The Economist’s Diary on Kenya

The eminent British magazine, The Economist, currently has a correspondent in Kenya writing up daily reports in the Internet edition, which can be viewed here. There is, of course, much to be concerned about in Kenya these days, but as an academic I found the latest dispatch especially interesting:

Morning, Professor Alan Ogot’s office, Kisumu

ALAN Ogot (pictured below), one of Kenya’s leading historians, is the chancellor of Moi University in Eldoret. Like me, he graduated from St Andrew’s University in Scotland, but he was there in the 1950s, and his life before and since has been colourful and consequential.

Mr Ogot spends the first part of our interview delving into Luo history. Contrary to their reputation among some Kikuyus and white Kenyans as agitators, he says the Luo have always done the jobs no one else wanted to do. For a thousand years they have aspired to “fairness” and “reciprocity”. He gives examples of religious and political movements to argue that Luoland was the most progressive part of Kenya. That changed with independence in 1963 and the rise of a Kikuyu elite who mistrusted Luos.

Mr Ogot had lunch with Tom Mboya on the day Mboya was shot dead in 1969. Mboya was one of several Luo politicians tipped for the presidency and Mr Ogot thinks the Luo have never recovered from his death. “What followed was a police state. We were not allowed to speak our mind.”

Then Mr Ogot moves on to the damage done to academia in Kenya by the post-election violence. He wonders what the future of research is in the country. Some of Africa’s best research institutions are located around Nairobi. Most are closed, he says, some burned, and the best minds driven out.

He points out that Maseno, the local university in Luoland, was over half Kikuyu. “Most of these people are not coming back. Who will provide them with security?” Other universities across the country are being similarly ethnically cleansed. “You call these universities? They’ll be worse than primary schools…”

…Since the election he has hardly left his house. A woman and child were shot dead outside his front gate. The police mistakenly killed a caretaker in a neighbouring house. “They have apologised, but what will that do?”

I’ve highlighted what I think are the interesting parts of the snippet I posted. First, contrary to what I have been reading in the newspapers lately, inter-ethnic relations between the Kukuyu and Luo, specifically, have not been as tolerant and peaceful and many have led us to believe. Second is the horrific damage that is being done to Kenya’s post-secondary educational system as a result of the current political situation there. A Boston Globe column that was published before the elections held out hope for Africa, and pointed to Kenya’s potential role as a leader for the rest of the continent. Now what?

Human Effects on the World’s Oceans

Here is a map that is unlike any of the maps of the world that I’ve posted previously. The obvious difference is that the whole of the world’s land mass is an undifferentiated white. What this map shows is the impact of human beings on (the destruction of) the world’s oceans and seas. From Science Now

ocean_impact_map.jpgFour years in the making, a groundbreaking new map of the state of the world’s oceans was released today, and its message is stark: Human activity has left a mark on nearly every square kilometer of sea, severely compromising ecosystems in more than 40% of waters.

The map, presented here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (publisher of ScienceNOW)–and published tomorrow in Science–combines 17 anthropogenic stressors, including coastal runoff and pollution, warming water temperature due to human-induced climate change, oil rigs that damage the sea floor, and five different kinds of fishing. Hundreds of experts worked to weigh and compare the stressors, overlaying them on top of maps that the scientists built of various ecosystems, with data obtained from shipping maps, satellite imagery, and scientific buoys. Then marine scientists modeled how different ecosystems would be affected by the stressors, mapping so-called impact scores onto square-kilometer-sized parcels worldwide. The scores correspond to colored pixels on the new map.

Ethnic Segregation in Kenya Continues Unabated

Kenya seems to be following the template set out in previous inter-ethnic conflicts (see a previous post on the results of residential segregation in Baghdad), where the ultimate result is a more ethnically segregated society.  The “un-mixing of peoples” continues unabated in that increasingly unstable state.  The New York Times reports:

segregation_of_kenya.jpg

Following a flawed election, and a wave of ethnic and political violence, Kenya, once one of Africa’s most promising nations, is resegregating itself. Members of ethnic groups, like these Luos, left, waited for transportation to their ancestral homes.

Photo: Joao Silva for The New York Times

 OTHAYA, Kenya — Sarah Wangoi has spent her entire life — all 70 years of it — in the Rift Valley. But last month, she was chased off her farm by a mob that called her a foreigner. She now sleeps on the cold floor of a stranger’s house, seeking refuge in an area of Kenya where her ethnic group, the Kikuyu, is strong. It is, supposedly, her homeland.

“I am safe now,” said Ms. Wangoi, though the mob still chases her in her dreams.

Across the country, William Ojiambo sat in a field where the ground was too hard to plow. He, too, sought refuge with his ethnic group, the Luo. He used to live in an ethnically mixed town called Nakuru but was recently evicted by a gang from another ethnic group that burned everything he owned.

