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23-01-13_Berthold Kuhn - China - protests
In response to broad-based opposition to its zero-Covid policy, China’s government has loosened lockdown rules. This step was not unusual, but actually quite typical. Many people in the west are not aware of the Communist Party often making serious concessions fast in order to calm down protests or strikes. There have been many examples in the past, regarding environmental grievances for example.
This approach is in line with traditional Confucian ethics, according to which the ruler is supposed to facilitate a harmonious and prosperous society, without however, being democratically accountable. Even though China has no universal free elections, and powers between the party and the government are not as clearly separated as in the west, political accountability matters in modern China. The government is also quite serious about the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Not only students and intellectuals expressed their discontent in recent weeks, plain workers did so too. The government understands that its zero-Covid policy had considerable downsides, including in regard to the economy. After its U-turn, protests generally stopped by mid-December. The big risk was that a harsh wave of infections might occur. Especially old people have not been vaccinated sufficiently, so the health sector is facing huge challenges.
It was astonishing how fast the policy changed. Only a few weeks earlier, Xi Jinping’s term had been extended. Many people, however, were not only aware of recent demonstrations, they also paid attention to how other countries and regions dealt with coronavirus in past months and years. In comparison, China’s approach now looks less successful than it did a few months ago. Many other nations obviously responded more competently to the omicron variant, with low hospitalisation rates suggesting that infection waves were less dramatic.
As China’s population is huge, comparing absolute numbers with other countries does not make much sense. The death toll moreover, was high in other large nations as well, including in India and the USA, where it was actually worse in per capita terms than in China.
Lesson learnedHowever, Xi Jinping’s entourage has now seen that the reformers who would like to liberalise the economy further have more support than assumed so far – and not only among the business community, but the people in general. Nationalist propaganda did not have much traction in view of very stringent lockdown rules. TV coverage of the football World Cup in Qatar played a role too, showing masses of happy and unmasked fans.
The death of Jiang Zemin in December made people reconsider things too. As China’s top leader, he had implemented far-reaching reforms. He also stood for a more open culture and exchange with the west.
In spite the coronavirus U-turn, Xi Jinping still stands for authoritarian leadership, but widely appreciated governance and concern for the plight of ordinary citizens. The fast response to the protests has reinforced his image in the eyes of many Chinese, even though western observers find that hard to understand. Absent a major health disaster, Xi Jinping in mid-December looked likely to emerge stronger from the recent crisis. The current infection wave is aparently severe, however, and probably more severe than the Chinese leadership expected.
Nobody in China is interested in political escalation. The leadership will do what it can to keep things calm. That may even have a positive impact on relations with Taiwan. At this point, China is not interested in increasing tensions with the west. A military attack on Taiwan would have serious economic consequences. The legitimacy of the Communist Party hinges on its promise of broad-based prosperity and reduced inequality. Given the progress made in the past 40 years, that promise is credible in the eyes of most Chinese people.
Berthold M. Kuhn is a political scientist and adjunct professor at Freie Universität Berlin. As a consultant, he advises international organisations and think tanks.
berthold.kuhn@fu-berlin.de
last contributed to D+C/E+Z in summer of 2022. He is a political scientist and adjunct professor at Freie Universität Berlin. As a consultant, he advises international organisations and think tanks.
2023/01
23-01-12_Roselyn Davina Vusia - Uganda - refugees Box
The bilateral German development agency GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) is supporting inclusive socio-economic opportunities for refugees and host communities in six West Nile districts. The project is cofunded by the European Union Trust Fund and Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
It provides access to financial services and markets, offers capacity building and skills training. The idea is to generate income and employment through farming and off-farm activities. Off-farm activities include agro-processing, branding and packaging, as well as the launching of startups (MSME – micro, small and medium enterprises).
To date, about 3000 women have received vocational training, while more than 4500 women are members of farmer groups trained in good agronomic practice and climate smart agriculture. About half of the project’s participants are refugees and the other half consists of members of the host community. Women have created their own support groups which enable economic growth and support. Others get psycho-social support from the groups.
The focus of the project is to create an enabling environment for self-reliance and resilience among refugees and host communities. The point is that an emergency response is not enough, as long-term development is needed too. Empowering members of the refugee and the host communities serves both purposes. Addressing both communities helps to avoid the worsening of disparities. To some extent, it also addresses the problem of “othering” in the sense of aggressive identity politics.
