choose to republish any of the articles, please acknowledge both the original source and CGNews, and notify us at cgnewspih@sfcg.org

The views expressed in these articles are those of the authors, not of CGNews or its affiliates.

Common Ground News Service
1601 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Suite #200
Washington, DC 20009 USA
Ph: +1(202) 777-2207
Fax: +1(202) 232-6718

Rue Belliard 205 bte 13
B-1040 Brussels, Belgium
Ph: +32 (02) 736-7262
Fax: +32(02) 732-3033
E-mail: cgnewspih@sfcg.org
Website: http://www.commongroundnews.org

Editors:
Emad Khalil
Amman Editor

Oussama Safa & Juliette Schmidt
Beirut Editors

Elyte Baykun & Leena El-Ali
Washington Editor

Michael Shipler & Chris Binkley
Youth Views Editor

**********

This is a not-for-profit list serve.
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone you think would like to see these articles.

To subscribe, send an email to subscribe-cgnewspih@sfcg.org with subscribe in the subject line.

Fourth sector
http://www.kaospilot.dk/docs/FourthSector.asp

Is it beyond the radar of researchers, the media and politicians that a new organisation and company culture is emerging in both the US and Northern Europe? A company culture that breaks with earlier conceptions of the relationship and dynamics between the state, the private sector and the voluntary sector?

Or even more far-reaching: Are we currently witnessing the first serious run-up to the creation of a new social arena - 'the fourth sector' - that has absorbed the very best from both the private, public and voluntary sectors and therefore represents a possible solution to some of the challenges facing the three 'old' sectors today?

Something's definitely going on, because over the past ten years the boundaries between what is public (district, state, national), what is private (companies), and what belongs to voluntary organisations (non-profit) have become less and less distinct. Parallel to which the contours of an entirely new social arena have started to emerge - which the US has been the first to dub the "for-benefit '' or "fourth'' sector.

A sector populated by organisations, institutions and companies that are characterised by being self-financing - i.e. they operate on the free market - but who, on top of the bottom line, want to be measured and judged on the level of their social, ethical and environmental sense of responsibility.

These companies try to link traditionally irreconcilable concepts, attitudes and values. For example concepts like democracy, inclusion, openness, transparency, credibility, efficiency, collaboration and holism are frequently used by these 'for benefit' companies. Because as they say in the US, if you work for a 'for benefit' organisation or company you actually have to ask yourself how you can establish credibility in relation to your stakeholders. How can we be inclusive? How can we make the organisation transparent? How do we ensure that the goals we want to achieve don't create (new) social or environmental problems for others?

Can we see similar developments in Denmark? Maybe. Because even though the companies listed below may not classify themselves as 'pro benefit' they fit the fourth sector profile perfectly:

• Roskilde Festival. Not alone is it the biggest music festival in Europe, it's run (precisely because of that) like any other commercial and professional cultural industry. With one crucial difference: All profit goes to voluntary youth work in the Roskilde area. The staff are both paid workers and volunteers. But that's not a problem, because everyone accepts the rules of the game - and because the goal of the organisation is idealistic.

• The organic on-line supermarket Årstiderne ('The Seasons'). Here the dream of supporting the environment - and not least the obvious need of Danes to develop healthier food and eating habits - is combined with an economically healthy business plan. On top of which Årstiderne is the perfect example of how to combine a traditional business concept (the supermarket) with new technology (the web) to create an entirely new field of business.

• TV2 - here serving as an example of a media company that (in principle) has the public good in mind as a public service company, but also has to act as a (possibly imminently) private TV station on the open market.

Roskilde Festival, Årstiderne and TV2 can all serve as examples of new hybrid companies with potential solutions to some of the problems and pressures experienced by the three 'old' sectors.

Let's take them one by one:

• The private sector: Shareholders want more back than they invest, but they also want transparent accounts (just one of the consequences of the Enron and Wold.Com scandals). Customers are more than sceptical and critical when it comes to the company's trustworthiness and the ulterior motives of different brands. Citizens demand that the companies take social and environmental responsibility. And last but not least employees want more satisfactory and meaningful working conditions, including a better balance between their working and private lives.

• The public sector is under increasing pressure from private companies wanting to be free of restrictive rules and regulations so they can compete on the global market. Many citizens lack faith in the democratic process, but still want greater efficiency and economic consciousness from the authorities. And the voters feel generally underrepresented and overheard at both a local, regional and national level.

• Voluntary organisations are experiencing that individual donors, foundations and public authorities want efficient financial management and precise, quantifiable results in return for their contributions and funding. Workers want working conditions like those in the private and public sectors, and the volunteers want a larger degree of involvement in the organization's programs and profile.

How are the three old sectors responding to these challenges? By trying to reinvent themselves - a process plagued by built-in conflicts.

• Private companies have to find a balance between achieving the largest possible profits for their shareholders and retaining trust and contact with the company's other stakeholders: the local community, consumers, sub-contractors, pressure groups, etc.

• The public sector is currently facing a veritable wave of tenders and the privatisation of council, municipal and state functions and institutions - and risk being forced to 'repurchase' the very same functions and institutions when private companies no longer find them profitable.

• Voluntary organisations: Due to fierce competition from other voluntary organizations and tight state financing voluntary organizations are having to experiment with their independent income - the sale of services and new products. All of which - activities and financial priorities - can be at odds with the organization's main goals and mission.

The question is, are the old sectors capable of adapting fast enough? And if not, does this create the basis for the establishment of a new, fourth sector?

A sector with companies, organizations and institutions that - more or less consciously - have adopted the best of all three 'old' sectors, and where the starting point is not only a clearly defined set of values but also a focus on the public good. A sector that still (almost always) plays according to the rules of the free market but is driven by the goal of making a social and cultural difference by developing new services and products that both enrich and improve human lives. A sector where the profits don't go to hungry shareholders, but to social innovation and/or back to the company's many stakeholders.

In Denmark these 'for benefit' companies can be traced back to the Danish cooperative movement and forward in terms of potential solutions to the pressing needs and possibilities of the 21st century. In this perspective an institution like the KaosPilots is a good example of a 'fourth sector' company. But more than that, the school apparently specializes in training its students for the new sector. At least if you look at the kind of companies KaosPilot graduates work for - or start themselves.

AfricAvenir News are kindly sent out by Eric Van Grasdorff:

Liebe/Liebe Freunde,

Hiermit möchten wir Sie herzlich zur AfricAvenir Reihe "African Perspectives" einladen, eine Reihe von Dialogforen, Literarischen Begegnungen und Filmvorführungen, in deren Zentrum die Präsentation afrikanischer Sichtweisen steht. Thematischer Rahmen ist die Afrikanische Renaissance - Philosophie und Praxis politischer und kultureller Selbstbestimmung Afrikas. Wir laden Sie herzlich ein, die Vielfalt globaler Perspektiven wahrzunehmen. Bis Ende Januar finden in diesem Rahmen 4 Dialogforen, 3 Lesungen und 5 Filmvorführungen statt. Aktuelle Termine entnehmen Sie bitte uneserer Website: www.africavenir.org

Eröffnungsveranstaltung der Reihe African Perspectives – Dialogforum

Sprachen in Afrika – Geschichte und Gegenwart
Kofi Yakpo, Linguist, Politikwissenschaftler und Ethnologe
Montag, 17. Oktober, 19.30 Uhr, im Haus der Demokratie und Menschenrechte, Robert-Havemann-Saal (Greifswalder Str. 4, durch den Haupteingang in den Hinterhof, dort im großen Saal)

Am Montag, 17. Oktober 2005 um 19.30 Uhr laden Sie AfricAvenir International e.V. und die Stiftung Haus der Demokratie herzlich ein zu einem Vortrag mit Diskussion über Sprachen und Sprachgeschichte in Afrika.

Der Vortrag vermittelt einen Einblick in die linguistische Vielfalt des afrikanischen Kontinents: Über 2000 Sprachen werden in Afrika gesprochen. Zudem werden generelle Tendenzen der Sprachentwicklung in Afrika in ihren sozio-ökonomischen, historischen und geographischen Zusammenhang gestellt. Ein besonderes Augenmerk gilt dabei den mancherorts radikalen Veränderungen der linguistischen „Ökologie“ die der Kontakt Afrikas mit Europa und dem Kolonialismus gezeitigt hat.

Kofi Yakpos Künstlername ist „Linguist“. Er hat Linguistik, Politikwissenschaften und Ethnologie in Köln und Vanuatu studiert, außerdem Management in Genf und Jura in London. Derzeit arbeitet er bei FIAN, einer internationalen Menschenrechtsorganisation.

Weitere Informationen zu unseren Veranstaltungen finden Sie auf folgenden Internetseiten:
www.africavenir.org
www.hausderdemokratie.de

---------------------------------------

The political meaning of the ANC liberation struggle for the new South Africa
Mrs. Luli Callinicos, Vorsitzende des südafrikanischen Rates für Kulturerbe und Oliver-Tambo-Biographin

Mittwoch, 19. Oktober, 18 Uhr, im Haus der Demokratie und Menschenrechte, Vorderhaus, 1. Stock, Raum 106

Luli Callinicos, Vorsitzende des südafrikanischen Rates für Kulturerbe, stellt auf einer Informationsreise in Deutschland ihre Biographie zu Oliver Tambo vor, dem bedeutenden und langjährigen Führer des ANC .

Die Stiftung Haus der Demokratie, AfricAvenir International e.V., die Initiative Südliches Afrika und die Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung laden Sie ein zu einer Diskussion mit Luli Callinicos. Thema ist die Geschichte des Freiheitskampfes und die politische Bedeutung für das heutige Südafrika. Die Veranstaltung findet auf Englisch statt.

Weitere Informationen zu Veranstaltungen finden Sie auf folgenden Internetseiten:
www.africavenir.org
www.inisa.de
www.hausderdemokratie.de

---------------------------------------

Max and Mona
Regie: Teddy Mattera, ZA 2004, 98 Min. OmU (engl.)

Im Rahmen der Filmreihe „African Perspectives“ lädt AfricAvenir in Kooperation mit der INISA und dem South African Club am Sonntag, den 30. Oktober, um 17.15 Uhr zur Vorführung des Films ‚Max and Mona’ von Teddy Mattera ein. Nach der Vorführung besteht die Möglichkeit zur Diskussion mit einem qualifizierten Diskutanten.

Am: Sonntag, den 30. Oktober 2005
Beginn: 17.15 Uhr
Ort: Filmtheater Hackesche Höfe (Rosenthaler Str. 40/41; 10178 Berlin)
Eintittspreis: 5 Euro

Zum Film
Max und Mona ist ein besonderes Vergnügen; eine unterhaltsame, perfekt ausgewogene Kombination von Kummer, Liebe und Tod zusammengefügt in einer unnachahmlichen afrikanischen Komödie.
Max ist der Schatz seines Dorfes. Obwohl noch jung, hat er eine besondere Gabe als Trauernder geerbt. Die Vorfahren anrufend, kann Max das steinernste Herz zu einem Fluss von Tränen auflösen. Doch er muss seinem Ruf folgen und Medizin in der großen Stadt studieren. Max erreicht die Stadt beladen mit einer meckernden heiligen Ziege, passender Weise Mona genannt, doch kann seine Universitätsgebühren nicht rechtzeitig zahlen. Völlig verzweifelt kontaktiert Max seinen notorisch-betrügerischen Onkel Norman. In der Zwickmühle steckend, wird Max durch Norman, den Drogenboss des Townships, manipuliert, seine Gottgegebenen Talente für die Tilgung Normans finanzieller Nöte zu gebrauchen.

Der Regisseur
Teddy Mattera ist Südafrikaner, der in den USA, Grossbritanien und Europa Film studiert hat. Der erste Film, bei dem er als Praktkant mitgewirkt hat, war Hoop Dreams, welcher 1993 für einen Oscar nominiert wurde. Er hat seitdem verschiedene Dokumentarfilme für SABC
(South Africa), BBC, Channel Four (UK) und andere Fernsehsender gemacht.
Ebenso war er, meist als Co-Regisseur, an diversen Kurzfilmen, Werbespots und Musikvideos beteiligt. Der südafrikanische Fernsehsender MNET zeigte den Kurzfilm „Waiting for Valdez“, für welchen Mattera das Drehbuch geschrieben hatte, im Rahmen seiner im Jahre 2001 ausgestrahlten Serie“ New Directions“. Zuletzt führte Mattera im Kurzfilm „Norman Comes To Jozi“ Regie, sowie bei einigen Folgen der Serie „ Vuyani Mzansi“ des Senders SABC2.

Festivalteilnahmen
• Toronto International Film Festival - Democracy 10 Sidebar
• London International Film Festival - Official Invitation
• Amiens Film Festival - Official Hors De Competition Selection
• Festival Do Rio - In Main Competition
• Sithengi Film Festival - In Main Competition
• Goteborg Film Festival - Official Selection
• FESPACO - In Main Competition

Pressestimmen zum Film
"The story is absolutely brilliant, with sharp wit, tongue-in-cheek satire and a clever plot" -The Herald

"Max and Mona is a funny and profound South African fable, and my favourite South African film so far" - The Business Day

"Max and Mona triumphs at FESPACO" - The Daily News Tonight

"Acclaimed writer, Teddy Mattera, has created a South African comedy that has already proved to be a hit at International Film Festivals" - The Big Issue

"New Local Film Entertains" - Rekord Mamelodi

---------------------------------------

Weiteter Termine:

Afrikanische Renaissance in den nigerianischen Medien)
Ibiba DonPedro: The African Renaissance in the Nigerian Media
03. November 2005

Die nigerianische Journalistin und Preisträgerin des Lorenzo Natali Preises
im Jahr 2001 sowie CNN African Journalist 2003 spricht über die Bedeutung
der nigerianischen Medien für die Afrikanische Renaissance. Sprache:
Englisch.

Drum
Am: Sonntag, den 13. November 2005
Regie: Zola Maseko, Südafrika / USA / Deutschland, 2004, 94 min, OmU
Beginn: 17.15 Uhr
Ort: Filmtheater Hackesche Höfe (Rosenthaler Str. 40/41; 10178 Berlin)
Eintrittspreis: 5 Euro

Weitere Informationen unter www.africavenir.org

Wollen Sie Fördermitglied von AfricAvenir International e.V. werden?
Kontaktieren Sie Ann Kathrin Helfrich, Fon: 030-80906789, a.helfrich@africavenir.org

Redaktion des Newsletters: Eric Van Grasdorff, e.vangrasdorff@africavenir.org
AfricAvenir International e.V. ist nicht für die Inhalte externer Webseiten verantwortlich.

The WMD's DemocracyNews
Electronic Newsletter of the World Movement for Democracy - www.wmd.org
October 2005

POSTING NEWS:
We welcome items to include in DemocracyNews. Please send an email message to world@ned.org with the item you would like to post in the body of the message.

******************************************************************

CONTENTS

WOMEN'S ISSUES
30. Nigeria NGO-CEDAW Coalition Reviews the Millennium Development Goals
31. UN Division for Advancement of Women Hosts Dialogue on Combating Violence against Women
32. Women's Learning Partnership Holds Central Asia Regional Learning Institute
33. WORLD MOVEMENT PARTICIPATING NETWORKS, ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS MENTIONED IN THIS ISSUE

******************************************************************

DEMOCRACY ALERTS/APPEALS

1. Threats Against NGOs in Serbia
The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) has compiled reports and statements issued by extremist national groups and media outlets threatening nongovernmental organizations and media establishments that advocate human rights. The HLC is concerned that the failure of the Serbian government to take action against such statements may further encourage the extremists to foment hostility towards the nongovernmental organizations and media advocating human rights.
Go to: www.hlc.org.yu/english/Facing_The_Past/index.php?file=1231.html

2. Statement from Human Rights Network: Stop Harassment of Critical Voices in Human Rights in Azerbaijan.
After convening at the "Challenges to Azeri Human Rights Defenders" conference in Baku on September 7, 2005, delegates from Human Rights Houses (HRH) stated that "the harassment of independent journalists, political activists and human rights defenders by the Azeri authorities must cease." The statement was presented at a press conference in Baku on the same day as the Azeri election campaign was launched. It contains recommendations to the Azeri authorities, the media, international oil companies, and Azeri human rights defenders and their organizations. To strengthen human rights work, a group of Azeri human rights NGOs are working to set up a Human Rights House in Baku in cooperation with the HRH Foundation based in Oslo.
Go to: http://www.humanrightshouse.org/dllvis5.asp?id=3567

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND EVENTS

3. Call for Applications: Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellowships
The Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program at the Washington, DC-based National Endowment for Democracy welcomes applications from candidates throughout the world for fellowships in 2006-2007. Established in 2001, the program enables democracy activists, practitioners, scholars, and journalists from around the world to deepen their understanding of democracy and enhance their ability to promote democratic change. The program is intended primarily to support activists, practitioners, and scholars from new and aspiring democracies; distinguished scholars from the United States and other established democracies are also eligible to apply. Projects may focus on the political, social, economic, legal, and cultural aspects of democratic development and may include a range of methodologies and approaches. A working knowledge of English is an important prerequisite for participation in the program. The application deadline for fellowships in 2006-2007 is Tuesday, November 1, 2005.
For more information, including the application, go to: www.ned.org/forum/reagan-fascell.html or email: fellowships@ned.org.