“We came here with nothing, like cabbages thrown in the back of a truck,” Mr. Ojiambo said.

Kenya used to be considered one of the most promising countries in Africa. Now it is in the throes of ethnically segregating itself. Ever since a deeply flawed election in December kicked off a wave of ethnic and political violence, hundreds of thousands of people have been violently driven from their homes and many are now resettling in ethnically homogenous zones.

Luos have gone back to Luo land, Kikuyus to Kikuyu land, Kambas to Kamba land and Kisiis to Kisii land. Even some of the packed slums in the capital, Nairobi, have split along ethnic lines.

Kosovo’s bid for Independence

From the BBC, we learn that the Albanian majority in Serbia’s southern region of Kosovo is expected to vote for independence from Serbia within days. The province has been controlled by the international community since the end of the NATO-led war against Slobodan Milošević ‘s regime in 1999. In PLSC250 yesterday, we discussed the Kurdish campaign for self-determination and noted some of the arguments for and against. The most comepelling argument for secession/independence is a deontological argument based on the inherent right of groups to decide for themselves their system of government. The most obvious argument against is a utilitarian one, voiced here by Serbia’s Foreign Minister, Vuk Jeremić :

[Independence for Kosovo] would lead to an uncontrolled cascade of secession

Here’s more from the article:

kosovo.jpgSerbia’s foreign minister has urged the United Nations Security Council to oppose the province of Kosovo’s expected declaration of independence.

Vuk Jeremic said Serbia would not use force to stop the secession but warned that allowing it would give a green light to other separatist movements.

The ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo is expected to announce its breakaway from Serbia within days.

Russia has warned that recognition of Kosovo would be illegal and immoral.

Speaking after the closed session, Serbia’s foreign minister said that is was not too late for diplomats to prevent Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence.

Roger Clemens, Steroids, and Political Ideologies

In class today, we discussed yesterday’s Congressional hearings dealing with the use of steroids, and other performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, in which our esteemed elected representatives questioned umpteen-time all-star pitcher, Roger Clemens, on his involvement. Those of you who have been following this soap opera understand that one of Clemens’ former trainers, Brian McNamee, and a former teammate, Andy Pettitte, have both accused Clemens of having used steroids and HGH (human growth hormone).

I watched some of the highlights of the testimony, and what was interesting was that here, as in many other contemporary issues in American society, there seemed to be a readily apparent partisan split on the issue, with Republicans believing and supporting Clemens, while Democrats did the opposite. I have no idea why, given the nature of political attitudes and political ideologies, this would be the case. What is it about the issue of steroids in baseball that would “tap into” underlying political attitudes and ideologies in order to make this a clearly ideological issue. Maybe this isn’t an “ideological” issue at all, but a partisan one. By this I mean that for many in this country (especially on Capitol Hill), their partisanship is no longer a means to an underlying ideological end, but an end in and of itself. So if George Bush (with the complicity of both Republican and Democratic-led Congresses during his tenure) spends the people’s money like a drunken soldier, he–a Republican–is immune from criticism by other Republicans, even though his behavior is anathema to conservative economic ideology.

Here is Clemens testifying, and a clip from Mike and the Mad Dog, the most highly rated sports talk show in the New York City area, in which Chris “the Mad Dog” Russo–a Republican–exhorts his listeners in Connecticut to vote long-term Congressman, Christopher Shays (R), out of office for what Russo viewed as Shays’ “grandstanding” during the hearings yesterday.

Mad Dog snarly towards Shays:

The Fall and Rise of Torture Across Time and Space

Here’s the abstract from an interesting article* on the history of the use of torture by Christopher Einol. I think we’ll read this near the end of the semester. (The subject of the illustration is water-boarding (about which the current US Attorney General does not know whether it is torture or not) during the Spanish Inquisition.)

water_torture.jpgTorture was formally abolished by European governments in the 19th century, and the actual practice of torture decreased as well during that period. In the 20th century, however, torture became much more common. None of the theories that explain the reduction of torture in the 19th century can explain its resurgence in the 20th. This article argues that the use of torture follows the same patterns in contemporary times as it has in earlier historical periods. Torture is most commonly used against people who are not full members of a society, such as slaves, foreigners, prisoners of war, and members of racial, ethnic, and religious outsider groups. Torture is used less often against citizens, and is only used in cases of extremely serious crimes, such as treason. Two general 20th-century historical trends have caused torture to become more common. First, an increase in the number and severity of wars has caused an increase of torture against enemy guerrillas and partisans, prisoners of war, and conquered civilian populations. Second, changes in the nature of sovereignty have caused an expansion in the definition of acts constituting treason.

* CHRISTOPHER J. EINOLF, “The Fall and Rise of Torture: A Comparative
and Historical Analysis”, Sociological Theory 25:2 June 2007. You should have access to the article if you are on campus.