Experience shows that this approach encourages women to step out of their traditional roles. Indeed, a considerable number are now active in in male-dominated trades like plumbing, carpentry and welding/metal fabrication. For those who have ventured into these trades, it has proven easy to find jobs. Employment is harder to get in traditionally female trades like hairdressing or tailoring. (For a project that empowers rural women in Malawi, see Rabson Kondowe on www.dandc.eu.)
Roselyn Davina Vusia is working for the German development agency GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit) in Uganda. She is Deputy head of RISE, a project aiming to create inclusive socio-economic opportunities for refugees and host communities.
roselyn.vusia@giz.de
Governance Off Off Roselyn Davina Vusia
last contributed in winter 2022/2023. She is working for the German development agency GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit) in Uganda. She is Deputy head of RISE, a project aiming to create inclusive socio-economic opportunities for refugees and host communities.
23-01-11_Roselyn Davina Vusia - Ugandan refugee policy
Situated in East Africa with a population of not quite 50 million people, Uganda is home to more than 1.5 million refugees, mainly from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Unlike in other hosting nations, refugees in Uganda do not live in fenced camps. The country has a well-developed and well-executed refugee response framework, which fosters self-reliance. Jeje Odongo, the Ugandan Minister of Foreign Affairs, has said: “Here, refugees are given land to live on and farm; they are enabled to move freely, access social services such as education, start businesses and find employment.” He emphasised that refugees are treated with dignity.
Refugees in Uganda are indeed allocated land for settlement and kitchen gardening. They thus grow some of the food they need themselves. In northern Uganda, local communities’ generosity has provided land for settling refugees. The region is rather poor and not densely populated. In the more prosperous eastern region, the government has made some of its own land available for this purpose. In both regions, refugees do not get enough land for commercial farming.
Effective implementation of progressive policiesA variety of factors have contributed to Uganda’s progressive stance. The Refugee Act of 2006 and Refugee regulation 2010 have accorded refugees with the right to work as well as the freedoms of movement and association. These two policies have also provided a strong legal and regulatory framework for refugee rights, which is in line with the “leave no one behind” approach of the New York Declaration on Refugees and Migrants which the UN General Assembly adopted in 2016. Its main objective is responsibility sharing by countries to ease the pressure on the country hosting refugees and ensuring conditions in the country of origin are improved for them to go back and live in dignity.
Progressive policies, which grant refugees the right to live and work in the country hosting them, are helpful only when they are implemented effectively. The Ugandan government has created a department for refugees. Among other things, it is in charge of the comprehensive refugee response framework (CRRF) with a 35-member steering group. It plans and implements measures and coordinates among different ministries. The private sector and civil-society organisations are involved too.
Uganda’s approach to refugees is both nuanced and holistic. Multi-stakeholder coordination discourages siloed action. Indeed, the government’s current Third National Development Plan addresses refugee issues.
International supportUganda is a low-income country. Its welcoming attitude towards refugees is supported internationally. Indeed, its open-door stance has proved beneficial to the country. Uganda is receiving both humanitarian aid and official development assistance (ODA).
Given that the country has been struggling with its fight against poverty and providing basic amenities to its citizens, donor funding matters very much. It often benefits both refugees and local communities. For example, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is running a project which is designed to build local infrastructure, which serves everyone living in a given area. The World Bank too is making efforts to improve local-level development opportunities. These projects are meant to ease pressure on the country and the people hosting refugees.
Donors generally appreciate Uganda’s welcoming attitude to refugees. For example, the European Union made €200 million available over four years. The hosting of refugees also has downsides. Detrimental impacts on the environment have increased. For example, the demand for fire wood has grown and is contributing to deforestation.
The impacts of climate change, moreover, are affecting agriculture and food prices are rising internationally. Conflicts over resources occur regularly. Aid flows are not keeping up with the need, and Uganda’s refugee-friendly programmes tend to be underfunded. Moreover, the country has been hit hard by flooding recently.
Uganda nonetheless continues to practice its open-door policy. It is doing the international community a service. People who flee from strife-torn areas to foreign countries need a place where they can live in dignity – and global problems are compounded if they do not find one. Inclusive policies are thus necessary, and they must pay attention to the special needs of traumatised people who have experienced brutal violence.
