DevISSues volume 10, number 1, May 2008

Academia and Engagement

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Also in this issue: Child Soldiers and the future of Africa Peter Waterman and the World Social Forum Omar Barghouti on boycotting Israeli academics

DevISSues DevelopmentISSues

Volume10/Number1/May 2008

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From the Editorial Board Academia and Engagement This DevISSues is about how those involved in academic research and teaching engage with real-life processes of advocacy and social action demanding radical change. Advocates of change, whose goal it is to be a vehicle promoting that change, have an on-going dialogue with scholars who can be advocates themselves. This theme was chosen not simply for its contemporary relevance, but also because of ISS’ own history as an institute known for its progressive political and social stance.

Helen Hintjens’ introductory article deals with the idea that dialogue and engagement urgently need to take place. In her view, being ‘engaged’ socially can be central rather than an addition to academic work. Academics should remain open to change just as activists and advocates can be inspired by those whose lives are spent with theory and scholarship. Alumnus Daniel Chavez’ piece describes historically some individual and institutional changes in intellectual development from alternative sides of the political spectrum. He suggests that over the last century or so, intellectuals and think tanks have become more conservative.

Even so, at the same time alternative social networks produce their own research and ideas, and these continue to spread throughout the world. The plight of academics who claim the right to voice critical and controversial views during this era of heightened security is the topic of a joint article by Eric Ross and Helen Hintjens. They show that academic work is increasingly being monitored and that academic freedom needs full protection from censorship and repression.

Peter Waterman, an academic-activist for over 50 years, and lecturer at ISS for over 20 years, discusses his own history of social engagement in an interview with Rosalba Icaza. Their discussion includes reflections on the World Social Forum in particular. In another piece, an ISS student group set up this year, ‘Activists for Alternative Awareness’ describe their experiences at this year’s World Social Forum in Belgium, as well as their work in promoting dialogue with a range of social actors on various issues at ISS. Omar Barghouti points out that dialogue under extreme conditions can be problematic. The occupation of Palestine by Israel has lead him to support the boycott of Israeli academic institutions, with the goal to pursue independence and avoid complicity through supposedly open debate. Meghna Guhathakurta, following a post-doctorate through a collaborative project between ISS and the University of Dhaka, highlights the strengths of developing theoretical frameworks while remaining entrenched in the realities of the extreme-poor in Bangladesh. These articles on ‘advocacy and the academy’ all concern the broad theme of dialogue, fostering debate on the value of interaction between academic circles and demands for progressive social change, however it is defined.

On another note, the Prince Claus Chair has now gone into its sixth year. ISS is proud to host this year’s Chair, Alcinda Honwana, whose prestigious career in development has focussed mainly on the vital question of how rehabilitation processes can support post-conflict child soldiers. An interview with her in this issue addresses her past work and current interests.

The DevISSues board

About the cover Kenyan boy-scouts carry peace flags as the 2007 World Social Forum (WSF) kicked off with a march from Kibera, Africa’s largest slum, in Nairobi, Kenya. The anti-globalization forum was set up initially in 2001 as a rival to the World Economic Forum. In 2007 over 80,000 people across the world attended local venues to express their feelings on matters related to economy, war and poverty across the world. In this DevISSues edition various articles refer to the annual WSF and its function as an alternative space for progressive dialogue.

The Institute of Social Studies ISS is an institute for advanced international education and research offering Diploma, Masters and PhD programmes.

The Institute generates, accumulates and transfers knowledge and know-how on human aspects of economic and social change, with a focus on development and transition.

ISS is a leading centre in this field.

Development ISSues is also available on the ISS website at www.iss.nl

Contents

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4 / Advocacy and the Academy: : A Need for Dialogue Helen Hintjens

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5 / Portrait of an Iconoclast Rosalba Icaza

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8 / Challenging the Conservative Intellectual Hegemony Daniel Chavez

Page 10 / Lessons Learned for Students who are Activists for Alternative Awareness

Page 12 / Youth Transitions and Sustainable Development in Africa

Page 15 / Global Terror Laws and Engaged Social Research Helen Hintjens and Eric Ross

Page 18 / Just Intellectuals?

Omar Barghouti

Page 21 / Linking to Bangladesh Meghna Guhathakurta

The views expressed in DevISSues are those of the original authors and do not necessarily reect those of the Institute.