4. Conference: "Democracy, Conflict Transformation and Post-War Social Reconstruction: Lessons Learned in Africa"
This four-day conference, "Democracy, Conflict Transformation and Post-War Social Reconstruction: Lessons Learned in Africa," organized by the African Democracy Forum (ADF) in collaboration with Rights and Democracy (Canada), and the Guinean Organization for Human and Citizens' Rights (OGDH) will be held in Conakry, Guinea, on December 5-8, 2005. The primary objective of the conference is to deepen the understanding of post-war social reconstruction processes and the concept of conflict transformation, and to develop practical strategies for building democracy in conflict/war-torn societies in Africa, by providing democracy activists with an opportunity to learn from each other about their own experience in post-conflict democracy building. Participants from Angola, Central Africa Republic, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, and other countries will attend the conference.
For more information, go to: www.africandemocracyforum.org

5. Extended Deadline for the 2006 Emerging Leaders International Fellows Program
The Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society's spring 2006 Emerging Leaders International Fellows Programs announced that the deadline for the Diversity Fellowship has been extended to October 17, 2005. The fellowship is a three-month program for young scholar/practitioners of color who are under-represented in the United States grant-making sector.
Go to: www.philanthropy.org and click on "International Fellows Program"

6. Club of Madrid to Hold General Assembly and Annual Conference
The Club of Madrid will hold its Fourth General Assembly and Annual Conference on November 10-12, 2005. The central theme of the conference will be "Democracy in the Post Communist World: Unfinished Business." The Czech Foreign Ministry and COM Member Vaclav Havel will host the event this year, which will be the first time the conference will not be held in Spain. Some of the issues that will be discussed include: democracy and authoritarianism in the post-communist world, the political economy of Central and Eastern European transitional markets, states and welfare policies, and the European Union and the promotion of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. The Club of Madrid is an independent organization composed of democratic former heads of state and government who are devoted to strengthening democracy around the world.
Go to: www.clubmadrid.org/cmadrid/index.php?id=672

CIVIC EDUCATION

7. Fiji Workshop on Government and Opposition Roles, Rights and Responsibilities
The Centre for Democratic Institutions (CDI) at the University of Australia participated in a Commonwealth workshop on the roles, rights, and responsibilities of the government in Fiji. The workshop was hosted by the Commonwealth Secretariat and Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in co-operation with the Pacific Islands Forum and the Pacific Islands NGO.
Go to: www.cdi.anu.edu.au/cdinews/cdinews_downloads/CDI.News_Sep_05.pdf

CIVIL SOCIETY STRENGTHENING

8. Online Forum: Afro-Descendant Issues in the Americas
On September 19, 2005, through October 21, 2005, the Partners of the Americas Center for Civil Society is hosting an online forum on establishing shared strategies for raising the profile of Afro-Descendants' concerns in the Americas and on ways to influence hemispheric policy. Discussions are being conducted in English and Spanish with written submissions in Portuguese and French. Weekly and mid-weekly summaries are provided. The online forum is an initiative of Partners of the Americas' Center for Civil Society in collaboration with the Centro de Mujeres Afrocostarricenses, Global Rights, the Inter-American Foundation, the Inter-Agency Consultation on Race in Latin America, and the Inter-American Democracy Network.
For more information, go to: www.partners.net/ or contact Partners of the Americas at forohemisferico@partners.net.

ECONOMIC REFORM AND THE BUSINESS SECTOR

9. Conference Report on CIPE Regional Conference for Eastern Europe and Eurasia
The Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) recently published a report on a conference that it held on September 26-28, 2004, in Kyiv, Ukraine. The regional conference for Eastern Europe and Eurasia, entitled "Business Leadership and Democratic Development," was organized by CIPE and two Ukrainian partners, the Institute of Competitive Society (ICS) and the Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research (UCIPR). Seventy CIPE partners from 16 Eastern Europe and Eurasian countries took part in the meeting. Yury Yekhanurov, recently appointed as the Prime Minister of Ukraine, opened the discussion and gave an overview of several issues pertaining to Ukraine's business organizations.
Go to: www.cipe.org/regional/nis/Ukrainreport.pdf

HUMAN RIGHTS

10. Chechen Lawyer Wins Thorolf Rafto Memorial Prize
The Rafto Foundation presented Ms. Lida Yusupova, Chechen lawyer and human rights advocate, with the Professor Thorolf Rafto Memorial Prize for 2005. Ms.Yusupova was recognized due to her unrelenting efforts to document human rights violations and act as a spokeswoman for the forgotten victims of the war in Chechnya. Even though the conditions and security for human rights advocates are compromised, she still struggles to defend human dignity in a chaotic war situation.
For more information, go to: www.rafto.no/.

11. ACHR Report Urges Action on Nepal
The latest issue of the ACHR REVIEW, a weekly commentary and analysis of the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) on human rights and governance issues, focuses on human rights violations committed by the government security forces and by the Maoist insurgents in Nepal. The article suggests that the United States and United Kingdom make greater efforts to ensure that King Gyanendra ensures the restoration of full democracy and paves the way for dialogue with the Maoists. If the two countries fail to foster dialogue between King Gyanendra and the Maoists, the United Nations should be allowed to mediate.
Go to: http://achrweb.org/Review/2005/90-05.htm

12. Workshop on Developing Legal Strategies for Human Rights
On September 12-15, 2005, 30 legal service providers from 12 countries gathered in Johannesburg, South Africa, for a workshop on developing legal approaches to systemic human rights violations. The workshop was jointly organized by the Legal Resources Centre of South Africa and Global Rights as part of their global project, Strategies for Human Rights Lawyers. Global Rights created the Strategies for Human Rights Lawyers program to respond to the need to share strategies and methodologies among practicing human rights lawyers and activists. The three-day workshop kick-started a process for mutual learning at the global level: exchanging lessons learned among stakeholders in different countries and/or regions; documenting experiences and methodologies in different project locations; and refining these experiences into program models to be made available and accessible to NGO legal service providers. The workshop also builds on a number of regional conferences held in 1999-2000 that produced a variety of recommendations documented in the Global Rights publication, "Promoting Justice: a Practical Guide to Strategic Human Rights Lawyering."
Go to: www.globalrights.org/site/DocServer/Final_final_SA_announce__9.15.pdf?docID=3363
To learn more about Global Rights and Strategies for Change projects, go to: www.globalrights.org
To read the "Promoting Justice: a Practical Guide to Strategic Human Rights Lawyering," go to: www.globalrights.org/site/DocServer/PJ_1-2.pdf?docID=184

13. Campaign for UN Democracy Caucus Calls for Credible Human Rights Council
In a statement delivered to the foreign ministers of democratic countries gathered at the Ministerial Meeting of the UN Democracy Caucus, the Campaign for a UN Democracy Caucus called to ensure that the new UN Human Rights Council be established as a credible body composed of rights protectors, not violators. The statement was delivered by Ted Piccone, Executive Director of the Democracy Coalition Project. The UN Democracy Caucus is an outgrowth of the Community of Democracies, a global coalition of over 100 democratic and democratizing nations committed to the promotion and strengthening of democracy and human rights, including at the UN.
Go to: http://freedomhouse.org/media/pressrel/091905.htm

14. New Tactics in Human Rights: A Resource for Practitioners
This workbook focuses on innovative practitioners and how they are advancing human rights. There is also an introduction to tactical and strategic thinking for human rights practitioners and a series of practical worksheets to help organizations determine which tactics and strategies will work best for them. Printed copies are available to order from the New Tactics project and the cost for the printed version is $19.95 (USD); however, you may download the workbook free of charge online.
Go to: http://www.newtactics.org/main.php/ToolsforAction/TheNewTacticsWorkbook/Readordownloadfiles

INTERNATIONAL DEMOCRACY ASSISTANCE AND SOLIDARITY

15. Slovakia-Belarus Task Force Issues Report on Civil Society Development in Belarus
In August-September 2005, after completing a survey on the current conditions of civil society in Belarus, the Slovakia-Belarus Task Force organized a series of regional meetings with local NGOs to inform them about the results of the survey, evaluate NGO levels of preparation, and discuss further plans of the civic campaign. The recent report issued by the Task Force is based on the discussions that took place at the regional meetings. It summarizes the current frame of mind of civil society organizations and outlines the process upon which the democratic structures in Belarus are embarking. The Slovakia-Belarus Task Force, run by the Bratislava-based Institute for Civic Diplomacy/Pontis Foundation, works to establish a new framework for the transfer of Slovak "know-how" and technical assistance to Belarus on key aspects of civic society development and economic reform.
For copies of the report, contact pontis@pontisfoundation.sk
To learn more about the survey of Belarus civil society, go to: www.pontisfoundation.sk/en/11013

16. New Documentary: "Border to Border: Zimbabwe at the Crossroads"
This documentary, produced by Amnesty International South Africa and CIVICUS, portrays the biggest demonstration of solidarity for Zimbabwe in the history of South Africa. Two weeks before the Zimbabwe elections on March 31, 2005, over 8,000 civil society activists and ordinary citizens from Zimbabwe's surrounding countries rallied along its borders, demanding respect for human rights and an end to silent diplomacy. The film chronicles these demonstrations of solidarity. "Border to Border: Zimbabwe at the Crossroads" captures the current crisis within the country as well as the power of regional solidarity.
Go to:
http://africa.oneworld.net/article/view/118466/1/1852

17. Asian Democrats Gather to Develop a Frame of Regional Action.
The first World Forum for Democratization in Asia (WFDA) biennial conference took place on September 15-17, 2005, in Taipei, Taiwan. The conference was organized by the WFDA Organizing Committee, including Alliance for Reform and Democracy in Asia (ARDA), Alternative Asean Network on Burma (ALTSEAN), Forum Asia Democracy (FAD), Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID), and Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD). It was attended by more then 100 overseas participants representing some 20 Asian countries, many partners and friends from all over the world, and hundreds of Taiwanese. WFDA is a new initiative that brings together democrats from across Asia. The objectives of WFDA are to offer solidarity and support for Asian democracy activities, to encourage participation of Asian people in democratization processes, and obtain international support for the democratization effort in Asia. The WFDA emerged as a result of the Third Assembly of the World Moment for Democracy in Durban, South Africa.
For more information, go to: www.wfda.net

18. CIVICUS 2005 World Assembly
CIVICUS invites interested members, partners, and other civil society organizations to submit proposals for workshops, presentations, etc. to be presented at its 2006 World Assembly, scheduled to take place on June 21-25, 2006, in Glasgow, Scotland. Presentations can explore specific issues or initiatives related to the overall theme, "Acting Together for Better World." The theme was inspired by events leading up to the G8 Summit, which showed both the massive global commitment from ordinary citizens for a better and more just world, and the absolute necessity of continuing the struggle to achieve it. Proposals are due by October 30.
Go to: www.civicusassembly.org/Home/Home.aspx

INTERNET, MEDIA, AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

19. Human Rights in China Receives 2005 Tech Museum Award
Human Rights in China (HRIC) is one of five laureates in the Knight Ridder Equality Award category, which recognizes use of technology to overcome human rights violations and improve the local democratic process. The Tech Museum of Innovation, located in San Jose, California, has announced 25 laureates who leverage new and existing technologies to benefit humanity. The laureates were selected from a field of 560 outstanding candidates, representing 80 countries. HRIC's E-Activism project contributes to building and strengthening China's civil society by linking innovative, interactive technology with emerging human networks inside China. In the initial pilot phase, HRIC has successfully developed and launched a two-pronged technology solution of mass e-mail and a proxy solution to provide access to uncensored news and information for Chinese users.
Go to: www.techawards.org/laur_stories_results.cfm?id=124
To learn more about HRIC go to: www.hrichina.org/

20. Afghan Media Organization Builds Capability of Journalists in Promoting Family Planning
In collaboration with Internews, Nai, a media development organization, held a five-day workshop for 20 Kabul-based radio, TV, and print journalists, providing them with information concerning family planning as well as training on how to incorporate these issues into their reports effectively. This idea is based on Afghans' interest in learning about family planning and reproduction issues; however, it is very difficult for the public to find accurate information on this sensitive subject. Now that these journalists are covering the issue, it will increase public awareness and support for family planning projects conducted by international and Afghan's public health organizations.
Go to: www.internews.org/news/2005/20050927_afghan.html

21. Africa Source II - Free and Open Source Software for Local Communities
Tactical Technology Collective is accepting applications for its Africa Source II workshop, which is scheduled to take place on January 8-11 2006. This eight-day hands-on workshop aims to build the technical skills of those working with NGOs on the continent. This workshop will bring together more than 100 NGOs and NGO technology support professionals working at the local level across the region, together with a handful of field leaders from Africa, Europe, North America and Asia. Africa Source II is a free and open source software (FOSS) event. Its primary go is to increase the practical use of FOSS desktop applications and tools among those in the nonprofit sector in Africa. Individuals who have a history of work with service and advocacy NGOs, educational organizations, NGO resource centers, community centers and health information organizations are encouraged to apply. The deadline for applications is October 15, 2005.
Go to www.tacticaltech.org/

22. Afghan Radio Service Provides Live Coverage of Elections
In Kabul, Afghanistan, a ground breaking broadcast, Salaam Watandar ("Hello Citizen"), an Internews-supported national news and current affairs radio service in Afghanistan, produced 16 hours of live coverage during the parliamentary elections on September 18, the first legislative elections in Afghanistan since 1969. Part of the broadcast included a two-hour evening program titled "Why did you vote? Why didn't you vote?" "Salaam Watandar" phones were jammed as dozens of listeners called in to respond.
Go to: www.internews.org/news/2005/20050923_afghan.html

LEGISLATIVE DEVELOPMENT AND ASSISTANCE

23. CPDI-Pakistan Demands Their Right to Know on "International Right to Know Day"
Center for Peace and Development Initiative, Pakistan (CPDI Pakistan) has called upon the government of Pakistan to strengthen freedom of information legislation with the aim of promoting transparency and citizens' governance. They made this demand on September 28, 2005, which is celebrated internationally as the "Right to Know Day." Specifically, the CPDI-Pakistan wants the FOI (Freedom of Information) Ordinance of 2002 amended so that exemptions are minimum and precisely defined; government departments have an obligation to publish important information; requested information is made accessible rapidly and fairly; the cost of information requests is small and affordable; information is provided if the public interest in disclosure outweighs the protected interests; laws that are inconsistent with FOI, like the Official Secrets Act 1923, are repealed; and individuals who release information on wrongdoing -whistleblowers- are protected. In addition, organization requested that the scope of the Ordinance should be extended to include provincial and district government and that, in special circumstances, the designated officials should be obliged to provide the requested information as soon as possible, without waiting the 21 days as prescribed in the FOI Ordinance 2002.
For more information, go to: www.cpdi-pakistan.org

POLITICAL AND CIVIC PARTICIPATION OF YOUTH

24. Youth Movement for Democracy Launches Web Site
The Youth Movement for Democracy was founded at the Third Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy (Durban, South African, 2004) by young democracy and human rights activists who decided to create a global community that works non-violently for democracy. The Youth Movement serves as a platform for young activists to address the importance of promoting democratic values, a forum for sharing information and ideas, and an action-oriented solidarity movement. The Web site, recently established, provides information about the movement and how to join it, lists relevant resources, and provides access to an online discussion.
Go to: http://ymd.youthlink.org/ymd/.

25. Call for Collaboration: Georgian Youth Organization Fights Discrimination and Intolerance
The "Century 21," a Georgian youth NGO, has launched a campaign for tolerance that is being implemented by young people representing different ethnic, religious, cultural and social backgrounds. As part of this campaign, the organization established a Youth Network against Discrimination and Intolerance (YNADI) in nine regions of Georgia with active participation of local youth from diverse minority groups. The Network aims to strengthen the capacity of young people to advocate for and to implement violence prevention programs; to promote dialogue and provide a platform for intercultural, inter-religious, interethnic learning, understanding, and cooperation; to motivate young people to engage in awareness-raising activities on tolerance; to work on changing attitudes and behaviors that perpetuate violence; to learn from best experiences and examples of tolerance and peaceful coexistence in Georgia and worldwide; to develop new and creative solutions in tolerance promotion; and to encourage activism and participation among young people in the regions, especially those from religious and ethnic minority groups. "Century 21" and the Youth Network against Discrimination and Intolerance are interested in information and experience exchange and cooperation with other organizations worldwide working on similar issues.
If you are interested in cooperation with YNADI, write to: office@century21.ge
For more information on "Century 21," go to: www.century21.ge

26. Panel discussion on Youth as Catalyst for Peace
The Academy for Educational Development, Center for Civil Society and Governance, will be hosting a panel discussion entitled Youth as a Catalyst for Peace: Helping Youth Develop the Vision, Skills, and Behaviors to Promote Peace, on Monday, November 21, 2005. Development professionals and young people will discuss specific programming methodologies that are facilitating youth involvement in peace building. RSVPs are required.
For further information, please contact Lisa Peterson at (202)884-8680 or lpeterson@aed.org.