Roselyn Davina Vusia is working for the German development agency GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit) in Uganda. She is Deputy head of RISE, a project aiming to create inclusive socio-economic opportunities for refugees and host communities.
roselyn.vusia@giz.de
Poverty Reduction Off Off Roselyn Davina Vusia
last contributed in winter 2022/2023. She is working for the German development agency GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit) in Uganda. She is Deputy head of RISE, a project aiming to create inclusive socio-economic opportunities for refugees and host communities.
Nyasha Bhobo
is a freelance writer based in South Africa.
Nyasha Bhobo
is a freelance writer based in South Africa.
23-01-10_Suparna Banerjee - partition of India - Box
In Pakistan, faith-based identity politics matters too, though not in the same way as in India. Radical Sunnis have managed to largely redefine “Islam” as their own version of the faith, discriminating against others.
It would be an illusion to believe that earlier Indian governments after independence in 1947 built a harmonious and inclusive society. Most of the time, the Congress party was in charge. Power mostly rested in the hands of upper caste and upper class elites. The minorities remained marginalised. Governments rarely targeted them with hate rhetoric, though the anti-Sikh pogrom in Delhi in 1984 was a terrible exception. Today, the minorities and especially Muslims have become targets of systematic and institutionalised hate campaigns. In this sense, the trauma of partition is still most virulent.
The popular adage says that the colonial power ruled India only with 15,000 Brits in the country. They managed to control the huge subcontinent, because Indians contributed to and supported their rule for more than two centuries. Indeed, the upper casts largely flourished, as they had under Mughal rule before.
Colonial legacyAs part of the colonial tactics, the British relied on a policy of divide and rule. They focused on pitting Hindus and Muslims against one another, inculcating religious identity as the primary identity. Historically, language, caste and class were of at least equal importance, with the caste system permeating other faiths than Hinduism. After the uprising of 1857, which involved Hindus and Muslims and which South-Asians call the first war of independence, the colonial power stringently followed its divide-and-rule strategy.
The Congress party, formed in 1885, was the political forerunner in the fight against the British. It was not a Hindu organisation, but some Muslims nevertheless felt excluded. Accordingly, the All India Muslim League was formed in 1906. Congress wanted India to stay united after independence, but the Muslim League insisted on a separate state. The reasoning was that, under Congress rule, Muslims would suffer as second-class citizens.
In the years up to the independence of the country, the tensions grew so much that hatred spread. In 1946, the Great Calcutta Killings were a terrible communal riot between Hindus and Muslims. When the British gave up power, India and Pakistan became two separate states one year later. In both countries, members of the established elites controlled the new governments.
Suparna Banerjee is a Frankfurt-based political scientist.
mail.suparnabanerjee@gmail.com
last contributed to D+C/E+Z in winter of 2022/2023. She is a Frankfurt-based political scientist.
Zohra Cosima Benamar
contributed to D+C/E+Z in autumn of 2022. She is pursuing her PhD in geopolitics and energy policy at the ISCTE University Institute of Lisbon.
Zenzele Ndebele
contributed to D+C/E+Z in winter of 2022/2023. He heads the independent Centre for Innovation & Technology (CITE) in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
Simone Schnabel; Antonia Witt
Roselyn Davina Vusia
last contributed in winter 2022/2023. She is working for the German development agency GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit) in Uganda. She is Deputy head of RISE, a project aiming to create inclusive socio-economic opportunities for refugees and host communities.
Why we believe in our Digital Monthly
Our Digital Monthly compiles four weeks’ worth of content on our website. Anyone who downloads it, can read it off-line. We believe that the Digital Monthly is valuable, especially in places where internet connectivity cannot be taken for granted. To ensure the download is feasible, we have reduced the size of the e-Paper, and plan to keep it below five MB consistently. Moreover, we focus on topics of lasting relevance. Most of our stories are not outdated fast, but help to assess lasting trends.
Those who read the Digital Monthly as soon as it is published will find that it includes several items that have not yet appeared on the website. Our team is too small to cover breaking news, and we make sure we post something on our website at least six times per week. All of our contributions are original content written for D+C/E+Z.