Individuals Having an Impact on IR

In a previous post, I asked you to consider not how international relations affects you, but how the way in which you behave, and the actions that you take have an effect on IR. Here’s a story about how changing individual attitudes in Japan may be having a greater impact on the whaling industry than the combined efforts of states and NGOs over the last couple of decades. You can see a graphically disturbing video of whales being killed at the link above.

JAPAN’s whalers are going broke and have been forced to slash prices because no one wants to eat their growing mountain of whale meat.

whale_slaughter.jpgThe farcical truth of Japan’s whaling industry was exposed yesterday by Japanese media reports that the Institute for Cetacean Research is struggling to repay $37 million in government subsidies.

The report came as Japanese embassy officials made a stern protest in Canberra over the Federal Government’s release of shocking whaling photographs.

The ICR, responsible for Japan’s lethal “research operation”, is flooding Japan with cheap whale meat that it cannot sell, according to the reports in respected newspaper Asahi Shimbun.

Meat and other parts of whales killed during ICR “scientific research” in the Southern Ocean is sold to a private fisheries company Kyodo Senpaku, which manages the sale of whale meat in the Japanese market. But while ICR has consistently increased the number of whales it kills – by 30 per cent between 2005 and 2006 – there has been no rise in domestic demand for whale meat or products.

Greenpeace Australia Pacific whales campaign director Rob Nicholl said the losses were further proof that there was no market for whale meat in Japan.
“It’s standard economics. There is an oversupply. They’ve had to reduce the price but they still can’t get rid of the stuff,” he said.

Do you think that this story can shed any light on a potential solution to the drug and human trafficking industries? How specifically?

Italians and Europeans–The Two Solitudes?

Here is an animated short film by Bruno Bozzetto, which shows the putative differences between Italians and Europeans (notice the not-so-subtle “othering” that is implicit in the title). Have you ever been to Italy? Are these differences real, and if so, can political culture account for them? What underlying differences in political attitudes would help explain the divergence in behaviors demonstrated in the video? It’s interesting that Italy was one of the original six members of the European Union (which was then called the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). This was quite monumental as the other five members were on the other side of the Alps. Have a look at Bozzetto’s animated short:

P.S. This could easily be titled “Europe and Croatia!”

“Truman lost China” and the effect of “the stuff of politics” on IR

In our discussion of the international (or system) level-of-analysis in IR, we noted some of the strengths and weaknesses of focusing explanation and description at that level. While system-level explanations are helpful in that they are comprehensive and holistic, a major disadvantage of that level is that it misses, or neglects, the “stuff of politics.” What does that mean?

ping_pong_diplomacy.jpgHere’s an explanation by way of example. The image below is of Richard Nixon and Mao ZeDong engaging in “ping pong diplomacy”* with Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai looking on approvingly [why is Mao using a “Western” grip?]. Those of you who know a little bit about US-China diplomatic history understand the importance of the “Nixon goes to China” moment. The most significant point, for our purposes, is that this meeting signaled the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and “Red China”, after they had been cut off due to the 1949 victory of Mao’s Communists in the Chinese Civil War. It was not surprising that it was Nixon–a Republican–who was able to make this diplomatic gesture, since it would have been politically impossible for a Democratic president to have done the same. This is because President Harry S. Truman, and the whole of the Democratic party by association, had been vilified for having “lost China” to Communism. This is the kind of “stuff of politics” that is ignored when looking at IR from only an international (or system-level) perspective. Here is a clip from a documentary analyzing Nixon’s visit to China:

*Nixon and Mao never did play ping-pong (as far as I know), but their meeting was given the name “ping-pong diplomacy” since the first post-1949 diplomatic US visitors to China were table tennis players.

Democracy in Russia

From the Chronicle of Higher Education, we learn that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government has shut down a university that offers “politically sensitive” courses.

A Russian court has ordered a university that receives support from Western organizations and had offered courses in election monitoring to shut down immediately, in what professors said was the first time an entire university had been closed for political reasons under President Vladimir V. Putin.

The ruling, issued by a court in St. Petersburg on Friday, shut down the European University of St. Petersburg just as a new semester was about to start and after many of the 170 students who were scheduled to attend had arrived in the city.

Mr. Putin had criticized the university last fall, accusing it of meddling in Russian politics, according to news reports, and a highly placed government official raised similar concerns in late December, a professor told The Chronicle.

What a terrible offense!  Meddling in Russian politics!  The nerve! We in the West take for granted far too often the nature of the liberties we enjoy.  We in the academic world, in particular, are often unaware of the great dangers that academics in many parts of the world face in trying to perform tasks and research that to us in the West seem mundane.  To increase awareness about the lack of academic freedom in many parts of the world, a group of like-minded individuals has created the Scholars at Risk Network.

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