POLITICAL PARTIES AND POLITICAL LEADERSHIP

27. Congress of Democrats from the Islamic World
On September 13, 2005, political party representatives from predominantly Muslim countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East with practical experience in democratic governance gathered in Jakarta, Indonesia, to discuss their personal experiences with democratic governance, and address the challenges to democratic reform. The conference agenda covered a wide range of issues related to recent electoral developments in the region and the major policy issues the parties are facing. The discussions focused on the situations in Indonesia and Malaysia, both being Muslim-majority countries. Four women-delegates presented their experiences as MPs in male-dominated parliaments, or as candidates for representative positions. This was a follow-up conference to a meeting that took place a year ago in Istanbul, sponsored by the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy. Participants in that meeting exchanged ideas and experiences on the position and role of Islam in democratic systems and agreed that international multiparty meetings around this issue provide space for extremely relevant discussions.
Go to: www.nimd.org/default.aspx?menuid=0&type=newsitem&contentid=267&special=

RESEARCH

28. Asia Democracy Index Report 2005 Launched
The Asia Democracy Index (ADI) was launched on September 17 at the World Forum for Democratization for Asia (WFDA) biannual conference in Taipei, Taiwan (see item #17). The ADI is the first such measurement tool of its kind in the region. It measures and evaluates democracy, good governance, and the status of human rights among Asian governments. The unique feature of the ADI is that Asians themselves had assessed, evaluated, and also recommended prescriptions for democratic reforms to take place in their own countries. The ADI provides overall rankings for 16 countries in the region. Detailed survey methodology was used to assess the countries in six different categories: Civil Rights, Elections and Electoral Processes, Governance and Corruption, Media, Rule of Law and Participation and Representation.
Go to: http://www.asiademocracy.org/content_view.php?section_id=11&content_id=567

29. Second Annual Washington Workshop for Think Tank Managers
The International Forum for Democratic Studies in conjunction with the Network of Democracy Research Institutes (NDRI) held the second Workshop for Think Tank Managers on September 19-23, 2005. Twelve international participants of the workshop had an opportunity to meet with people who run outreach programs, supervise conferences, raise funds, and interact with government officials and the media. The Network of Democracy Research Institutes is composed of research institutions, university-based study centers, and research programs affiliated with political parties, labor unions, and democracy and human rights movements. Affiliated with the World Movement for Democracy, the Network was established to facilitate contacts among democracy scholars and activists and to promote greater awareness of the diversity and vitality of democracy studies today.
Go to: www.wmd.org/ndri/ndri.html

WOMEN'S ISSUES

30. Nigeria NGO-CEDAW Coalition Comments on the Millennium Development Goals
The Nigerian NGO-CEDAW Coalition, coordinated by BAOBOB for Women's Human Rights, wrote a short commentary/review on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) prior to the UN Millennium Summit Review. The commentary expresses the belief that the focus on terrorism has deterred actions on other human rights issues. The Coalition's review was done in view of the fact that Goal 3 of the MDGs calls for empowering women and promoting gender equality, specifically setting targets to eliminate gender disparity in all levels of education by 2015, with additional indicators on employment of women and the proportion of women in parliaments. The Coalition believes that gender equality is an essential crosscutting component for meeting all the goals. In this regard, the Coalition reinforced the need for the Nigerian government to integrate the provisions of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) as well as the outcome of the BPFA review (Beijing +10) and the provisions of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) within the agenda for the achievement and realization of the MDGs in Nigeria.
Go to: www.baobabwomen.org/news.htm

31. The United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women Hosts Dialogue on Combating Violence Against Women
Beginning on September 26, 2005, the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women is held a three-week online discussion on how to galvanize action to combat violence against women. The discussion is intended to provide a forum for activists, advocates, and others around the world who are working on this issues.
Go to: www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/vaw/
Go to: www.un.org/womenwatch/asp/forms/forum-register-daw.asp?RecName=Galvanizing%20action%20to%20combat%20violence%20against%20women&RecAddr=reviewforum-register

32. Women's Learning Partnership Holds Central Asia Regional Learning Institute
Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP), together with its Uzbek partner, the Tashkent Women's Resource Center (TWRC), convened a Central Asia Regional Learning Institute for Women's Leadership on August 24-27, 2005 in Shymkent, Kazakhstan. NGO leaders, journalists, and human rights activists from five countries - Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - participated in the Institute. The Institute brought participants together to create a regional network of women's rights advocates working to advance women in leadership and decision-making positions. The Institute created a space for participants to form new partnerships, exchange best practices, and empower one another through sharing challenges and discussing their personal and organizational goals. The Institute consisted of a week-long intensive skills development program in participatory leadership, persuasive communication, and effective advocacy.
Go to: www.learningpartnership.org
For more information on SWAN go to: http://www.shanwomen.org/

33. WORLD MOVEMENT PARTICIPATING NETWORKS, ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS MENTIONED IN THIS ISSUE

* African Democracy Forum (ADF) - www.africandemocracyforum.org
* BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights - www.baobabwomen.org
* Center for Democratic Institutions (CDI) - www.cdi.anu.edu.au/
* Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) - www.cipe.org
* CIVICUS (World Alliance for Citizen Participation) - www.civicus.org
* Democracy Coalition Project - www.demcoalition.org
* Egyptian Democracy Support Network (EDSN) - www.eicds.org
* Global Rights - www.globalrights.org
* Humanitarian Law Center(HLC) - www.hlc.org.yu
* Human Rights in China (HRIC) - www.hrichina.org
* Human Rights House Foundation(HRH) - www.humanrightshouse.org
* Institute for Civic Diplomacy/Pontis Foundation - www.pontisfoundation.sk/en/
* Internews - www.internews.org
* National Endowment for Democracy (NED) - www.ned.org
* Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy - www.nimd.org/
* Network of Democracy Research Institutes (NDRI) - www.wmd.org/ndri/ndri.html
* New Tactics in Human Rights- www.newtactics.org
* Partners of the Americas -www.partners.net
* Women's Learning Partnership (WLP) - www.learningpartnership.org
* World Forum for Democratization in Asia - www.wfda.net
* Youth Movement for Democracy - www.wmd.org/youth/youth.html

******************************************************************

To subscribe send an email to subscribe-democracynews@lyris.ned.org.

If you do not have access to the Web and would like to access the materials mentioned above, please contact us by e-mail(world@ned.org)or fax (202-293-0755).

DemocracyNews is an electronic mailing list moderated by the National Endowment for Democracy as the Secretariat of the World Movement for Democracy.
The material presented in DemocracyNews is intended for information purposes only.
The WMD's DemocracyNews
Electronic Newsletter of the World Movement for Democracy - www.wmd.org

Dear Friends,

2005 Theme - “Advancing a Peace Education Strategy: What Is Needed To Support and Help Peace Educators In All Walks Of Life”

The web site for the National Peace Education conference has now been updated at http://www.peace.ca/CanadianAgenda2005.htm. Please take a look, and I hope you can join us. This major event has five parts:

1. Second Annual Leadership and Peace Workshop, as an optional item November 21 - 23 preceding the National PE Conference

2. Youth Day Thursday November 24 (primarily Grade 6 to 12) (facilitated by
Open Space coordinator Leslie Higgins higgins@hwcn.org )

3. ‘Best Cases/Practices’ in peace education Friday Nov 25 (we are in the
process of lining up a lot of very interesting presenters)

4. The main part of the Peace Education Conference Saturday Nov 26 ­ Sunday
Nov 27, utilizing a World Café type format.

5. A ‘Trade Fair’ to display and disseminate information about peace
programs.

I would also like to arrange for a meeting of the Canadian Culture of Peace
Program working group and anyone interested in participating in CCOPP, in
conjunction with the Hamilton Peace Education Conference. This will help to
plan our Second Canadian Culture of Peace Program Symposium for March 2006, among other things. The Canadian Peace Education Strategy and Conference is
a significant part of the Canadian Culture of Peace Program.

Your consideration and suggestions would be appreciated:
1. on topics for the http://www.peace.ca/worldcafe2005.htm ‘World Cafés’, with the Theme “Advancing a Peace Education Strategy: What Is Needed To Support and Help Peace Educators In All Walks Of Life” in mind,
2. presentations for ‘Best Cases/Practices’ in peace education Friday
Nov 25
3. on any of the above plans for the Conference
4. and please forward this Invitation to anyone that you think might be
interested in participating (University/College faculty and students, school
teachers and students, NGOs, governmental organizations, business, religious
and cultural organizations, parents and other current and potential peace
educators)

I hope you will plan on joining us in Hamilton for this important
Conference. I would particularly like to extend the invitation to Canadian
Universities and Colleges that have peace studies and education programs
that will be of interest to participants. This is an excellent forum to
showcase your programs, build your networks, and learn important new things
that will benefit you and your organization.

You can get more information from me or Rob Porter porterrg@mcmaster.ca who is helping to facilitate the conference locally at McMaster University in
Hamilton.

Regards,
Bob Stewart
http://www.peace.ca

ANNUAL PEACE EDUCATION CONFERENCE IN CANADA
http://www.peace.ca/CanadianAgenda2005.htm

"The world is dangerous not because of those who do harm, but because of
those who look at it without doing anything." - Albert Einstein

WHAT FUTURE WILL YOU CREATE? - The Canadian Peace Initiative (“CPI”) is a
process to simply provide the venues, support and guidance to ‘Open Space to
Open Minds to Peace’. The CPI process is open, transparent, patient and
committed, drawing people from all walks of life, freeing them from their
stasis and mobilizing them. All members of the Culture of Peace movement
have to be leaders in their own right, drawing on their own potential and
inner strengths, galvanizing, inspiring and energizing the peace movement.
Everyone is a peace leader and peace educator. Every day we must take
ownership of ourselves and our relationships: we can do anything we set our
minds and hearts to; we do no harm, expect and demand no harm be done to us
or others; no one is better than another; we are critical thinkers, finding
our own truths; education is our best investment and information our most
important resource. Building a healthy culture is about building healthy
relationships ­ we can do that. As we take ownership of peace others will
follow ­ because it will be uplifting and empowering, it will be infectious,
and lead to sudden, massive, cultural change.
(As in all things peaceful, this enlightening statement is the result of
many contributors and supporters. The CPI process has led to the Canadian Culture of Peace Program.

Making an Impact: Your gift to the Canadian Peace Education Foundation will
do much to reduce the human cost of violence in our communities and world
through education about peace and the future in classrooms. Your gift will
have a critical impact on future generations. You will enable youngsters to
widen their sights by exploring alternate paths to transforming conflicts
and building a better world. Gifts of cash, securities, and planned gifts
are welcome and may be sent to the Canadian Peace Education Foundation, Box
70, Okotoks, AB, Canada, T1S 1A4. For more information, visit the website
at http://www.peace.ca/foundation.htm

Le Centre Panafricain de Prospective Sociale (CPPS) a l’honneur de vous inviter à la présentation et au lancement du site internet à vocation pédagogique www.tevoedjre.com le vendredi 14 octobre 2005 à 10 heures dans le cadre d’une vidéo conférence régionale au siège du Centre d’Education à Distance du BENIN situé à l’Ecole Nationale d’Economie Appliquée et de Management (ENEAM ex INE) à Cotonou.

Rendez-vous donc Vendredi 14 octobre dans les salons du CED au 4ème étage de l’ENEAM dès 10 heures pour de fructueux échanges avec le Professeur Albert TEVOEDJRE (R.S.V.P : CPPS – BP 1501 Porto-Novo, Tél : 20 21 44 36).

Le site internet www.tevoedjre.com a pour objectif d’encourager la confection de bibliothèques virtuelles ou de ‘‘mémoires vivantes’’ permettant de rassembler la somme d’expériences de personnalités ayant joué un rôle de premier plan dans l’évolution des sociétés africaines.

Sur ce site dont l’ambition est de proposer ‘‘Une Vision pour l’Afrique ’’ on pourra découvrir des informations biographiques, des notes, articles et ouvrages publiés depuis 1958 et ayant retenu l’attention de l’opinion.

Le site organisera périodiquement des dialogues sur des thèmes souhaités par ses correspondants ou sur les informations qui font l’actualité.

Il accueillera des invités pour animer discussions et débats et il construira des liens actifs avec d’autres sites d’institutions ou de personnalités ayant des préoccupations similaires.

Please read about the APA Congressional Fellowship Program at http://www.apa.org/ppo/fellows.

The PENS (Psychological Ethics and National Security) Task Force has
issued its Final Report as well as a Call for Questions and Comments.
Both can be downloaded from the Society for the Study of Peace,
Conflict, and Violence's webpage. Go to http://www.peacepsych.org and
the report is listed on the right hand side of the page under
Announcements. It is under the heading of APA Presidential Task Force on
Psychological Ethics and National Security.

SECOND CALL FOR PROPOSALS GENDER AND PEACE COMMISSION OF IPRA

June 29 – July 3 2006, Calgary, Canada thrd The Gender and Peace Commission of IPRA invites proposals for papers, panels and workshops during IPRA International Conference to be held 29 June - 3 July 2006 in Calgary, Canada. The Conference will include keynote presentations, plenary sessions, commission programs and other relevant activities. thrd [Please note the change from the dates in the First Call for Proposals (posted out April 2005) to the adjusted Conference Dates.] The overall conference theme is ‘Patterns of Conflict: Pathways to Peace.’

Consistent with the overall conference theme for the 2006 IPRA Conference, the Gender and Commission will focus on issues of conflict and initiatives towards peace building around the following areas:
1. Strategies for addressing challenges of gender-based violence
2. Gender Equity and Social Justice through Education.
3. Gender and Peace Building. 4. Gender issues and Health.
5. Youth Against gender-based violence and For Celebration of Diversity, Social Justice, Peace and Sustainability.
6. Integrating Gender, Peace and Development considerations at all levels of policy development and capacity building.
7. Addressing tensions and building respect for diversity and human rights through gender justice and community development.
8. Developing and strengthening the Education Sectors’ facility to design, facilitate and promote educational programs and activities that take into account issues of female/male relations, social justice, peace building and sustainability. 10. Establishing and strengthening structures and processes for promoting women and girls’ human rights, as well as ensuring and sustaining accountability for gender justice.
11. Translating gains made through research and education for gender, social justice, peace and development to practical outcomes. Other proposals relating to the overall Conference theme and to Gender issues, Conflict, Peace and Development, will be considered.

CRITICAL DATES
1st December 2005 Last date for submitting / receiving all proposals for the Gender and Peace Commission. (Please see note ‘Submitting proposal/abstract’. Proposals will be reviewed progressively, i.e. as received.) 23rd December 2005 Last date for proving feedback on accepted proposals for the Gender and Peace Commission 10th February 2006 Draft Papers due for submission 25th March 2006 Completed Papers due for submission 29th April 2006 Program for Gender and Peace Commission finalized. Email notifications of date and time for presentations to be sent to Presenters 29th June 2006 Conference commences 3rd July 2006 Conference ends DETAILS REQUIRED

FOR ALL ABSTRACTS/PROPOSALS
All abstracts/proposals for presentation at the Gender and Peace Commission should include the following: 1. Title for the proposed presentation. 2. Presenter/s details: * Family and Given Names for authors or co-authors, panel members or workshop presenters * Title (Prof/Dr/Ms/Mr/etc.) * Name of Presenter/s’ institutions * Addresses, city/town and country, telephone and fax numbers. 3. Email addresses for all presenters (Please note: it is essential to keep the email address up-to-date as we shall use email communication for the Gender and Peace Commission preparations for the Conference.) 4. Abstract for each paper presentation. Your abstract (not to exceed 200 words) should clearly and succinctly outline the objectives/purpose, key points and structure of your proposed presentation. 5. Type of presentation: * Individual paper (name of author and institution or co-authors and their institutions). * Students' work in progress (name of author and institution or co-authors and their institutions). * Panel (names of all panellists, title of each presentation and institution details). * Workshop (names of all presenters, title of each presentation and institution details). 6. Equipment requests for your proposed presentation List any technical equipment required for the proposed presentation: * MS PowerPoint [data projector] * VCR (replay videos) * Audio tape recorder / player * OHP * 35mm slide projector * Other (please specify) Proposers are requested to indicate equipment requests at the time of lodging their abstracts / proposals. It may be difficult / not possible to meet requests for equipment made last minute at the Conference.

SUBMITTING ABSTRACTS/PROPOSALS
As noted in the First Call for Proposals (April 2005), to submit proposal for this Commission, one of the options is to email abstracts/proposals for presentation to the Gender and Peace Commission. Now there is also the option to use the online facility at IPRA Secretariat. Using one of these two options, proposals for the Gender and Peace Commission can be submitted as follows: * Online submission by choosing and completing the appropriate form at the following URL: http://www.ipraweb.orgOR * By submitting your proposal to the Gender and Peace Commission on this email address: gender_peace@go.com
For Proposals submitted to Gender and Peace Commission using the email address above, please note the following: 1. Submit your proposal/abstract in the body of your email. Please do not use email attachments to submit your abstract/proposal as this will slow processing. The Committee will review all proposals and information is passed around the committee by email. 2. Only one proposal per message. When proposing a panel or workshop, enter multiple abstracts and all details required for individual papers with the panel or workshop. 3. Use separate email message for each proposal you are making. 4. Submit all proposals by the due date or earlier.