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Our Digital Monthly differs from our print issues, which we publish every two months. The print issues only include a selection of the articles we post on the website. In the past, we published 11 print issues per year, but postal services are expensive and snail mail is slow. We therefore decided to reduce the number of print issues and produce more content online.
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Affordable internet access for all
Many rural areas of Zambia have poor internet infrastructure. Service providers like MTN and Airtel complain about the low number of users in these areas. However, the high cost of data may explain why many local people shy away from using the internet.
Veronica Siame, a businesswoman from Nakonde district in northern Zambia, used to run her mobile-money kiosk in a rural area. However, she decided to relocate to a favourable urban centre with adequate internet connectivity. “I am happy my small business is thriving now and stands to grow from the availability of the internet because my enterprise depends on it even when internet access is very expensive,” Siame says.
Another businessperson, Albert Chungu, who supplies mining firms in Zambia’s Copperbelt, recently missed a business opportunity worth millions of Kwacha because he was experiencing poor internet access. He says that while he was offline, the companies advertised an invitation to tender which he only saw days past the submission deadline.
A Dutch private internet service company, Surfshark, in its Digital Quality of Life index 2022 has ranked Zambia 105th in the world by overall digital wellbeing. The country’s internet quality, speed, stability and growth ranks 116th and is 68 % worse than the global average. Surfshark evaluates countries based on five digital wellbeing pillars including internet quality, e-government, e-infrastructure, internet affordability and e-security.
The country’s struggles with internet quality and access have attracted the attention of the private sector. Starlink, a satellite internet constellation operated by SpaceX, has earmarked Zambia for its fast affordable internet project.
Zambia’s president, Hakainde Hichilema met the Starlink delegation in New York and invited the company to his country. “We intend to quickly sort out our connectivity as this is the only way we can have a truly functional e-government of the 21st Century. We are working round the clock to ensure that facilities such as technology are put to great use so that jobs and business opportunities can be realised,” Hichilema said.
Statistics from the Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA) show that only about 56 % of Zambians have internet service, with less than one percent connecting through personal computers. Most people access the internet using smart phones.
It is envisaged that with more internet users and better internet services in Zambia, there will be affordable education, easy access to health and shopping services, increased productivity, and technological development.
Internet access is a challenge in many more other African countries. Zambia is one among many other African countries targeted by Starlink in its African continent penetration drive. Its internet service is already available in Nigeria and Mozambique with plans to reach Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Ghana, Mali and Niger in 2023.
Derrick Silimina is a freelance journalist based in Lusaka.
derricksilimina@gmail.com
Legacy of colonial divide-and-rule strategies
In Pakistan, faith-based identity politics matters too, though not in the same way as in India. Radical Sunnis have managed to largely redefine “Islam” as their own version of the faith, discriminating against others.
It would be an illusion to believe that earlier Indian governments after independence in 1947 built a harmonious and inclusive society. Most of the time, the Congress party was in charge. Power mostly rested in the hands of upper caste and upper class elites. The minorities remained marginalised. Governments rarely targeted them with hate rhetoric, though the anti-Sikh pogrom in Delhi in 1984 was a terrible exception. Today, the minorities and especially Muslims have become targets of systematic and institutionalised hate campaigns. In this sense, the trauma of partition is still most virulent.
The popular adage says that the colonial power ruled India only with 15,000 Brits in the country. They managed to control the huge subcontinent, because Indians contributed to and supported their rule for more than two centuries. Indeed, the upper casts largely flourished, as they had under Mughal rule before.
Colonial legacyAs part of the colonial tactics, the British relied on a policy of divide and rule. They focused on pitting Hindus and Muslims against one another, inculcating religious identity as the primary identity. Historically, language, caste and class were of at least equal importance, with the caste system permeating other faiths than Hinduism. After the uprising of 1857, which involved Hindus and Muslims and which South-Asians call the first war of independence, the colonial power stringently followed its divide-and-rule strategy.
The Congress party, formed in 1885, was the political forerunner in the fight against the British. It was not a Hindu organisation, but some Muslims nevertheless felt excluded. Accordingly, the All India Muslim League was formed in 1906. Congress wanted India to stay united after independence, but the Muslim League insisted on a separate state. The reasoning was that, under Congress rule, Muslims would suffer as second-class citizens.