Processing will be done progressively as proposals are received. Inquiries can be directed to: Susan Nandutu Convenor, Gender and Peace Commission and Director, Women For Peace and Development in Africa Program PO Box 22410, Kampala Uganda Email: susann2000@hotmail.com

ABOUT THE GENDER AND PEACE COMMISSION OF IPRA
The Gender and Peace Commission (previously the Women and Peace Commission) is one of the longest established Commissions of IPRA with Members in all Continents. During the 2000 IPRA International Conference held in Finland, the Gender and Peace Commission replaced the Women and Peace Commission. This change was made in recognition that women and men, girls and boys all need to be active participants in developing and implementing effective strategies to end gender-based violence, promote social justice, peace and sustainable development. For the IPRA International Conferences held in Finland 2000, in South Korea 2002 and in Hungary 2004, the Gender and Peace Commission had eight (8) successful sessions for each of these conferences. At the same time, the Gender and Peace Commission organized two (2) plenary sessions for the 2004 IPRA Conference in Hungary, one (1) plenary session for the 2002 IPRA Conference in South Korea, and one (1) plenary session for the 2000 IPRA Conference in Finland. We look forward to a very successful Gender and Peace Commission during the 2006 IPRA International Conference in Alberta Canada. We invite you to join us to develop and further strengthen strategies for ending gender-based violence, and promoting social justice in a world free from violence. Susan Nandutu Convenor, Gender and Peace Commission of IPRA and Director, Women For Peace and Development in Africa Program PO Box 22410, Kampala Uganda Email: susann2000@hotmail.com

Dear HumanDHS Friends,

Nandita Dinesh, a Wellesley College senior working for us at the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute, is very involved with an effort to bring attention to the plight of children in Northern Uganda. I thought you would be interested in hearing about an upcoming global event to raise awareness about lives of these children.
Warmest wishes to all,
Linda Hartling

GULUWALK
On October 22nd 2005
Take a walk on the child’s side

Every night, as many as 40,000 children, some as young as five years old, walk for hours from their rural villages into major urban centers so that they can sleep in relative safety……………

This is a war being fought by and against children…………

GuluWalk Day is for the children of Northern Uganda.

GuluWalk 2005
www.guluwalk.com
Nandita Dinesh: ndinesh@wellesley.edu (Boston, MA)

Before anything else, GuluWalk Day is for the children of Northern Uganda.

The original GuluWalk, which lasted for 31 days, saw Adrian Bradbury and Kieran Hayward conduct their own ‘night commute’ in Toronto, Canada. Every night in July they walked 12.5 km into downtown Toronto to sleep in front of city hall. After about fours hours sleep they made the trek home at sunrise, all while continuing to work full-time and attempting to maintain their usual daily routine. The GuluWalk could not possibly replicate the terror, fear and uncertainty of the real ‘night commuters’ who walk for their lives every single day. Adrian and Kieran walked to simply tell their story and draw attention to their plight.

This international event scheduled for Saturday, October 22, 2005, will, for one day, replicate the original GuluWalk, and will happen simultaneously in well over 25 cities worldwide. In each of the cities on GuluWalk Day the ‘GuluWalkers’ will walk approximately 10-kilometres into the city centre (route and locations to be determined with local organizers), with the walk starting approximately 60 minutes prior to sunset (i.e. about 5 p.m. in North America).

The objectives of GuluWalk day include the following:
-- To organize, support and execute a mass GuluWalk Day in over 25 cities around the world and provide an opportunity for ‘action’ for everyone globally.
-- Obtain signatures of support from every walker, as well as online, that can be presented to local and national governments, as well as the United Nation’s Security Council, to show that peace in northern Uganda is indeed a priority worldwide.
-- Further raise media awareness in Canada, the U.S. and internationally about the complex, longstanding humanitarian crisis in northern Uganda by telling the story of the ‘night commuters’ through the walk and walk related events.
-- Get northern Uganda as a priority for the United Nation’s Security Council. And, secure Canadian government commitment to take a leadership role internationally to work with the International Criminal Court, governments, international organizations and the United Nations to table recommendations and commitments towards resolving the conflict ands support for reintegration and rebuilding of Acholi society post conflict.
-- Raise funds through ‘walk pledges’ and donations for programs on the ground for children in northern Uganda.

But as noted earlier, more than anything, GuluWalk Day is a grassroots movement focused on showing support for the plight of the ‘night commuters’ of northern Uganda and lending a voice to these courageous kids.

This year, cities set to participate in GuluWalk Day on Saturday, October 22, 2005 include:

Canada - Calgary, AB; Edmonton, AB; Halifax, NS; Kitchener, ON; Montreal, QC; North Bay, ON; Ottawa, ON; St. John's, NF; Toronto, ON; Vancouver, BC; Winnipeg, MB

USA - Austin, TX; Boston, MA; Chapel Hill, NC; Denver, CO; Lawrence, KS; Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; Pittsburgh, PA; Rochester, NY; Seattle, WA; South Bend, IN; Syracuse, NY; San Diego, CA; Washington, DC

World - Beijing (China); Coventry (UK), Gulu (Uganda); Kampala (Uganda); London (UK); Stockholm (Sweden); Uzice (Serbia)

In Boston, the walk will begin at 5 pm and move through the Cambridge and Somerville areas and should last about 2 hours.

For more information on GuluWalk in general please visit www.guluwalk.com.
For details on GuluWalk: Boston, contact Nandita Dinesh at ndinesh@wellesley.edu

Call for Papers

Peace Education Commission
Calgary, Canada
June 29th - July 3rd, 2006

The Peace Education Commission (PEC) of the International Peace Research
Association (IPRA) invites submissions for the 2006 conference in Calgary,
Canada,

The theme of the conference is "Patterns of Conflict: Pathways to Peace".
We adapt this theme by seeking papers that identity/discuss issues within
educational contexts and propose alternative solutions/resolutions
creatively along pathways to peace. There are numerous conflicts and
contradictions that appear in educational policies and their
implementation, between theory and practice in the classroom, in the
beliefs held by various educational philosophies, theories, and program
ideologies and their appropriation in the praxis of educational
practitioners (teachers, administrators, counselors, professors, etc.),
and between educators intended aims and consequential outcomes of
schooling. We emphasis the importance in making transparent that which
appears obvious, taken-for-granted, or common sense and the underlying
conflicting agendas and interests that undermine affective educational
practice in building a culture of peace and justice within local,
national, international, and global communities.

PEC is also open to paper submissions that more generally cover the
broader theoretical, philosophical, practical and experimental aspects of
peace education. .

The deadline for receipt of proposal submissions is December 1st, 2005.
A second deadline for receipt of proposal submissions is February 1st for
any sessions that may be left unfilled. Submissions will undergo a peer
review process.

Please follow the IPRA website proposal entry procedures at
www.ipraweb.org for your submission, but make sure you include the
following in your proposals:
1. Identify whether you wish to present a paper, panel, workshop,
roundtable discussion or bulletin board display.
2. State the purpose of your presentation.
3. Provide a brief outline of your paper.
3. Outline the format and/organization of your presentation.
4. State your summary conclusions and/or major important points you
achieve.
5. What are your audio-visual needs?

If you have any questions, please send any inquiries to;
B. Jeannie Lum, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
University of Hawai'i, at Manoa
Matsunaga Institute for Peace
2424 Maile Way Saunders 717
Honolulu, HI 96822
email: jlum@hawaii.edu

Dear Friend!
Please see:

Club de Roma - Comunidad Valenciana
con la colaboración del Centro Cultural Islámico de Valencia (Valencia, 15 September 2005).

27th Annual Ethnography in Education

The submission deadline for the 27th Annual Ethnography in Education Research Forum is now only ten days away: OCTOBER 15, 2005.

The University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education and the Center for Urban Ethnography announce the 27th Annual Ethnography in Education Research Forum, to be held February 24th and February 25th, 2006 on the University of Pennslyvania campus. The Ethnography in Education Research Forum, the largest annual meeting of qualitative researchers in education, is currently accepting proposal submissions for individual papers and symposia that focus directly on issues of significance for the conduct and understanding of the processes of education. The submission DEADLINE is OCTOBER 15, 2005.

We encourage proposals of research in areas such as ethnography of education; research on everyday school practice; practictioner research; multicultural, critical and feminist studies of education; language and literacy in education; urban and international education; indigenous language revitalization; action research in education; and more.

Please find the call for papers on the forum's website http://www.gse.upenn.edu/cue/forum.php. Note that all proposals must be submitted online.

Center for Urban Ethnography
University of Pennsylvania
Graduate School of Education
3700 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6216
cue@gse.upenn.edu

ENTREVISTA

An interview with Professor Francisco Gomes de Matos

1- Como se tornou um lingüista aplicado?

Vários fatos contribuíram para isso: primeiro, minha ida a Ann Arbor, no outono estadunidense de 1955, participar, como bolsista, do International Teacher (of English) Development Program, na University of Michigan. Ali, "descobri" a Lingüística, através de aulas ministradas por um dos grandes pioneiros da Lingüística Descritiva do Inglês e precursor da Lingüística de Corpus: Charles C. Fries. Fui aluno-ouvinte da disciplina por ele ministrada: Introduction to Linguistic Science. Fui selecionado para ir a Michigan por causa de minha atuação como professor de inglês (ensinava no Centro Binacional local e em colégios, além de ter alunos particulares) e de ter concluído o Curso de Letras Anglo-Germânicas. Claro que minha proficiência em inglês ajudou muito também: eu aprendi inglês "de ouvido" em minha pré-adolescência, escutando pessoal militar americano, na Rua da Aurora (morávamos num casarão), onde havia o Silver Star, um bar freqüentado por falantes de inglês americano. Essa experiência de "learning by listening", na interação com militares (às vezes eu era convidado para ver filmes, sem legendas), me tornou (falante e ouvinte bilíngüe) e me animou a investir mais em meu conhecimento do idioma, principalmente através da leitura de revistas e da audição das emissoras de rádio internacionais que transmitiam em inglês, dentre as quais a Voice of America e a BBC. Saber falar inglês possibilitou minha obtenção, no Recife, de meu Certificate of Proficiency in English, pela Universidade de Michigan. Ter sido aluno de Fries me fez descobrir a Lingüística, mas foi no convívio com Robert Lado que percebi a importância da Lingüística Aplicada para o Ensino de Língua Inglesa. Aliás, nosso relacionamento foi tão bom que ele me perguntou se eu não gostaria de voltar e fazer um Mestrado. Esse sonho se concretizou em 1959, quando, de fato, regressei a Ann Arbor, na condição de meio-bolsista da Fulbright (custearam minha passagem aérea) e de "teaching-fellow" (na época, esse era o estágio inicial de uma carreira acadêmica), no English Language Institute da University of Michigan. No ELI, fiz de (quase) tudo um pouco: trabalhei na Testing and Certification Division, dei aulas de Pattern Practice a alunos estrangeiros e de Português a docentes do ELI que estavam interessados no Brasil, ajudei a fazer empacotamento da revista Language Learning, publicação pioneira na área da Lingüística Aplicada e na qual estreei como resenhador/reviewer em 1962, com a resenha do Book 1 da série didática English for Today (do National Council of Teachers of English: na época ainda não tinha sido criada a TESOL).

Para resumir, graças à dupla influência recebida de Fries (com quem aprendi a gostar de Lingüística) e de Robert Lado (com quem aprendi a gostar de Lingüística Aplicada) comecei a me imaginar "lingüista aplicado" com formação pós-graduada pela Universidade de Michigan. Devo dizer, entretanto, que foi em 1953, em um seminário para Professores de Inglês (no Recife), que tomei conhecimento da Lingüística e de suas possibilidades aplicativas. Uma de minhas primeiras leituras foi o manual Language Teaching, de Edwin Cornelius (posteriormente autor de séries para ensino de inglês), distribuído gratuitamente aos participantes do encontro. Posso dizer, então, que oficialmente, iniciei minha carreira como lingüista aplicado em 1961, após o Master of Arts degree in Linguistics, pela University of Michigan. Como ainda não havia ensino de Lingüística no Curso de Letras da UFPE, fui dar aulas de inglês na Escola de Geologia: fiz assim um pouco de "English for specific professional purposes" e ajudei futuros geólogos a lerem textos em sua maioria americanos. Só a partir de 1963 iniciei meu magistério universitário de Lingüística, na UFPE (Recife) e na UFPB (João Pessoa). Em minhas aulas, costumava vender o "peixe" das aplicações da ciência da linguagem, não só ao ensino de inglês como de português (materna e estrangeira). Essa atividade foi mantida até 1966, quando minha família se transferiu para São Paulo, mas isso é outra parte da história....

Se quisesse resumir, em poucas palavras, minha resposta à sua pergunta inicial, diria o seguinte: De professor de inglês e também de português como línguas estrangeiras, me tornei lingüista aplicado, profissão sustentável até hoje.

2- Como foi o início da Lingüística Aplicada no Brasil?

Pergunta de vasto alcance, que mereceria comentários extensos, minuciosos. Aliás, escrevi para a saudosa Revista Cultura Vozes, dois relatos cronológicos: 10 Anos de Lingüística Aplicada no Brasil (1966-1975) e Mais 10 Anos de Lingüística Aplicada no Brasil (1976-1985). O início pode ser entendido em dois sentidos: iniciativas precursoras de caráter pessoal e atividades institucionalizadoras. Assim, dizer como começou a LA no Brasil é, primeiro, reconhecer o pioneirismo de várias pessoas, dentre as quais Maria Antonieta Alba Celani, Augustinus Staub, Geraldo Cintra, Margot Levi Mattoso, Maria do Amparo Barbosa, John R. Schmitz (nos conhecemos no Primeiro Seminário Brasileiro de Orientação Lingüística para Professores, no Rio, em julho de 1965, quando aquele jovem lingüista aplicado americano resolveu fazer do Brasil sua nova pátria...), Ernest Garon...A.J.Hald Madsen...

Dos mencionados, Antonieta, Margot, Maria do Amparo também estudaram em Ann Arbor...Daí, percebe-se a influência da LA praticada em Michigan, na formação de alguns dos primeiros lingüistas aplicados no Brasil. Além dessa contribuição precursora pessoal dos citados, há o início institucionalizado da LA. Nesse caso, há dois acontecimentos que podem ser considerados marcos na história da referida área entre nós: a fundação do Centro de Lingüística Aplicada do Instituto de Idiomas Yázigi no dia primeiro de março de 1966, em São Paulo, por recomendação do PILEI - Programa Interamericano de Lingüística y Enseñanza de Idiomas, com apoio da Fundação Ford. Coube a mim, assumir a direção desse Centro, no qual permaneci até dezembro de 1979.

Vale registrar que, no CLA-Yázigi, contei com a inestimável colaboração de três lingüistas aplicados: Geraldo Cintra, Maria do Amparo Barbosa e Adair Palácio. Dentre as ações desse Centro, muito contribuíram para divulgar a LA seus Seminários Brasileiros de Lingüística, realizados em várias capitais do país. Através desses encontros, professores universitários e de primeiro e segundo graus tomavam conhecimento dos possíveis benefícios de aplicações da ciência da linguagem à problemática da educação lingüística. Vivia-se, então, a fase que na literatura da anglofonia, convencionou-se chamar de "Linguistics applied".

O segundo marco, nessa história inicial da LA, foi a surgimento do pioneiro Programa de Pós-Graduação LAEL - Lingüística Aplicada ao Ensino de Línguas - na PUC-SP, em 1969, no qual atuam alguns dos mais importantes lingüistas aplicados do Brasil, como Antonieta, Leila Barbara e você, Tony, para mencionar apenas três da valorosa equipe Laelense. Eu mesmo, graças à bondade divina, partilhei desse empreendimento acadêmico inovador, pois trabalhei como professor de tempo parcial na PUC-SP a partir de 1966. Fui duplamente privilegiado em minha experiência no LAEL: ali pude continuar a fazer LA, no ensino pós-graduado, e a receber orientação de Antonieta para meu doutoramento Puquiano em 1973, quando defendi tese sobre A influência de princípios da Lingüística em manuais para professores de inglês de 17 países. Dessa pesquisa resultou meu livro Lingüística Aplicada ao Ensino de Inglês, publicado pela McGraw-Hill/SP, em 1976. Esses dois acontecimentos foram estratégicos para o início oficial da Lingüística Aplicada no Brasil e graças a Deus e à minha estada em São Paulo, fui partícipe dessa fase de implantação oficial da LA no Brasil. Em suma, o início não-oficial ocorreu através da atuação de vários pioneiros, em suas instituições universitárias e não-acadêmicas; o início oficial da LA se deu através da criação do CLA-Yázigi e, três anos depois, do LAEL-PUC-SP. Lembro, a propósito de 1969, que em janeiro desse ano, fundou-se em São Paulo, a ABRALIN - Associação Brasileira de Lingüística que teve em seus primeiros associados, vários lingüistas aplicados (fui um dos co-fundadores), acolhendo-os efetiva e afetivamente, até a fundação, em1990, em Recife, da ALAB/Associação de Lingüística Aplicada do Brasil, da qual tenho orgulho de ser co-fundador.

3- Como foi seu estágio na Universidade de Michigan com Charles Fries e que impacto isso teve no seu retorno ao Brasil?

Creio já ter respondido essa pergunta, mas gostaria de acrescentar algo, para deixar maior clareza: em Ann Arbor, tive o privilégio de ser aluno-ouvinte de Fries, em 1955. Meu convívio com aquele grande precursor e com seu então "braço direito", Robert Lado, mudou o rumo de minha vida profissional: até chegar em Michigan e conhecer o trabalho pioneiro do English Language Institute, eu era professor de inglês. Depois da experiência na "yellow and blue" (como também é conhecida aquela universidade), passei a sonhar com uma profissão adicional: a de lingüista e, claro, professor de lingüística, o que, de fato veio a acontecer, após minha segunda experiência em Ann Arbor (1959-1960), como mestrando. Nessa segunda estada, acolhido pelo meu mentor-amigo Lado, tive o grande privilégio de estudar com Kenneth L. Pike, de trabalhar os problemas de Lingüística Descritiva no livro indispensável da época, de autoria de H.A.Gleason e de me inspirar, nas magistrais aulas de Lado, pioneiro em Lingüística Contrastiva Intercultural (seu Linguistics across Cultures, editado pela University of Michigan Press em 1957, só viria a ter uma tradução brasileira 14 anos depois: Introdução à Lingüística Aplicada, pela Editora Vozes). Assim, após Ann Arbor 1955, comecei a pensar em me dedicar mais intensamente à Lingüística, o que veio a acontecer 4 anos mais tarde, com a segunda ida àquela cidade universitária. Acrescento um fato pouco conhecido, mesmo de pessoas de minha geração: após o Mestrado em Ann Arbor, Lado me convidou para ir trabalhar com ele em Georgetown University (para onde ele tinha se transferido, como Dean da School of Languages and Linguistics). Cheguei a iniciar esse doutorado lá, mas tive que regressar ao Recife, para assumir a recém-criada disciplina de Lingüística (integrante do Currículo Mínimo de Letras) e me casar com minha ex-aluna de inglês, Helen Herta Bruning. Não tivessem ocorrido esses dois fatos, talvez eu tivesse ficado em Georgetown ...., mas a vontade de Deus foi outra. Ainda voltando a falar sobre Fries: seu pioneiríssimo livro Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language (University of Michigan Press, 1945) foi uma de minhas leituras prediletas antes da ida a Ann Arbor. Essa inspiradora obra ainda é incluída nas referências da LA atual.Um exemplo significativo disso: o precioso volume The Oxford Handbook of Applied Linguistics (2002), organizado pelo amigo Robert B. Kaplan.

4 - Conte um pouco sobre seus interesses atuais.

Dois novos interesses viriam a somar-se aos anteriores (Aplicação da Lingüística ao Ensino de Inglês e de Português): Direitos lingüísticos e Lingüística da Paz. Minhas primeiras incursões na área de Direitos Humanos Lingüísticos (para usar a terminologia da pesquisadora-mor nessa área, Tove Skuttnabb-Hangas) datam de 1984, quando, através da Revista de Cultura Vozes (No.l 2, março, 67-71), publiquei o artigo "Por uma Declaração dos Direitos Lingüísticos Individuais". No mês seguinte, a FIPLV (Federação Internacional de Professores de Línguas Vivas, fundada em 1931), publica meu breve apelo, em inglês, intitulado A Plea for a Language Rights Declaration, até onde se saiba, o primeiro no gênero, internacionalmente. Como explicar aquele novo interesse por Direitos Lingüísticos? Duas razões: minha formação também em Direito (conclui o curso na UFPE em 1958, após Letras na mesma universidade), uma predileção por Direito Internacional (quase fui indicado Instrutor de Ensino Superior nessa disciplina em 1959, mas a ida para Michigan interrompeu o que poderia ter sido uma carreira docente em Direito Internacional...) e visitas à UNESCO (Paris), com quem mantinha contatos, através de suas Divisão de Educação e Divisão de Direitos Humanos e da Paz (hoje, o termo Democracia aparece também na designação desse setor).

Esses fatores contribuíram para que eu me dedicasse aos Direitos e Deveres Lingüísticos, campo em grande desenvolvimento, cuja missão principal é obter o reconhecimento, pela ONU, da DUDL - Declaração Universal de Direitos Lingüísticos (www.linguistic-declaration.org). Aliás, foi graças, em parte, a meu supra-citado apelo de 1984 e ao texto da Declaração do Recife (1987 - aprovado no Seminário Internacional sobre Direitos Humanos e Direitos Culturais, co-patrocinado pela AIMAV-UNESCO e realizado na Faculdade de Direito da UFPE, sob minha coordenação) que se desencadeou o movimento em favor da DUDL. Como os Direitos Lingüísticos constituem um território vastíssimo, tenho concentrado minhas pesquisas em Direitos-Deveres Lingüísticos e Interculturais de Alunos e Professores de Línguas. Para ter-se uma idéia do que venho realizando, sugiro a leitura de meu capítulo Second language learners´ rights, no volume Portraits of the L2 User, organizado pelo colega britânico Vivian Cook, edição da Multilingual Matters, 2002.

Um segundo e crescente interesse atual tem a ver com uma área emergente: Lingüística da Paz (veja verbete Peace Linguistics, em Penguin Dictionary of Language, second edition, de David Crystal, 1999, pp. 254-255). Como despertei para essa Lingüística Aplicada à Paz (Applied Peace Linguistics)? Em 1977, ao preparar um Posfácio ao Dicionário de Lingüística e Gramática do saudoso amigo e mentor Joaquim Mattoso Camara Jr., decidi incluir uma verbete sobre Lingüística Humana/Humanística, no qual fiz duas perguntas: De que modo podem os falantes humanizar-se ainda mais linguisticamente? e De que modo professores, alunos e métodos de ensino podem ser mais humanizados? Esse foi o embriãozinho do que viria a tornar-se uma intensa atividade intelectual, interdisciplinar, da qual já resultaram dois livros: Pedagogia da Positividade. Comunicação construtiva em Português, pela Editora da UFPE, 1996 e Comunicar para o Bem. Rumo à Paz Comunicativa, pela Editora Ave Maria, São Paulo, 2002. Para acompanhar-se um pouco do que venho fazendo nesta segunda área de atuação, sugiro visitar-se o site da Revista Ave Maria: www.avemariainternet.com.br. Ali, mensalmente, aparece minha página sobre Comunicação positiva. Para uma visão inicial do que proponho nesses livros e em oficinas e palestras, aqui no Brasil e no exterior (principalmente nos Estados Unidos), esclareço que distingo entre o COMUNICAR BEM (de maneira clara, coerente, coesa, concisa, concreta, correta, criativa...) e o COMUNICAR PARA O BEM (de maneira construtiva, cordial, cortês, compassiva....). No Google estão disponibilizados dois textos meus: Pedagogy of Positiveness Applied to Diplomatic Communication e Communicative Peace (cunhei este termo em 1993, em um artigo publicado no Sociolinguistics Newsletter). Um de meus "laboratórios" para testagem da Lingüística Aplicada à Paz é o convívio/a interação com policiais militares e civis no Curso de Policiamento Comunitário, realizado no Centro de Ciências Sociais Aplicadas, na UFPE, desde a implantação dessa iniciativa, em 2001. Isso, para falar de dois de meus interesses atuais, porque a Terminologia também me atrai e, de vez em quando, faço nela incursões, principalmente nas áreas da Terminologia na Lingüística e na Literacia (Letramento, para usar o termo preferido no Brasil). Um exemplo: fui um dos Word List Reviewers da primeira edição do The Literacy Dictionary. The Vocabulary of Reading and Writing, International Reading Association, 1995 e, há pouco, aceitei convite para integrar o Conselho Consultivo Editorial que planeja a segunda edição daquele pioneiro dicionário.

5- Gostaria que você explicasse um pouco as razões dessa aproximação com a Lingüística de Corpus.

Bom, há várias razões, duas das quais bem precursoras de minha "simpatia pela Lingüística de Corpus":

1. Em 1955, durante a primeira vista à University of Michigan: tomei conhecimento do trabalho pioneiro de Fries na American English Grammar (1940), quanto à freqüência de uso de variantes gramaticais do inglês, como WILL x SHALL, CAN x MAY na comunicação epistolar de militares com seus familiares. Claro que isso me impressionou, na época, mas reconhecer a importância de trabalhar-se dados lingüísticos quantitativamente só iria ocorrer onze anos depois (1966) quando o saudoso Brasilianista James L.Wyatt (especialista em Análise Computacional), fez o levantamento do vocabulário usado no livro Modern Portuguese do qual sou co-autor, com Fred P.Ellison, Rachel de Queiroz e outros. Quando à edição-piloto seguiu-se a comercial (1971, pela Editora Knopf, New York), o correspondente Manual do Professor (Instructor´s Manual for Modern Portuguese) continha a listagem dos itens lexicais, com as respectivas freqüências de uso e distribuição nas unidades do livro. Esse pioneirismo do livro patrocinado pela Modern Language Association of America é pouco conhecido, entre os lingüistas aplicados. O trabalho de Jim Wyatt contribuiu muito para selecionar-se, com mais objetividade, as palavras a serem incluídas nos exercícios do livro. Esse tipo de pesquisa baseada em corpus me fez voltar a atenção para a dimensão quantitativa na descrição dos usos das línguas. Aquele pioneiro da Lingüística de Corpus Aplicada ao Ensino de Português a Falantes de Inglês me recomendou, em 1967, a leitura da recém-publicada Computational Analysis of Present-Day American English, de H.Kucera e W. N. Francis (editora da Brown University).

Depois desses dois pequenos impactos iniciais (nas décadas de 50 e 60), eu tornaria a reconhecer a relevância da Lingüística de Corpus, através de minhas consultas a duas gramáticas quantitativamente esclarecidas ("corpus-informed grammars"): A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (Randolph Quirk et alii, Longman,1985) e Collins Cobuild English Grammar (John Sinclair, HarperCollins,1990). Foi, entretanto, a partir da publicação da Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, de Douglas Biber et alii (1999) que eu comecei a me interessar de maneira sustentável pelos notáveis avanços na Lingüística de Corpus e a resenhar, para a Revista Brasileira de Lingüística Aplicada, o Workbook que acompanha a Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English (2002). Há dois anos venho trocando e-mails com Douglas Biber a respeito dessas criações pedagógicas, pois muito interesse tenho na busca de soluções para o problema de como apresentar, em sala de aula, dados quantitativos, oriundos de gramáticas baseadas em corpora. Vejo, nas contribuições da Lingüística de Corpus, um complemento importantíssimo à formação científica dos lingüistas aplicados e, por extensão, ao preparo mais objetivo de formadores de professores, professores e autores de material didáticos, para ensino de línguas.

6- Quais os debates, as controvérsias na Lingüística Aplicada atual você destacaria como importantes e relevantes?

Como acontece em todas as grandes áreas do saber/saber-fazer, a Lingüística Aplicada tem seus terrenos controversos, provocadores. Pensando bem, numa mega-área como essa, é muito natural que haja divergências, até mesmo quanto ao papel (social, político, ético, humanizador ...) dos lingüistas aplicados no mundo. Dentre as questões controversas, selecionaria a da necessidade de elaborar-se, desenvolver-se e implementar-se uma Lingüística Aplicada Crítica (Critical Applied Linguistics) que preencha, na LA, o espaço ocupado por exemplo pela Pedagogia Crítica, na Pedagogia. Em minhas leituras, percebo interpretações discordantes quanto à natureza, os objetivos, a metodologia dessa Lingüística Aplicada Crítica: assim, à perspectiva do inovador colega Alastair Pennycook, parece contrapor-se às percepções de outros eminentes e atuantes lingüistas aplicados como Alan Davies (as reflexões dele, em An Introduction to Applied Linguistics (Edinburgh University Press,1999, p.142) merecem discussão aprofundada) e Henry Widdowson. Acompanho um pouco do que vem realizando Alastair, através de seus livros instigantes e de e-mails trocados com freqüência, por isso vejo em suas propostas a intenção de cobrar dos que fazem LA uma participação mais efetiva em questões que eu prefiro chamar de humanizadoras. Alastair é um brilhante provocador e, como se costuma dizer na área de Criatividade, provocar é preciso, para produzir-se reflexões que levem a modos inovadores, transformadores da complexa realidade comunicativa em que os usuários interagem.

Outra questão, a meu ver, tem a ver com a pouca atenção dada, na Lingüística Aplicada, à própria História/Historiografia da área: venho "cobrando" isso da AILA – Associação Internacional de Lingüística Aplicada - pois não basta contribuir para o crescimento e diversificação da LA: urge documentar-se e divulgar-se o que vem sendo feito principalmente os sucessos, mas também os desafios e insucessos - na caminhada desde 1941, quando, através da fundação do English Language Institute da University of Michigan, começou-se a construir uma Tradição em Lingüística Aplicada e, mais intensamente, a partir de 1964, com a realização do primeiro Congresso Mundial da AILA em Nancy, França.

Com meu viés, em favor de uma Lingüística Aplicada à Paz, vejo a necessidade de repensar-se a formação de lingüistas aplicados, não apenas como interdisciplinaristas, mas como HUMANIZADORES, isto é, profissionais que, imbuídos dos ideais de dignidade, direitos humanos, justiça e paz, aplicam esses e outros valores humanos fundamentais em seu trabalho, em prol de pessoas, grupos, comunidades, nações e do mundo. Para isso, os Programas de Pós-Graduação em Lingüística Aplicada (há outras designações, segundo os contextos acadêmicos) tem um papel estratégico, decisivo.

Creio ter respondido à sua pergunta, com base em minha experiência pessoal e na frutífera convivência com colegas da LA aqui e no exterior, em eventos diversos e eletronicamente.

7-Que outras histórias, personagens, momentos gostaria de compartilhar com nossos leitores?

Várias coisas me ocorrem, no momento:
1- A importância de ter sido professor de línguas (inglês e português), para minha atuação (posterior) como lingüista aplicado.A vivência em sala de aula muitíssimo contribuiu para eu perceber, com mais realismo, o que da Lingüística poderia ser aplicado em benefício dos alunos, onde, quando, como e por quê. Esse convívio com alunos (até 1979, no caso de meu magistério de inglês e até hoje continuado, no caso do ensino de português a estrangeiros e a policiais pernambucanos) tem sido inspirador para meu trabalho, seja de Aplicações da Lingüística (como é caracterizada a primeira fase da história da área) ou de Lingüística Transdisciplinar ("Applied Linguistics", segundo alguns colegas da anglofonia que se ocupam um pouco do desenvolvimento da AL, dentre os quais Alan Davies, Robert B. Kaplan. Ser professor de língua e lingüista aplicado é uma combinação que, em meu caso, trouxe muitos benefícios ao crescimento rumo ao que hoje prefiro chamar de Lingüística Aplicada Humanizadora. Quem tiver esse mesmo duplo privilégio profissional - docência em línguas e atuação em lingüística aplicada - deve saber valorizar tal condição e assumir, com o maior comprometimento, seu DEVER DE HONRAR AS DUAS TRADIÇÕES, ambas importantíssimas: Ensinar Línguas e Atuar, comunitariamente, como lingüista aplicado.

2 - Participar de eventos diversos, de âmbito nacional, regional e internacional, em LA, muito contribuiu para meu desenvolvimento como lingüista aplicado, por isso, enfatizo a necessidade de os lingüistas aplicados emergentes se beneficiarem, o mais possível, desses encontros, como o Congresso da ALAB, o INPLA na PUC-SP e do Congresso Mundial da AILA. A propósito deste último, queria dizer que muito me orgulho de ver uma colega brasileira, Marilda Cavalcanti (UNICAMP), como Vice-Presidente da AILA, dando sustentabilidade a uma expressiva tradição iniciada por Hilário Bohn, que na gestão anterior daquela Associação foi também Vice-Presidente.

Hoje, graças à Internet, é possível comunicar-se com alguns dos mais atuantes lingüistas aplicados daqui e de outros países, por isso, lembro aos estudantes de Lingüística Aplicada que se empenhem em concretizar tais contatos, pois a interação virtual às vezes resulta em novos conhecimentos, perspectivas inimaginadas... Assim, os lingüistas aplicados neste início de século buscam relacionar-se mais e mais com colegas de áreas afins e mesmo aparentemente distantes, pois dessa navegação inter e transdisciplinar podem surgir idéias, projetos cooperativos de âmbito mais vasto e de alcance mais profundo. A contatos por e mail devo boa parte de minha atualização em áreas afins, como Psicologia da Resolução de Conflitos, Direitos Humanos, Literacia (Letramento), Psicologia da Paz, Lexicografia/Terminologia, Tradução, Comunicação Intercultural, Descrição de usos da língua portuguesa e da língua inglesa, Metodologia do Ensino de Línguas, Elaboração e Avaliação de Material Didático, e, por último, Criatividade, agora promissoramente ressurgindo entre os lingüistas aplicados, em parte devido a obras seminais como Language Play (David Crystal,1998) e Language and Creativity (Ronald Carter, 2004).

3- Você me pergunta se quero mencionar outros personagens, neste teatro fascinante da Lingüística Aplicada, mas para fazê-lo, precisaria montar um pequeno Quem é Quem, primeiro entre nós, no Brasil, onde esse campo continua a se desenvolver de maneira tão significativa e, em seguida, em outros países. Na verdade, essa parte da história da LA certamente está ou estará sendo escrita por leitores desta entrevista, por isso, a você, leitor(a), desejo uma humanizadora atuação e, acima de tudo, muita PAZ COMUNICATIVA.