In the years up to the independence of the country, the tensions grew so much that hatred spread. In 1946, the Great Calcutta Killings were a terrible communal riot between Hindus and Muslims. When the British gave up power, India and Pakistan became two separate states one year later. In both countries, members of the established elites controlled the new governments.
Suparna Banerjee is a Frankfurt-based political scientist.
mail.suparnabanerjee@gmail.com
The painful partition of India
The crown jewel of the British empire, India, obtained its independence in 1947. The event was fraught with the challenge of partition. The country was divided into two – the Hindu majority India and the Muslim majority Pakistan. The result was bloodshed and lasting trauma.
In 1947, then British Governor General Lord Louis Mountbatten established the boundary commission. Its task was to divide the provinces of Bengal in the east and Punjab in the west. Unlike other subcontinental regions, no religious faith was predominant in these provinces, so defining the new national border became difficult.
Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a British lawyer, was appointed the chairman of the commission. He was given five weeks to draw the border. He had never been to India, but did manage to travel to some parts of the colonised territory before deciding its future. Radcliffe tried to maintain the homogeneity of religion in the regions. West Punjab became part of Pakistan and east Punjab became part of India. Similarly West Bengal is now Indian, and east Bengal is Bangladesh.
In 1947, Pakistan had an eastern and a western wing, which were divided by the huge landmass of India in between. One generation later, east Pakistan became Bangladesh in a liberation war. Indeed, the Bengali community of east Pakistan had not had much in common with its western counterparts other than religion. In retrospect, it is clear that the idea of a united Pakistan never made much sense.
Utter chaos and violenceThe independence of India and Pakistan was announced to be on 15th August and 14th August respectively. However, it was not until the 17th August that the boundaries of the two countries were announced. That was the starting point of utter chaos.
Violence erupted as faith-based communities turned against one another. Hindus and Muslims who had been living together for centuries (though probably not always harmoniously) were suddenly torn apart. Houses were looted and burned, properties were destroyed, women were raped and children were killed. The numbers are not reliable, but historians estimate that 15 million people were displaced and around 2 million people died in the bloodshed.
Hindus fled to India and Muslims to Pakistan. Some men killed their wives and children to spare the humiliation of being raped and abused by men of a different religion. Countless people committed suicide to avoid the horror they anticipated. The atrocities were indeed terrible. In Punjab, trains full of dead bodies were sent across the new border.
Surprised by the new border linesThe crisis was particularly profound because many people were surprised by what side of the border they found themselves on. The Bengali districts of Murshidabad and Malda, for example, were predominantly Muslim, so everyone expected them to become part of Pakistan. Instead, they turned out to be in India, even after some people had already unfurled Pakistani flags. Hindu-dominated Khulna, however, was now Pakistan (and became Bangladesh in 1971).
Radcliffe, the British officer, had only had five weeks to determine the borders. The violence that followed saddened him, as The Hindu, a South-Indian newspaper recollected in 2021, so he burnt his papers, refused his 40,000 rupees fee and left, never to return.
Millions of people were severely traumatised. Many had lost their families and homes. They became refugees who could not go back. Even those who stayed had witnessed murder and rape. In both India and the two wings of Pakistan, the bloodshed contributed to defining the new national identity. To many people, the idea that Hindus and Muslims might live together in peace, as they had for centuries, now looked absurd.
Masses of traumatised peopleAbout 2 million dead and 15 million displaced people may be an unreliable statistic, but it stands for masses of traumatised people who suffered terrible pain which is hard for outsiders to fathom. The American Psychological Association defines trauma as, “an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, rape, or natural disaster. Immediately after the event, shock and denial are typical.” Trauma persists and affects people long term, often reducing their capacities to work, support others and deal with the normalcy of daily lives. However, psycho-social support can make a difference, especially if the causes of the trauma are acknowledged by the national public.
Collective trauma impacts not just the individuals but the entire communities and societies. More often than not its impact is felt for a long time to come. Neither in India nor in Pakistan has there been much systematic institutional effort to deal with the tragedy.
The perpetrators of massacres largely enjoyed impunity. Reckless politicians still thrive on mobilising faith communities against one another. As the history of partition is not often discussed in a fact-oriented manner, collective memory is defined by what people of one’s own community say. All too often, people attribute violence only to the other community, overlooking that members of their own faith acted with equal brutality. At the same time, the historical truth is that not everyone took part in the violence – and that neighbours sometimes saved neighbours belonging to the different faith.
Suparna Banerjee is a Frankfurt-based political scientist.
mail.suparnabanerjee@gmail.com
Getting trauma reporting right
When interviewing survivors and victims it is crucial for journalists to do so with great sensitivity. The experience of telling a TV camera about how one’s child was murdered can be re-traumatising and fast undo considerable previous psychosocial efforts to cope with the pain. Sometimes, moreover, journalistic practices intentionally or unintentionally deprive individuals of controlling their own narrative in public media discourse, with re-traumatising consequences.
Professional trainingTo avoid harmful mistakes, media professionals should continuously update their knowledge of related matters. They should undergo professional training in order to understand what causes trauma and what kind of therapies exist. It is important to know, for example, that persons who have experienced torture, sexualised violence, persecution or flight must not be asked to speak about their suffering again and again. Instead, as is always emphasised in psychosocial work, the journalistic focus too should be on their strength and the fact that they survived traumatic events.
Training in conflict-sensitive journalism is a typical component of everyday peacebuilding programmes. However, not only reporters should take part. Editors and managers should do so too. Media houses should motivate journalists and other professionals to grasp such opportunities and make sure they have the time and funding they need. This does not only apply to large international media houses, which hopefully can be expected to support their staff’s advanced training.
It especially applies to smaller, local outlets with reporters who often work on their own in remote areas. These journalists are particularly likely to encounter victims and survivors of mass atrocities, given they operate in proximity to the communities that experienced mass violence. In the aftermath, these areas are precisely where a way must be found to deal with trauma at the personal and the societal level.
Rousbeh Legatis is a peace scholar and consultant who advises agencies involved in peace building, particularly in Latin America.
rousbeh@gmail.com
What helps traumatised societies to heal
According to the Sweden-based Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), nearly 3 million people worldwide were killed in war and armed conflict from 1989 to 2021. How many more people have experienced – and continue to experience – violence in such contexts is difficult to tell. Even a relatively short conflict can cause severe individual and collective traumas which take decades and even generations to heal.
In Germany, for instance, there is still a serious need to deal with the psychosocial, political and cultural legacy of the Holocaust in innovative approaches. That is true even 80 years – or three generations – after the twelve years of dictatorial Nazi rule ended. In Rwanda too, efforts to come to terms with the 1994 genocide in legal, psychosocial and political terms are far from complete. That year, at least 800,000 Tutsis were killed. The atrocious campaign went on for 100 days.
Individual trauma differs from collective trauma. The former is a psycho-emotional response to a severe experience. It can become a lasting mental wound with serious physical consequences. It is important to distinguish the catastrophic event – for example war, a natural disaster or the death of a loved one – from the individual person’s way of dealing with it. According to Canadian physician Gabor Maté, “trauma is not the bad things that happen to you, but what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you”.
How collective trauma comes aboutIndividual trauma is often denied and repressed for years. It needs to be dealt with on a personal level. Collective trauma, on the other hand, is more than just the sum of individual experiences of suffering. It is shaped by how groups of people in society attribute meaning to the events in memorials, commemoration days and rituals or other forms of multi-faceted storytelling. They all contribute to the construction of a common narrative, which in turn can then inform collective attitudes in the long run, according to sociologists Jeffrey Alexander and Elisabeth Butler Breese (in: Eyermann et al. 2016).
The media can uncover the narratives of multiple voices and make them accessible to large numbers of people. Journalists bear responsibility as they decide how the attribute significance to certain events. Their work influences the perceptions in society.
This starts when journalists cover a conflict (Legatis 2015). It is vital to involve previously neglected parties. Otherwise, some narratives may dominate for the wrong reasons. The media must offer alternative – but nonetheless truthful and fact-based – viewpoints. In particular, marginalised communities, which often have large numbers of victims, must be supported in expressing their views.
Another reason multi-voiced perspectives matter is that extended violent conflict tends to twist people’s worldview, making them more narrow-minded. The psychosocial consequences can be serious. Moreover, it becomes more difficult to transform a conflict. As perceptions of “us” and “them” harden, aggressive stereotyping becomes prevalent.
It is necessary to put an end to such dynamics of hateful polarisation. However, it takes a long time and much effort. It can also prove painful to individual persons moreover.