Agradeço a você, Tony, por essa privilegiada oportunidade de conceder esta entrevista. Aproveito para dizer que sou acessável - razoavelmente acessível - no e-mail fcgm@hotlink.com.br

Minha experiência como lingüista aplicado muito deve ao convívio com colegas de vários países. Aliás, enfatizo aspecto do desenvolvimento profissional. Deus me possibilitou a oportunidade de estudar/conviver com lingüistas aplicados britânicos (com Halliday, em Indiana University, em 1964), franceses (Guy Capelle, também em Bloomington, Indiana), alemães (Gerhard Nickel, em congressos da AILA), húngaros (Gyorgy Szepe, em eventos da AILA), portugueses (Maria Emilia Ricardo Marques, em encontros da AILA), Leopoldo Wigdorsky (Chile - com quem sou co-autor de um capítulo sobre Ensino de Línguas na América Latina, publicado em 1968 no volume 4 de Trends in Ibero-American and Caribbbean Linguistics), Estados Unidos (Bob Kaplan, Andrew Cohen, Diane Larsen Freeman, William Grabe, Marianne Celce-Murcia), Inglaterra (David Crystal,Vivian Cook), Suíça (Eddy Roulet), Austrália (Wilga Rivers), Moçambique (Armando José Lopes), Espanha (Manuel Pérez Gutiérrez), a lista seria longa demais...

Em suma, um conselho: internacionalize o mais que puder suas relações com lingüistas aplicados: temos muito a aprender uns com os outros, aqui e alhures. Á medida que a LA se mundialize e as contribuições oriundas de todos os continentes sejam (re)conhecidas, estaremos construindo uma lingüística aplicada verdadeiramente planetária. Toda vez que consultar um volume que se identifique como "internacional", exerça seu senso crítico e pergunte: internacional até que ponto? Haverá omissões injustificáveis de tradições nacionais em LA? Por quê?

Postscript - Em que você está engajado, desde que forneceu a entrevista no LAEL/PUC SP?

Bom, primeiramente, em Criatividade no Ensino de Inglês, aliás, título de meu livro, publicado pela Editora DISAL, São Paulo, em dezembro de 2004, com Apresentação de Antonieta Celani e 5 Epígrafes escritas especialmente para o volume, dentre as quais duas por eminentes lingüistas: David Crystal e Ronald Carter. Graças ao livro, tenho feito palestras e dado workshops (exemplo: na ACBEU, Salvador e na ABA-Associação Brasil América de Recife, da qual sou co-fundador e atual Presidente do Conselho).

Outra área a que também estou me dedicando intensamente: a de Applied Peace Linguistics. Para mostrar como lingüistas aplicados podem atuar em favor da paz, estou escrevendo poemas-apelo (poems-pleas) para inclusão em um livro que possivelmente se chamará Professions for Peace. Alguns desses textos estão disponíveis no site www.humiliationstudies.org (busque-se minha seção, Peace Linguistics). Outra atividade recentíssima: escrevi um capítulo sobre Language, Peace, and Conflict Resolution para a segunda edição do Handbook of Conflict Resolution, a sair pela editora Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. Ali, faço uma síntese de 3 abordagens americanas (centradas em comunicação) e acrescento a minha (Comunicação construtiva). Mostro como a lingüística aplicada à paz pode contribuir para estudos interdisciplinares sobre resolução de conflitos, ao lado da Psicologia da Paz e da mais recente Psicologia Positiva.
Depois que fui aposentado, pela UFPE, tenho publicado mais, principalmente na DELTA, da qual me orgulho de ser membro do Conselho Editorial. Alí, continuo a partilhar minhas Notas sobre livros importantes, daqui e do exterior. Na UFPE, acabo de ter uma experiência memorável, como organizador de um volume intitulado Vozes da UFPE -Discursos - que reúne textos da fase inicial do Reitorado Amaro Henrique Pessoa Lins e Gilson Edmar Gonçalves e Silva. Esse volume, talvez pioneiro no gênero entre nós, foi publicado pela Editora da UFPE, cuja diretora é Gilda Maria Lins de Araújo, ex-discípula da saudosa Madre Olívia.

Bom, acho que isso dá uma idéia de meus engajamentos e comprometimentos. Na ABA tenho um laboratório muito propício para outras aplicações humanizadoras, mas isso já seria outra história ....

- E sua atuação no Ensino de Línguas em geral, como vai?

Continua firme e forte. Um exemplo: acabo de escrever um artigo sobre uma problemática pouquíssimo (ou ainda não...) pesquisada no Ensino de Línguas: o Marketing. Título do texto: How are languages marketed? A Checklist. A sair em novembro no boletim FIPLV World News.Trata-se de uma listagem de itens, critérios, fatores, etc. que podem ajudar pesquisadores da área a analisarem como e por que se está fazendo o marketing das línguas. Fala-se muito em contato, difusão, mistura, escolha de línguas, mas a dimensão mercadológica ainda não recebeu um tratamento sistemático, quer intra ou interculturalmente, por isso, achei que estava na hora de fazer esse apelo internacional. Graças a isso, a revista Current Issues in Language Planning (dirigida pelo lingüista aplicado Robert B.Kaplan e publicada pela editora britânica Multilingual Matters) deverá dedicar um de seus próximos números à questão The Marketing of Languages in the Perspective of Language Planning.

Outros exemplos de minhas relações internacionais: deverei colaborar – terminologicamente - na revisão do The Literacy Dictionary, da International Reading Association e, bem recente, aceitei convite da Hague Appeal for Peace para integrar seu International Advisory Board referente à sua campanha mundial pela Paz. Como vê, são várias ações, que refletem meus engajamentos diversos... Assim, continuo sendo LEAL aos princípios e valores que aprendi a cultivar aqui no Recife, aí em São Paulo (no LAEL, onde tive o privilégio de ensinar), e alhures.

Muita PAZ COMUNICATIVA para os leitores deste Boletim!

Francisco Gomes de Matos kindly wrote to us on Mon, 3 Oct 2005:

VIOLêNCIA COMUNICATIVA: uma lista para auto-avaliação.

Francisco Gomes de Matos, Comissão de Direitos Humanos Dom Helder
Câmara, CAC/UFPE, Recife

Dentre os conceitos-chave referentes à espécie humana, a violência ocupa um dos lugares primaciais. Por isso, no sistema educacional de muitos países há grupos de estudos voltados para os diversos tipos de violência, segundo a classificação tradicional: violência “direta”(concreta, cometida em/por alguém ) e violência “estrutural” (muitas vezes imperceptível, institucionalizada). Um exemplo de realização: no Centro de Ciências da Saúde, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, há um Núcleo de Saúde Pública e Desenvolvimento Social, onde, por iniciativa do médico-escritor Geraldo Pereira, funciona o Fórum Acadêmico, ”Pensando a Violência”, coordenado pela Dra. Ronice Franco de Sá. A 32 a reunião (27/09/2005) teve como palestrante Dr João Braga, Seacretário de Defesa Social do Estado de Pernambuco.

Violência e Pai Nosso

Um complexo processo desumano/desumanizador, a violência tem múltiplas manifestações, dele ocupando-se profissionais de muitas áreas, dentre as quais Psicologia, Antropologia, Sociologia, Criminologia, Relações Humanas, Comunicação, Lingüística e Análise do Discurso.

Em seminários e oficinas pedagógicas sobre Paz Comunicativa, costumo desafiar os participantes a identificarem acontecimentos violentos (que substantivos; usamos para representá-los em português); em seguida, peço que explicitem ações violentas(quais alguns dos verbos correspondentes). Após o intercâmbio das listas grupais, pergunto: que ações violentas têm a ver com a comunicação? Imediatamente ouço esta resposta:” muitos dos verbos mencionados” . . Assim, o grupão percebe que numa enumeração de “verbos violentos”, a maior parte se refere a atos comunicativos realizados através da língua falada ou escrita. Aproveito o momento e lembro uma das lições aprendidas no Pai Nosso: “perdoai nossas ofensas, assim como nós perdoamos a quem nos tem ofendido”. Como o verbo “ofender” geralmente aparece nas listas compiladas pelos participantes, engajo a turma numa discussão sobre a diferença entre “ofensa” e “ofensividade”. A propósito, no Dicionário UNESP do Português Contemporâneo, de Francisco S. Borba, publicado pela Editora UNESP edm 2004, no verbete sobre “ofensividade” encontrei esta frase exemplificativa: “Não acho que minhas palavras contivessem qualquer ofensividade” (p.985). O(a) leitor(a) certamente terá experimentado situações em que disse ou ouviu dizer “Não quis ofender”. Essa capacidade de perceber que palavras causar efeitos danosos nas pessoas surge bem cedo em nossa vida lingüística. Assim, crianças logo aprendem que palavras podem ser usadas para fazer o bem ou fazer o mal. Apesar da importância social, comunicativa desse tipo de aprendizagem, ainda não se encontra sistematizado para uso nos currículos escolares: mais um desafio para os que atuam em Educação para a Paz, Psicologia da Paz, Lingüística Aplicada à Paz. Onde encontrarmos informações sobre a possível ofensividade de palavras? Em Dicionários que adotem rótulos para identificação desses usos violentos. No dicionário Supracitado, por exemplo, encontramos os rótulos “chulo” e “depreciativo”. E se as palavras forem insultuosas, ofensivas, vulgares? Estarão devidamente rotuladas? Verifique isso em nossos dicionários e em obras publicadas no exterior. Nos encontros sobre Paz e Violência Comunicativas, partilho uma lista que pode ser usada para avaliação da ofensividade em língua portuguesa. No Quadro, o(a) leitor(a) encontrará, em ordem alfabética, uma relação de verbos que podem exprimir graus de violência comunicativa.

Ao ler cada verbo, pergunte-se : Já terei causado (ou sofrido) esse mal comunicativo? Como posso exercer controle sobre o lado desumanizador de meu vocabulário, principalmente quanto a verbos que representam ações violentas?

Se uma das prioridades na área de Segurança Humana é o controle e prevenção da Violência Física, aqui também se inclui o da violência através dos usos da linguagem falada, escrita, gestual.

A lista pode ter outras utilidades, além da auto-avaliativa ou preventiva:
pode ser comparada a outro tipo de enumeração, na qual seriam incluídos verbos que representam ações não-violentas, ou, como prefiro dizer, promotores da paz comunicativa. Quantos verbos pacíficos, construtivos integrarão nosso vocabulário, nossos modos de interagir com “o próximo”? ue os leitores ampliem a exemplificação (usem os verbos em contextos realistas) e refletiam sobre sua condição comunicativa atual e que pretende fazer para diminuir a ofensividade, reflexo da imensa falibilidade e fragilidade humanas. Que a paz comunicativa reine entre nós e que a violência na comunicação mereça a atenção de todas as pessoas co-responsáveis pela saúde comunicativa neste planeta.
________________________________________________________________

Violência Comunicativa: Lista de Verbos

Achincalhar, afrontar, agredir, ameaçar, amaldiçoar, antagonizar, arrazar (com alguém), aviltar

Assediar, assustar, atemorizar, aterrorizar

Bater boca (com alguém),...

Caluniar, chocar, crucificar,...

Denegrir, depreciar, desacatar, desconsiderar, descompor, desdenhar, desrespeitar, destratar, difamar, diminuir (alguém), discriminar, distorcer,....

Enganar, espezinhar, esculachar, esculhambar, escrachar, espinafrar, espicaçar,...

Falar mal de, falsear, fustigar,... ferir (verbalmente), fofocar (maliciosamente),...

Gritar (com alguém)

Hostilizar, humilhar,...

Iludir, incitar, intimidar, injuriar, ironizar, importunar,...

Jogar (uma pessoa contra outra),...

Lascar (a língua em alguém)

Machucar, magoar, maltratar, manipular, melindrar, mentir, molestar, maldizer, minimizar (alguém),...

Nocautear (com argumentos),...

Ofender, oprimir,..

Perturbar, provocar, praguejar (contra alguém), proferir imprecações,...

Queimar (alguém, com palavras)

Ridicularizar,...

Satirizar, sacanear (com piadas grosseiras)

Tratar mal,...

Ultrajar,...

Vilipendiar,...

Xingar,...

Zombar,...

Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH)
October 4, 2005

**********

The Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH) is distributing the enclosed articles to build bridges of understanding between the West and the Arab World and countries with predominately Muslim populations. Unless otherwise noted, all copyright permissions have been obtained and the articles may be reproduced by any news outlet or publication free of charge. If publishing, please acknowledge both the original source and CGNews, and notify us at cgnewspih@sfcg.org.

**********

ARTICLES IN THIS EDITION:

5. “Does increasing democracy undercut terrorists?” by Joseph S. Nye Jr.
Joseph S. Nye Jr., a professor at Harvard University and author of 'The Power Game: A Washington Novel,' advocates using soft power and “steady progress of democratization and freedom” to raise the voice and efficacy of moderates in the Middle East. He suggests that the value the United States can add is no longer military, but instead, as columnist David Brooks observed, "the tendency to imagine new worlds."
(Source: Christian Science Monitor, September 22, 2005)

**********

ARTICLE 1
Clinton's global initiative
James J. Zogby

WASHINGTON, DC - Bill Clinton was a great president, who appears to be on the path to becoming a great ex-president. Despite personal foibles for which he paid dearly during his eight years in office, Clinton, as president, continued to provide leadership in international peace-making, to oversee a period of extraordinary economic expansion and lead a national effort to heal the US' racial, ethnic and religious divides.

It is fascinating that after five years, while George W. Bush is still struggling to define his presidency and defend his leadership in foreign and domestic affairs, Clinton almost effortlessly has taken to the world stage to launch a global effort to address and seek solutions for an array of critical issues: extreme poverty, climate change, problems in governance and religion as a source of conflict.

The inaugural meeting of what is called the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) was convened last week in New York City. It was an extraordinary gathering on several levels. The vision that inspired the conference was breathtaking in scope, the list of participants was impressive and diverse, and the conference's outcomes, announced at the end of three days of meetings, were of real consequence.

Alternatively referred to as “Davos with a difference” or the creation of a “new global NGO” (non-governmental organisation), the CGI featured not only in-depth plenary discussions which brought together 40 heads of state, and almost 1,000 religious and business leaders, heads of NGOs, and activists and academics with expertise in each of the topics under consideration. Each session also concluded with the announcement of “commitments” made by the conference's participants. In other words, the CGI not only defined what needed to be done, but required those in attendance to commit to specific programmes to address these needs.

It was this “homework”, as Clinton termed the required “commitments”, that made the CGI different. As the former president noted in his closing remarks, “I asked you here because I think that all of us have an unprecedented amount of power to solve problems, save lives and help people see the future.... I also hope you will leave here with a sense of humility about how much better we could do.”

Motivated by this vision and Clinton's inspirational prodding, the commitments made were as varied and significant as the conference's participants.

Some pledged millions of dollars to promote peace studies or produce programmes encouraging dialogue among religions. Tens of millions were committed to fund microenterprise loans to promote job creation in targeted countries. Still others pledged creative approaches to reduce pollution through the use of renewable energy resources. There were programmes announced to help eliminate corruption in government, improve health services, and empower women in developing countries.

Of special concern to the Arab world was Clinton's focus on economic investment and environmental protection in Gaza. He urged participants to commit to promoting projects in Gaza that would utilise alternative energy sources, thereby reducing pollution, and to support “terrorism insurance” for Gaza that would provide protection for foreign investors in that area's struggling economy. By the conference's closing day, Clinton announced that he had been able to secure “commitments” that would address both concerns.

In fact, after three days of meetings, Clinton told the assembled conferees that he had received 190 commitments totalling $1.25 billion in pledges. And this is just the beginning. The former president's goal is to secure between 500 to 1,000 commitments to action each year. If such an effort can be sustained for a decade, he noted, “we can make a huge dent in some of the world's biggest problems”.

Clearly, the success of the entire venture was due to the charismatic appeal of the former president. Who else, one participant observed, could draw 40 heads of state (competing with the United Nations General Assembly meeting across town) and the vast array of experts, leaders, and activists who turned out for the conference. And who else could have cajoled and/or inspired such an outpouring of commitments to act.

The CGI represents a bold new step for the former president. It is a declaration that he is not yet finished with public service. Instead of retiring, he will expand his role on the world stage. Like Jimmy Carter before him, Clinton is determined to use and even build on the prestige of his post-presidency in order to make a difference. But unlike Carter, Clinton, ever the organiser and teacher, seeks to expand his outreach to bring thousands to join him in a global effort to address critical issues. And so it was that last week we saw a great president on his way to defining his role as an even greater former president.

###
* James J. Zogby is founder and president of the Arab American Institute.
Source: Jordan Times, September 27, 2005
Visit the website at www.jordantimes.com
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

ARTICLE 2
A different path after 9/11
Mona Eltahawy

CAIRO - Osama Bin Laden did the Muslim world a favor. Yes, I am serious. And no, I am not a Muslim militant who is celebrating an imagined victory against Dar al-Harb.

Bin Laden and his terrorist cohorts did us a favour because they shook us free of the defensiveness and denial that for decades had overshadowed an essential conversation about our religion and what had become of it.

That was not their goal of course. They assumed the sight of the twin towers collapsing would spur other jihadis to outdo or at least match their bloodletting. Some have tried. But a young Muslim man I met here recently convinced me that 9/11 had set others on a different course altogether.

Two years ago, when he was just 19, Fouad Gehad went to an Afghan refugee camp. He was not looking for directions to al-Qaeda but to speak to Afghan refugees who had seen al-Qaeda’s leader.

“My mission in life is to prove Osama Bin Laden exists,” Fouad, told me. To that end, he shot video tape of refugees recounting their stories of Bin Laden and on his return to Egypt paid out of his own pocket to hire an auditorium and a projection screen to show fellow Egyptians his footage.

Fouad was fed up of the conspiracy theories that painted Bin Laden as an American invention. Even after al-Qaeda released a video tape celebrating the attacks, some Muslims thought Bin Laden was an American agent who shot his videos in an American studio with a poster of the Afghan mountains as a backdrop.

Proving the existence of Bin Laden was Fouad’s way of holding up a mirror to the Muslim world to make it see what is had refused to acknowledge for too long. He had initially gone to Iran to see the effects of political Islam on that country and got first hand accounts from Iranians and the Afghans he met at the refugee camp.

"9/11 started the questions – is it Islam? Is it Muslims? Is it something in the Quran? What is it that led to 9/11?” Fouad explained.

When I say that 9/11 was good for the Muslim world, I have not flippantly forgotten the awful loss of life on that day. When I say the attacks were good for Muslims I do not regard with complacency the lives lost in the war on Afghanistan and the war on Iraq, which the Bush administration disastrously linked to the 9/11 attacks.

And when I say that 9/11 was good for Muslims I have not forgotten our curtailed civil liberties in the U.S., the thousands of Muslim men detained and deported on minor immigration violations and the higher levels of Islamophobia.

But I look above and beyond these tragedies to the importance of Fouad’s questions.

We are all too familiar with the young men who set out looking for holy war but we hear little of the young Muslim men and women who have set off in the opposite direction, determined to find their own answers.

Our young men and women who choose the opposite direction must be celebrated not only for their refreshing individuality but also for their courage in challenging the old and stale ways of thinking that too easily stifle any attempts to question. Without questioning we will remain forever stuck.

Why are we so stuck? The answer to that question alone could fill dozens of books but I got a brief response a few days ago when I came across another young man whose outlook seemed to be the complete opposite of Fouad’s.

He was the young taxi driver who took me home recently. As soon as I stepped into his cab, I realized that he was an almost perfect caricature of a fundamentalist.

He wore a white skull cap, a white galabiya which no doubt reached his mid-calf and of course he was listening to a fiery sermon on the car stereo.

The angry imam on the tape was of course relating the story of a battle from Muslim history. The louder his voice got, the more I could see why we were stuck – this was not the first time that the story of this particular battle was being retold and no doubt it would be retold again and again. And that is our problem. We are stuck in the past, unable to look ahead because of the stories we don’t stop telling each other about the past.

As if on cue, the fiery preacher ended his sermon as I was paying and getting out of the taxi. He ended by railing against a ban the government was trying to impose on tapes such as this recording. I wish he had ended by exhorting the listeners of his sermon to look ahead and not look back. We fill the heads of our young with so stories of so many victories from the past, real and imagined, that they can barely look ahead.

The attacks on 9/11 and subsequent attacks in Europe and the Middle East put us squarely in the here and now and forced us to look forward. They put into starkly horrific relief ideas such as “jihad” and “infidel” which for too long were too meekly challenged in the Muslim world.

Tackling those ideas head on and asking Fouad’s questions is good for everyone, not just the Muslim world. The questions and debates sparked by 9/11 render ineffectual the “us” and “them” offered by both President Bush and Bin Laden. We have all been victims of terrorism, East and West, Muslim and non-Muslim.

The more Muslims ask the questions, lead the debates and hold the mirror up to ourselves, the more you will hear about young men like Fouad, who do not tread the tired and bloody jihad path but forge their own trails toward telling the truth to the Muslim world.

###
* Mona Eltahawy was a correspondent for the Reuters News Agency in Cairo and Jerusalem and also wrote for the Guardian newspaper from the Middle East. Mona is also a frequent contributor to opinion pages in the US and abroad.
Source: Asharq Alawsat, September 27, 2005
Visit the website at www.asharqalawsat.com/english
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

ARTICLE 3
Humility should be part of Hughes' brief
Rami G. Khouri

BEIRUT - I was both heartened and disappointed, on the fourth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, to see the United States mark the moment with a combination of continued military attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, persistent threats against Iran and Syria, and the swearing in of Karen Hughes as the new undersecretary of state for public diplomacy.

Has the American-led "global war on terror" been a success, or even a suitable policy response, since 2001? Have the governments and societies of the Middle East, Asia and Western Europe - the three main incubators of Osama bin Laden-type terrorism - done enough to contain and end this terror scourge? The balance sheet on global security and stability seems erratic these days, as terrorism has expanded into one of the world's fastest growing and increasingly outsourced and franchised industries.

So will Hughes and her new public diplomacy department do better at reducing terror than the other American policies of the last four years? One hopes so, but the initial signs are mixed. Hughes and her department are a potentially very important development in the strained relations between the U.S. and much of the rest of the world, especially Arab and Islamic societies. This is a mature and welcomed sign that the Bush administration grasps more clearly that its armed forces and threatening diplomacy cannot be the primary instruments of its interactions with societies with whom it has quarrels.

But I fear that if some early distortions, gaps and misguided operating principles are not quickly amended, she and her efforts could turn out to be another howling waste of time and money. It is important therefore for Arabs and Muslims to engage Hughes in the same constructive spirit with which she now approaches our societies, but without the flaws that may hobble her horse before it gets out of the barn.

She has said in her spin-smooth manner that the U.S. approach to public diplomacy towards the Arab and Islamic world will comprise four E's: Education, Empowerment, Engagement and Exchanges. This sensible and useful approach will reinforce the mostly positive views of basic American values that a majority of Arabs and Muslims already hold. But it is unlikely on its own to make any significant dents in the widely critical views of American foreign policy held by most people in the Arab and Islamic world.

I would humbly suggest that she expand her four E's with two P's: Policy and Perception, reflecting the two serious flaws that she should quickly fix in Washington's public diplomacy approach, if she expects her department to have any impact beyond her president's speeches on American military bases.

The "perception" flaw is simply that U.S. public diplomacy efforts seem to rest heavily on the assumption that if Arabs and Muslims had a better knowledge of American values and foreign or domestic policies, they would have a more positive image of the U.S. If she has not done so already she should read the dozens of surveys and analyses of Arab and Islamic public opinion that repeatedly confirm how we Arabs and Muslims admire and even emulate most American values, including freedom, democracy, the rule of law and entrepreneurship. (If her staff do not have the Web sites for her to check out, I recommend she start by googling the work of Shibli Telhami, John Zogby, the Global Values Survey, and the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan, among many others.) She would quickly discover that the idea that the problem is mainly in how Arabs and Muslims perceive America is both wrong and insultingly racist. If this deep flaw is not corrected quickly, someone should hand Hughes a gun with which to shoot her horse and put it out if its imminent misery.

The second problematic issue in the U.S. public diplomacy approach, "policy," is actually the apparent total absence of understanding as to how American foreign policy in the world impacts the minds and attitudes of Arabs and Muslims.

The criticisms of the U.S. that dominate this region and most of the rest of the world reflect policy resentments, not perception problems. Dozens of good scholarly studies confirming this are also available.

At her swearing in ceremony last week, Hughes said, "I believe there is no more urgent challenge for America's national security and for a more peaceful future for all the world's children than the need to foster greater respect, understanding and a sense of common interest and common values between Americans and people of different countries, cultures and faiths."

Well, actually, there is a more urgent challenge, and it falls into one of those slightly awkward P's, because most of the world's children and adults already relate to American society and people with "respect, understanding and a sense of common interest and common values."

The more urgent challenge she should grasp is for the U.S., as the world's dominant power, to pursue foreign policies that respect a single standard of law and morality applicable to all people and countries, rather than pursuing policies that tend often to be erratic, expedient, inconsistent, and sometimes hypocritical and against the grain of the global consensus.

Hughes and her public diplomacy department represent a potentially historic new wrinkle in U.S. foreign policy, which is badly in need of new ideas and directions. If Washington really wants to engage the world on policy, values and our children's common future, we should all respond enthusiastically and help nudge the U.S. out of its unilateral military approach to promoting global peace and security. If Washington wants only to elucidate to us why we misunderstand American values and intentions, it should cancel the whole spectacle before it wastes time and money and generates more resentment. This horse can run, if it is powered by honesty and humility.

###
* Rami G. Khouri writes a regular commentary for The Daily Star
Source: Daily Star staff, September 14, 2005
Visit www.dailystar.com.lb
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

ARTICLE 4
Is Al Qaeda asking to negotiate?
Allen J. Zerkin

NEW YORK – Isn’t it clear by now that the U.S. and its allies are not likely to be able to wipe out Al Qaeda or ensure that we are not attacked again domestically? As the British acknowledged in July, the London attacks were just a matter of when, not if. To be sure, the terrorists can't win this war, but neither can we.

The most serious risk is that Al Qaeda will sooner or later be able to attack us with a biological or nuclear weapon, not merely the conventional bombs used in London and Madrid or the suicide car bombs being used to such gruesome effect in Iraq during the last few days. Long-term strategies to win Muslim hearts and minds — through democratization, public diplomacy and greater economic opportunity — are therefore likely to be a case of too little, too late. Even if, somehow, many are won over, such strategies will have no effect on the recruits who are being drawn to Al Qaeda every day, especially among Sunni populations where U.S. troops are stationed.

So is there a Plan B? The most recent videotaped message from Ayman Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's second-in-command, broadcast Aug. 4, is a reminder that there could be — in the form of some sort of political engagement.

Unthinkable? In his message, Zawahiri referred to Osama bin Laden's April 2004 offer of a truce to any European country that made a commitment to stop "attacking Muslims, or intervening in their affairs." European governments immediately dismissed the offer. Why?

For starters, because the West believes there is nothing to be negotiated when it comes to Al Qaeda. Terrorist acts are either senseless violence (which means there is nothing to talk about) or part of a plan to destroy our way of life (which is nonnegotiable). As White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "Terrorists will use any excuse to carry out evil attacks on innocent human beings."

It's also believed that a truce is impossible because Bin Laden and c

INFORMATION ABOUT THE CONFERENCE ON SOCIAL AND COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY

In Trondheim, November 10-11, 2005.
Department of Psychology, NTNU.
LOCATION: DRAGVOLL, TRONDHEIM

On November 10-11, 2005, Trondheim will host the 7th Conference on Social and Community Psychology and related themes. All interested persons are welcome to register for participation and to present your work.

The conference was originally a form for exchange of ideas and research results between students and staff at the Department of Psychology, NTNU. Since 1999 we have invited colleagues, research partners and associates from other disciplines and from other parts of Norway and abroad.

There is no conference fee, but we need to know if you are planning to participate to be able to organise in the best possible way. The presentations (oral or poster) may use English or any Scandinavian language. An oral presentation uses 15+5 minutes for the subject matter and the discussion. The posters will be displayed at central locations of the conference facilities and presented by the authors (available for 20 minutes) at specific times given in the program. The poster itself should not exceed the format of 1.10* 0.70 m.

We need a response from you on two matters:

1. An abstract if you want to present a paper (oral presentation) or a poster (poster presentation). The abstract will be copied and distributed to all participants at the conference. It will also help in the final organization of the sessions. Deadline for abstracts: November 1.

2. A written notice of your participation. Please see the Registration form below. This information will be used for planning refreshments, lunches, etc.

Please send the abstract and registration form to solveig.svantesen@svt.ntnu.no

THANK YOU AND WELCOME!

NEWSLETTER FROM THE HUMAN RIGHTS HOUSE NETWORK

The Azeri authorities must stop its harassment of independent journalists, political activists and human rights defenders. This is the message in a statement signed by activists from established and emerging Human Rights Houses in ten countries, as well as the OSCE, the Swedish Helsinki Committee, and the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) that co-hosted a conference 7-10 September in Baku, Azerbaijan. UN Special Representative for human rights defenders, Hina Jilani, also attended.

The Azeri government continues to restrict freedom of speech, press and assembly. It is feared that the situation wil worsen in the run-up to the elections in November.

The statement contains recommendations to the Azeri authorities, the media, the international oil companies and to Azeri human rights defenders and their organisations. It was presented at a press conference in Baku on the same day as the Azeri election campaign was launched.

Broad international support to Azeri defenders
The aim of the international meeting was to focus on the human rights situation in Azerbaijan and provide support to Azeri human rights defenders. Read the programme
- I firmly believe that the strong international presence that these arrangements demonstrated served towards Azeri authorities as a signal of international awareness, solidarity and support to Azeri human rights defenders, says Executive Director of HRH, Maria Dahle, in an interview .

Jilani's first visit to Caucasus
UN Special Representative for human rights defenders, Hina Jilani, attended the meeting. This was Jilanis first visit to the troubled Caucasus region.

To learn how to appeal to the UN, 28 human rights activists from Azerbaijan, Georgia and Russia participated in an interactive workshop, lead by the Geneva-based ISHR.

Big, orange demonstrations
Several protesters were beaten up in a rally held 25 September, according to the BBC.
On the last day of the gathering in Baku, some of the delgates monitored another huge rally, staged by the opposition, and demanding the retirement of the current President Ilham Aliyev. The rally, reiterating the recent succesful similar protests in Ukraine, was all in orange.

Prevented from attending
Stanislav Dmitrievski of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, a Nizhny-Novgorod- based human rights organisation, had to appear before a regional court and was hence prevented from attending the conference in Baku. The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders are seriously concerned about the judicial harassment against Dmitrievsky, which visibly aims at hindering his organisation's human rights activities.

On arrival at Baku International Airport, the three delegates Beatrice Nyabuto and Martin Oluoch, both of Kenya, and Joseph Akwenyi Manoba of Uganda, were taken aside and detained for ten hours , with no further explanation. They were released after international pressure from the OSCE and others.

Human Rights House emerging in Baku
To strengthen human rights work, a group of Azeri human rights NGOs is working to set up a Human Rights House in Baku together with HRH in Oslo.

Representatives from each of the currently eleven established and emerging Human Rights Houses meet annually to enhance co-operation and solidarity between them. This was the first Human Rights House Network meeting to be organised by an emerging House - the Human Rights House of Baku.

******************************************************************
Free of charge news and background service from the Human
Rights House Network, an international forum of cooperation between
independent human rights houses. It works to strengthen cooperation and
improve the security and capacity of the 70 human rights organizations in
the Network. The Human Rights House Foundation in Oslo is the
secretariat.

To subscribe, please send an email to:
newsletter-subscribe@humanrightshouse.org

More news and background on www.humanrightshouse.org

******************************************************************
Editors:

Niels Jacob Harbitz and Borghild T. Krokan
Human Rights House Foundation (HRH)
Address: Menneskerettighetshuset,
Tordenskioldsgate 6b, 0160 Oslo, Norway
Tel: (+47) 22 47 92 47, Direct: (+47) 22 47 92 44,
Fax: (+47) 22 47 92 01
Website: http://www.humanrightshouse.org,
http://www.menneskerettigheter.no

On 30.09.2005, Linda Hartling kindly writes to us:

Hi All,
Following the Wellesley Centers for Women retreat, Jasmine Waddell, a WCW
post-doc, graciously shared her dissertation with me. I thought you might
like to read her very helpful discussion of the African-inspired cultural
value of "ubuntu," which seems remarkably compatible with the relational
logic of RCT. For example, "At the centre of ubuntu is the idea that
umuntu ngumuntu ngabuntu, persons depend on persons to be persons”
(Schutte 2001: 3)
Ubuntu encourages mutually-caring—perhaps mutually-growth-fostering—social
arrangements in society, rather than individualistic or collective social
arrangements.
Enjoy,
Linda

Jasmine Waddell (2005). Social citizenship and social security in
post-apartheid South Africa. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, St.
Anthony's College, University of Oxford

Pg. 86-91:

2.3.3 Africanisation of Social Welfare Planning

In this section, I suggest that within the post-1994 political
transformation there was an ideological change from the Western ideology
of freedom through individuality and independence to the African-inspired
cultural values of ubuntu, which promote freedom through community and
interdependence. I explore whether the new cultural values are pursuant
to the ideas and principles defined in high-level social policy documents.
In subsequent chapters, I examine how these principles are implemented at
the street level.

The White governments in South Africa prioritised liberal or
individualistic economic relationships. Historically, the Western
ideology of social development and welfare concentrates on the ideal of
freedom. The differentiation of freedom as ‘freedom from’ or ‘freedom to’
is a debate central to the discourse of welfare and well-being (Berlin
1969). In pre-1994 South Africa, the White governments interpreted
freedom for Whites as the freedom from non-White South Africans and the
freedom to access the full range of civil, political, and social rights.
The Stallard doctrine is one expression of this conception of freedom.
The doctrine laid the foundation for separate development policies. These
policies were justified with the logic that individual liberty was only
possible in racially homogenous contexts. According to the principles of
separate development, Whites develop better without non-Whites. The
threat of disease and degeneracy were some of the reasons put forward for
the segregation of public facilities and residential communities.
Therefore, freedom to citizenship rights for Whites was directly related
to freedom from non-Whites. The advancement of freedom for Whites based
on the rigid enforcement of racial hierarchies and segregation defined the
pre-1994 approach to nation building.