New perspectivesIn the aftermath of mass atrocities and systematic human-rights violations, those who suffered must regain strength if they are to adopt new perspectives. To rebuild a society with peace-promoting structures, people must become able to imagine future-oriented modes of collective life. Forms and content must be negotiated in public discourse.
The media can contribute to peace building by setting the public agenda, if they offer opportunities to check and understand the perceptions and patterns that people use to make sense of traumatic experiences. Both the people who bear political responsibility and those who are personally affected deserve such opportunities. The point is that the media can help to modify hardened identities and clear the path towards further change.
To grapple with collective trauma, suppressed narratives must get attention. It is important to be sensitive to constructive criticism and promote the kind of dialogue in which all relevant parties are heard. For the media to make a meaningful contribution to peace building, the quality of what they publish and the motivation that drives them both are decisive.
It would be naïve to assume that media outlets and their staff do not pursue agendas of their own. Moreover, they operate according to systemic requirements. Conflict coverage is filtered by journalists who spell out causes and effects. Narratives are thus regularly selected and shaped by media before they spread in a community. Journalism must therefore continuously be questioned and its legitimacy should not be taken for granted. As a matter of fact, journalist must do so themselves (see box below).
References
Eyerman, R., Alexander, J. C., Butler Brees, E., 2016: Narrating trauma – on the impact of collective suffering. Abington, New York: Routledge.
Legatis, R., 2015: Media-Related peacebuilding in processes of conflict transformation. Berlin: Berghof Foundation
https://berghof-foundation.org/library/media-related-peacebuilding-in-processes-of-conflict-transformation
Rousbeh Legatis is a peace scholar and consultant who advises agencies involved in peace building, particularly in Latin America.
rousbeh@gmail.com
Governments’ budget constraints are too tight
In November in Bali, the heads of state and government from the world’s leading economies met for the G20 summit. They faced a daunting agenda, and negotiations were made even more difficult by the fact that Russia is a member of the G20 and its invasion of Ukraine has worsened many global challenges. Iwan J. Azis, an economics professor from Indonesia, told me in an interview that the summit actually delivered a stronger declaration than he had expected.
Inflation, so far, is a particularly intractable problem. Central banks focus on the countries they are responsible for, but do not pay much attention to what impacts their decisions have beyond their borders. As André de Mello e Souza, a Brazilian economist, elaborated on our website, however, the strong dollar exacerbates difficulties governments are facing internationally.
Paradigm shiftAn obvious way to increase fiscal space is to raise more taxes. That is easier said than done of course. Even high-income countries, which actually collect large shares of GDP as governments revenues, need more money. In less fortunate places, the situation is even more difficult. In the eyes of Praveen Jha from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, an international paradigm shift would help. He wants incomes and wealth to be taxed and spelled out on our platform why the small-state ideology has failed.
The paradigm shift may actually be underway already. High-income nations have been coordinating efforts to prevent tax avoidance and tax evasion in recent years in the context of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), a group of prosperous nations. Moreover, they have been demanding for many years that developing countries generate more domestic resources, which basically means increasing state revenues. According to Nairobi-based journalist Alphonce Shiundu, William Ruto, Kenya’s new president, has heard the message. He has indeed adopted policies to improve the efficiency and the reach of the tax system.
Sovereign debt problemsWhere a government cannot service its country’s sovereign debt any more, better tax policies alone do not suffice. Some kind of relief is needed, and multilateral action becomes indispensable. Germany’s Federal Government is in favour of establishing an international mechanism for dealing with sovereign insolvency. In March, Kathrin Berensmann of the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) wrote a comment for us in which she discussed why it would be useful.
It must never be forgotten that excessive sovereign debt can cause or worsen an economic crisis and thus exacerbate severe hardship. The most vulnerable people are affected most, including in particular women and girls. Sundus Saleemi, a post-doc scholar at Bonn University’s Center for Development studies, assessed how things play out in Pakistan, a country that has a fragile government, needed a new loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last summer and was hit by devastating flooding.
So far, however, an international mechanism for dealing with every insolvent sovereign government does not exist. In situations where debts overburden an economy, political stability may suffer, exacerbating the crisis. A prominent recent example is Sri Lanka, as journalist Arjuna Ranawana reported.
Part of Sri Lanka’s problem is that a large share of the debt is owed by Chinese institutions. So far, they have been generous in regard to postponing payments, but very strict in regard to debt restructuring and debt relief. Zambia is another country that needs debt restructuring, and negotiations that include China have begun on the matter. The IMF was therefore able to grant the government a fresh loan. Without some kind of debt relief on the horizon that would have been impossible because the IMF is only allowed to lend money if the debtor country can realistically be expected to repay. Peter Mulenga, Chibvalo Zombe and Charles Chinanda from Copperbelt University assessed the Zambian scenario on www.dandc.eu.
How international financial institutions see thingsFor pragmatic reasons, our small team has largely focused on Sri Lanka, but many others are in trouble too. Indeed, the topic of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2022 was how the situation worsened in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. Our Indian colleague Roli Mahajan read the report and summed up its messages in April.
The IMF has made similar statements too, and whether a country belongs in the low-income category or not, it always has an important role to play. Kristina Rehbein and Malina Stutz find fault with its approach. They work for erlassjahr.de, a German civil-society organisation engaged in debt issue. They pointed out on our platform that IMF rhetoric tends to be more progressive than the institution’s actual stance towards individual countries.
Where governments’ fiscal space is insufficient, central banks and financial regulators can contribute to making indispensable investments in climate mitigation or adaptation, for example, possible nonetheless. Indeed, institutions from Asia and Latin America have taken the lead in regard to efforts to gear the financial sector towards making more contributions to achieving sustainability. Ulrich Volz of the University of London spelled out what central banks and financial regulators can – and indeed should – do.
The challenges are daunting. We are indeed living in a polycrisis, and governments urgently need more fiscal space. If you are interested in a brief summary of the issues, I think, I provided one in the editorial I wrote for the December 2022 issue of our digital monthly.
Hans Dembowski is the editor in chief of D+C/E+Z.
euz.editor@dandc.eu
Emotional and economic hardships
Statistics from the Zimbabwean government show that one in every 100 births is a child being born with a congenital heart disease. This means an estimated 4,550 children are born annually with a heart condition.
Zimbabwean heart specialist Reginald Musengi says that these children “may not live up to half a decade if nothing is done to save their lives”. Families of sick children face several challenges ranging from emotional to economic hardships. One example is Bernard Mutambu. From birth, the nine-year-old has battled a severe heart ailment which has forced him to be out of school. The boy suffers with abnormal heart rhythms, shortness of breath and swollen body tissue organs – which are precisely signs of a heart condition.
Bernard’s mother, 30-year-old Linet Mutambu who is a single parent, previously worked as a till operator at a local Harare supermarket but stopped working to care for her son. “I had no choice because I realised he needed my whole attention and I had to quit my job and give him the care,” Linet Mutambu says. The Mutambus now depend on handouts from well-wishers for their survival.
In fact, many more underage Zimbabwean children are battling a similar challenge with several of them being born overweight. These children are contracting illnesses such as diabetes and hypertension. Some children die at birth. Children who survive and live with heart conditions are finding it hard to lead normal active lives. This also bears down on their parents and caretakers who put their lives at a standstill to care for them. They suffer emotional distress, and no safety nets exist to help them cope.
“What pains me is looking after my child whose condition may claim his life. From time to time, Bernard must be admitted in hospital for monitoring by specialist doctors, which is not affordable,” Mutambu laments.
Zimbabwe’s public health-care system has not made things easier for such families. Most children with such conditions must rely on private health-care facilities for attention. These are an expensive option that impoverishes many families. Moreover, many families cannot afford health insurance and therefore beg for money from well-wishers to cover medical bills.
For Mutambu’s son’s heart condition, treatments have had to include medication to lower blood pressure and control heart rate, heart devices, catheter procedures and surgery. But with no access to the critical resources, Mutambu cannot provide the treatment, risking her son’s life.
In 2021, the Zimbabwean government established a paediatric cardiac centre at Mpilo central hospital in Bulawayo, the country’s second largest city, but to date no surgeries have been conducted due to shortages of equipment. Non-governmental organisations like Brave Little Hearts try to change the situation for children like Bernard. They petitioned parliament to address challenges faced by young patients of heart ailments.
Jeffrey Moyo is a journalist based in Harare.
moyojeffrey@gmail.com