The new Black African-led government advocates for African cultural
principles which stress shared humanity and non-racial human rights (Abdi
1999: 148). Ubuntu encourages inclusion, unity, shared humanity and
interdependence, rather than development through individuality. Schutte
explains, “ubuntu is almost the exact opposite of apartheid. Apartheid’s
key idea is separation. At the centre of ubuntu is the idea that umuntu
ngumuntu ngabuntu, persons depend on persons to be persons” (Schutte 2001:
3). While some argue that ubuntu has begun to mean everything and nothing,
due to overuse, Desmond Tutu explained that the concept is African because
it has resonance in both Nguni and Sotho languages as ubuntu and botho,
respectively (Tutu 1999: 34). In this section, I examine the original
meaning of the term, and how the concept of ubuntu has been applied to the
policy ideas and principles of the post-apartheid welfare state.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu developed a theology based on the concept of
ubuntu. He admits that the ubuntu ethic is difficult to translate from
the pre-literate, pre-scientific, and pre-industrial origins (Tutu 1999:
xiii, Schutte 2001: 9). Nonetheless, Tutu offers a definition of ubuntu,
which underpins his theological position:
A person is human precisely in being enveloped in the community of other
human beings, in being caught up in the bundle of life. To be is to
participate. The summum bonum here is not independence but sharing,
interdependence. And what is true of the human person is surely true of
human aggregations (Battle 1996: 105).

Tutu goes on to relate the African concept to a Western worldview. He
contends:
Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language. It speaks to
the very essence of being . . .It also means my humanity is caught up, is
inextricably bound up in theirs. We belong in a bundle of life. We say,
‘a person is a person through other people.’ It is not ‘I think therefore
I am.’ It is rather: ‘I am human because I belong.’ I participate, I
share” (Tutu 1999: 35).

Finally, Tutu applied this ideology to the reconstruction project. The
Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRC) are based on his contention
that:
Ubuntu means that in a real sense even the supporters of apartheid were
victims of the vicious system which they implemented and which they
supported so enthusiastically. Our humanity was entertwined. The
humanity of the perpetrator of apartheid’s atrocities was caught up and
bound up in that of his victim whether he liked it or not. In the process
of dehumanising another . . . the perpetrator was inexorably being
dehumanised as well (Tutu 1999: 35).

The TRCs are often justified as representative of the restorative ubuntu
ethic rather than the redistributive Western jurisprudence (Graybill 1998:
47).

Schutte stressed the differences between the Western and African
ideologies in his definition of ubuntu. He argued that:
[Ubuntu] is not individualist, in the way that liberalism and capitalism
are, trying to protect the freedom of the individual by separating them
from the community. But nor is it collectivist, like communism or
first-world socialism, making the individual just a part of the community.
In the African conception persons depend on persons to be persons. It is
by belonging to the community that we become ourselves. The community is
not opposed to the individual, nor does it simply swallow the individual
up, it enables each individual to become a unique centre of shared life
(Schutte 2001: 8-9).

This alternative philosophy of human interaction has been applied to the
public realm in South Africa in areas such as the procedural and
high-level policy documents from the RDP to the WPSW (Gibson 2002).

The RDP referred to interdependence, or ubuntu, as a crucial concept in
the action agenda. Interdependence is discussed as the bedrock upon which
the other objectives, such as efficiency of service delivery and
eliminating access barriers, are to be built. The solid foundation of
ubuntu determines the successful achievement of other reconstruction and
development goals. The WPSW is another example of a high-level document,
which invokes the concept of ubuntu. According to the WPSW, the ideal of
ubuntu or “caring for each other’s well-being . . . a spirit of mutual
support . . . means that people are people through other people.

On 27.09.2005, Hilarie Roseman kindly writes to us:

People in Australia are talking about Catholic Bishop Wilson, who fought against the ill treatment of convicts 140 years ago. He is to be exhumed from Nottingham Cathedral, England, and flown to Hobart Cathedral, Australia, in 2007. "Bishop Wilson's campaign against the ill-treatment of convicts was extremely effective. He personally lobbied senior politicans in London and succeeded in getting the worst of Australia's penal colonies - Norfolk Island - closed. He also campaigned against the use of the lash and partial suffociation torture on convicts." David Keys, "Hobart's bishop to come home after 140 years"in "The Age" Tuesday September 27, 3005, page News 5.

On Thursday, September 29, 2005, Rachel MacNair (drmacnair@hotmail.com)
wrote:

Friends --
When my publisher told me to cut the original 125,000 words down to 100,000 on my peace psychology textbook (ouch!), one of the first things to go was a history of peace psychology. It referred to early roots, but started in earnest with William James. A highly abridged chronology went into the book, but the full 8,750-word article is now up on the web at:
http://www.rachelmacnair.com/peace-psych-history

I've also put together a set of suggestions for research projects in peace psychology. Many would be suitable for student projects or dissertation projects:
http://www.rachelmacnair.com/research-ideas.html

If anyone has other good research project suggestions, I'd be happy to add them in.

On a more narrow aspect, I've put up some basic information on the thesis that killing is a traumatic stressor that can cause PTSD symptoms (Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress, or PITS):
http://www.rachelmacnair.com/pits

... along with illustrative instances in world literature:
http://www.rachelmacnair.com/pits-lit

... and personal stories:
http://www.rachelmacnair.com/pits-stories

And, on a different narrow aspect, there's a scholar's literature bibliography on the psychology of becoming or remaining vegetarian:
http://www.rachelmacnair.com/veg-lit.html

Feel free to forward this information on to those people or lists you know might be interested.

Rachel M. MacNair

The Language of Peace: An Agenda for Today

Saturday, October 1, 2005 (9:30 AM to 4:30 PM) – Haines Hall on UCLA Campus

UCLA Extension and the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies offer a special one-day workshop on Saturday, Oct. 1, The Language of Peace: An Agenda for Today.

The United Nations has declared 2001-2010 the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World. Yet, we still struggle with violence. This important event features nonviolence practitioners in the tradition of Mohandas K. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Bishop Desmond Tutu discussing efforts to develop a language of peace in the U.S. and throughout the world.

Coordinated by Itibari M. Zulu of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, the day-long event also includes:

· the Reverend James Lawson, pastor emeritus at Holman United Methodist Church;

· the Reverend Albert R. Sampson, president, Metropolitan Council of Black Churches, Chicago;

· Bernard Lafayette, Jr., director, Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies, University of Rhode Island;

· Alicia Reneé Farris, executive director, Michigan Institute for Nonviolence Education;

· Jacob Zuma, former Executive Deputy President of South Africa and Deputy President of the African National Congress.

This program is intended for educators, social workers, community organizers, activists, international aid workers, students, and anyone who is interested in advancing peace initiatives.

The Language of Peace: An Agenda for Today meets Saturday, October 1, 2005; 9:30 am - 4:30 pm, in Room 39 of Haines Hall on the UCLA campus in Westwood.

Fee: $75 or $35 for noncredit students with ID.

For complete course description and online enrollment, visit www.uclaextension.edu.

For more information call (310) 825-7729.

The British Columbia Teachers' Federation is organizing an International Peace Education Conference from June 25-27 in Vancouver, Canada. This conference is part of the World Peace Forum which will be held in Vancouver from June 23-28, 2006.

Educators working for peace from all over the world are encouraged to submit proposals to present at this international conference. It promises to be an outstanding opportunity to discuss and share peace education organizing strategies, teaching programs,activities and methodologies and to network for further action.

A request for proposals for anyone IN THE WORLD to present at this international peace education conference can be found at www.bctf.ca

For information about the World Peace Forum go to www.worldpeaceforum.ca

Please forward this invitation to everyone you know around the world!

Marian Dodds
Assistant Director
Professional and Social Issues Division
British Columbia Teachers Federation
mdodds@bctf.ca
CEP local 464
Phone: 604-871-1865
Fax: 604-871-2286

Budd L. Hall, Ph.D.
Dean of Education
Tel: 250 721 7757
Fax: 250 472 5063

Hamburg, September 30, 2005

Dear Trauma Research Net Members,
I am very glad to announce another Trauma Research Net-Conference for next year.
Please find our "call for papers" now at www.traumaresearch.net.

Call for Papers
3rd International and Interdisciplinary Trauma Research Net Conference
Trauma - Stigma and Distinction. The Social Ambivalences in the Face of Extreme Suffering.
14-17 September 2006, St. Moritz (Switzerland)

Deadline for proposals by e-mail: March 31, 2006.
Decisions will be announced by e-mail before June 1, 2006.
Do please pass on this information to any interested colleagues.

Provisional programme and registration information will be publishing here and at www.traumaresearch.net as we get closer to organizing the conference. Advance registration is required and booking will be taken from March 2006. Participants should be prepared to cover the costs of travel and lodging. Congress registration fee, including accomodations and meals, will be announced together with the conference programme.

As a subscriber to the TRN-Newsletter you are able to attend this event at the reduced delegate rate. The organizers will reimburse invited speakers for their traveling costs.

I look forward to welcoming you to the event in September 2006.
With best regards,
Cornelia Berens
P.S.: I will be away from my office and my e-mail until October 10, 2005.
Trauma Research Net (International Network for Interdisciplinary Research about the Impact of Traumatic Experience on the Life of Individuals and Society)
Cornelia Berens, M.A.
Hamburger Institut fuer Sozialforschung
Hamburg Institute for Social Research
Mittelweg 36, D-20148 Hamburg
Office hours: Mon, Tue, Wed 10a.m.-1p.m., 2p.m.-7p.m. & by appointment
URL http://www.traumaresearch.net (Call for Papers now online)
URL http://www.his-onlinede/mitarb/berens.htm (German)
URL http://www.his-online.de/researchunits/visiting/trn.htm (English)

Fascism and Democracy in the Human Mind
a bridge between Mind and Society
by Israel W. Charny

“Israel Charny argues persuasively that fascism and democracy are not only political systems but ways of organizing the mind. His book builds a convincing link between societal evil and the mind of the individual perpetrator. This is one of the most important books of this decade.”
—Douglas H. Sprenkle, psychologist and family therapist, formerly editor of Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy, author of Effectiveness Research in Marriage and Family Therapy.

“Momentous -- THE most innovative piece of scholarship I have ever read. Fascism and Democracy in the Human Mind is extremely timely and it offers suggestions about ways to go forward in conflict resolution at the societal, family, and individual levels. I know of no other books in psychology or Holocaust and genocide studies that have linked societal and individual processes in as innovative a way as this book does.”
—Robert K. Hitchcock, anthropologist, coeditor of Endangered Peoples of Africa and the Middle East: Struggles to Survive and Thrive.

What might you have done if you had been caught up in the Holocaust? In My Lai? In Rwanda? Confronted with acts of violence and evil on scales grand and small, we ask ourselves, baffled, how such horrors can happen—how human beings seemingly like ourselves can commit such atrocities. The answer, l W Charny suggests in this important new work, may be found in each one of us, in the distinct ways in which we organize our minds.

An internationally recognized scholar of the psychology of violence, Charny defines two paradigms of mental organization, the democratic and the fascist, and shows how these systems can determine behavior in intimate relationships, social situations, and events of global significance.

With its novel conception of mental health and illness, this book develops new directions for diagnosis and treatment of emotional disorders that are played out in everyday acts of violence against ourselves and others. Fascism and Democracy in the Human Mind also offers much-needed insight into the sources and workings of terrorism and genocide. A sane, radical statement about the guiding principles behind acts of violence and evil, the book sounds a passionate call for the democratic way of thinking that recognizes complexity, embraces responsibility, and affirms life.

I W Charny is the editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Genocide and the executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem. A practicing clinical psychologist and family therapist, Charny is professor of psychology and family therapy at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Fascism and Democracy in the Human Mind
Table of Contents

Author’s Preface

Chapter 1: What is the Original ‘Mind Software’ We Humans Receive at the ‘Factory’? We Start from a Weakminded, Rigid, and in effect Fascist Mind Position and then Need to Grow Up, but Do We?

Chapter 2: The Choice between Fascist Mind and Democratic Mind: What Chance Do We have of Changing Our “Fascist Minds” to “Democratic Minds”?

Chapter 3: The Fascist Believer: Totality, Overcertainty, and Suppression of Information

Chapter 4: The Fascist Slave: Obedience, Conformity, and Intolerance of Dissent

Chapter 5: The Fascist Fist: Superiority, Excessive Power, and Violence Against Self and Others

Chapter 6: The Fascist Denier: ‘I Never Did Any Harm’ – Denials of Doing Harm to Oneself or To Others

Chapter 7: Democratic Mind as the Healthy Alternative to Fascist Mind: The Joy of Life Process and Opportunity

Chapter 8: Psychotherapy as Anti-Fascism and Training for Democracy: The Psychotherapy Room as a Dedicated Experience in Democracy

Chapter 9: Discovering Applications of Democratic Mind in Everyday Life: How to Use our Minds Safely, Wholesomely, and Creatively

Chapter 10: Unified Theory of Democratic Mind in the Self, Family, and Society: A Vision of More Decent Human Beings who do Less Harm to Themselves and Others

Closing: The Care and Maintenance of the Bridge between Mind and Society: The Privilege and Responsibility of Working to Achieve Democratic Minds and Societies

Epilogue/About The Author:
Israel W. Charny’s Background as a Psychotherapist and as a Peace Researcher Studying Genocide

University of Nebraska Press
1111 Lincoln Mall, Lincoln, NE 68588-0630
Order toll-free: 800 755-1105
Fax orders only: 800 526-2617
E-Mail: pressmail@unl.edu
On-line catalog: www.nebraskapress.unl.edu

International Peace Research Association Foundation

Founded in 1990 the IPRA Foundation, a non-profit, tax-exempt organization, furthers the purposes and activities of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) which, since 1965, has sought to enhance the processes of peace.

The IPRA Foundation began as a depository of funds brought in by people with specific projects. The main task was to invest those funds safely in socially acceptable enterprises and pay them out as needed. A short description of the foundation projects follows:

Dorothy Marcus Senesh Fellowship Endowment

The Senesh Endowment provides a biennial fellowship for two years of graduate study to a woman from the third world.

Kenneth Boulding Memorial Conference Funding Fund

The Boulding Fund supports research activities of IPRA Commissions and a limited number of travel grants.

Small Peace Research Grants

Small research grants up to $2000 to support systemic observation or study of conflict phenomena and peace strategies.

IPRA Foundation Endowment Fund

The Endowment Fund supports the work of the International Peace Research Association and its affiliates, including expenses and needs of the IPRA Foundation.

New book!

Evelin

Christine Locher kindly writes to us about the International Day of Peace and some events going on around it:

http://www.pathwaystopeace.org
http://www.internationaldayofpeace.org
http://www.un.org/events/peaceday/2005/

Thanks dear Christine!
Fondly,
Evelin

Dear Friends!
Reidar Ommundsen wishes to draws our attention to the important journal "Intervention: International Journal of Mental Health, Psychosocial Work and Counselling in Areas of Armed Conflict"!

Now available: Volume 3: Number 2: Summer 2005

Counselling in Cambodia
Willem van de Putt and Guus van der Veer investigate the effectiveness and practicalities of counselling as an approach, and the role that westerners can play in a non-western setting.

Evaluating Narrative Theatre Training
Narrative theatre is a popular intervention for addressing socially-constucted problems, but the implementations, effectiveness and delivery of NT training need to be quantified and evaluated. Meyer-Weitz and Sliep consider the parameters and models for evaluation, and look at some specific cases from the field.

Trees Coloured Pink
Reporting from a War Child project in Kosovo, Wertheim-Cahen et al. look at the history and evaluation of this major project. Having offered creative arts therapy to children over a five-year period, they note changes in the project's approach, evaluate its results so far and consider its contribution to the future.

The Tibetan Healing System: A psychosocial needs assessment.
Schwartz, et al. document the needs-assessment carried out among prisoners, refugees and torture-victims exiled in Nepal. They consider the roles of the ancient Tibetan healing system and of Buddhist teachings, compare beliefs with traditional healers, and discover useful cultural models and vocabulary for defining needs.

Walking to Work: Supervising Intervention in Kosovo
Supervision of psychosocial counselling teams is a task that means walking to work, according to Kuscu. It's just one of his strategies for gaining trust and understanding in locations where many international staff live in comparative isolation from the community they are treating. Listening, chatting and keeping a low profile are also important to consider.

Volume 3 -Number 2
Supplement - Training Teachers in Areas of Armed Conflict - Kos, A.M.

Teachers in schools are a prime resource for children. They are uniquely positioned to offer culturally-sensitive interventions. Anica Mikus Kos has produced a manual for training teachers which consolidates a broad experience in the field and looks at the practical issues to be considered in setting up courses for the training of trainers.
Chapters: The importance of good people; Training teachers in areas of armed conflict: Basic principles; The protective role of the school; The training program; The Training of Trainers; The Seminars for Teachers; Voluntary work inside schools; Assessing the impact of the program ; Preventing difficulties.

Subscribe to Intervention
Download Intervention