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Advocacy and the Academy: A Need for Dialogue Dr Helen Hintjens

This DevISSues is devoted to trying to understand the special effort that may be required from us as scholars who seek to use our work to supporting positive social change, however we define it. As Nahda Shehada, an ISS staff member and DevISSues board member commented during discussions on this special issue, everyone is engaged in some way or other, whether they realise it or not. Non-engagement in this view is simply not an option.

A few years ago, one commentator on this subject noted that “it’s hard to think of another time when there has been such a gulf between intellectuals and activists; between theorists of revolution and its practitioners” (David Graeber The New Anarchists, New Left Review, Jan/Feb 2002: 61). Graeber probably over-stated his case, even in 2002. Yet those in the academy who think distance is needed for objective social science may still outnumber those who think that social change can only be understood once we enter into it ourselves, as participants rather than only as observers. In Unexpected Power: Conflict and Change among Transnational Activists (Cornell University Press, 2006) Shareen Hertel shows that exercising power through advocacy can be very unpredictable; social change is often messy. Learning from experience means that recipes can rarely be followed. Studying ‘messy’ change can be a challenge for scholars who like to know what they are dealing with. Engagement and dialogue changes not just our research, but ourselves, and hopefully eventually the world around us too. Thus democratising society at large makes little sense without democratising how we teach, how we live at home, and how we are in the workplace. Dialogue is about this, opening up to forms of engagement that are both enervating and exciting.

With the hectic pace of social change it can be tempting to retreat inside an ivory tower. But keeping ‘on top’

of development issues in our world requires long-term exchange with those we claim to defend; the low-paid, the insecure, the landless and those who struggle with injustices. The humbling experiences involved can inspire new ways of seeing things, as Ananta Giri, a long-time visitor at ISS and Professor

False utopias based on ideas of purity need to be counterposed with real cosmopolitan alternatives.

at the Madras Institute of Development Studies in Chennai, describes and analyses in his study Reflections and Mobilizations: Dialogues with Movements and Voluntary Organizations (Sage, 2005).

Such letting go of certainties and cherished theories is not easy.

But in striving for excellence in a competitive climate we can as scholars sometimes risk; “…cutting off that effort to understand, to negotiate, to compromise that living amidst and with difference requires” (Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty, 2007: 87).

Social movements today form the powerful backdrop of this issue. Their tremendous power of solidarity, of constructing new global and cross-

cutting solidarities, can inspire us all.

What matters, in the worlds of Theodor Adorno, is what I term the politics of love, or; “the power to see similarity in the dissimilar”. This is part of the purpose of the World Social Forums, which provide vital spaces for global movements to meet and plan shared actions and messages. World and regional social forums have evolved; becoming polycentric in 2006 to reduce costs and make them more accessible to marginalised groups, and being completely decentralised in 2008 (there was a WSF event in ISS itself this year).

Dialogue is vital for other reasons. Social movements do not always espouse democratic and positive paths of social change. Under authoritarian leadership or inhumane ideologies, social movements can work for destructive social change as well. Hatred for those seen as different is a common thread in such circumstances, and here dialogue is more difficult. Intellectuals and the academy need to keep channels open, but not become apologists for those with anti-humane practices and beliefs.

False utopias based on ideas of purity need to be counterposed with real cosmopolitan alternatives.

The cosmopolitan values that will get it through an era that is increasingly inhumane, need to be reiterated again and again.

Helen Hintjens is Senior Lecturer in Development and Social Justice at ISS. She can be reached at hintjens@iss.nl

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Peter Waterman, a life-long activist and academic, taught at ISS from 1972-1998. Rosalba Icaza, a new ISS staff member, discusses Peter’s own background in activism and academic institutions. Having worked for years in teaching, researching and supporting social movements, he has been very much involved in the annual World Social Forums (WSF). Despite controversy regarding the forums’ dominance by larger NGOs, it can still be regarded as a space that allows for marginalized representation and democratic processes.

Portrait of an Iconoclast An i n t e r v i e w w i t h Dr Pet er Wat er man b y D r Ro s a l b a I c a z a What kinds of writings influenced your approach to social movements and your engagement with them in the first place?

My family background, early youth and adult life were with the international Communist movement and with Marxism. I am still inspired by the Communist Manifesto of 1848, and think that anyone who calls themselves

cultured should read it, especially in light of neo-liberalism and globalization today. In the 1980s I was very much influenced by European and Latin American writing on so-called new social movements, and following that

by Manuel Castells’ massive work on information capitalism. I’ve also been very heavily influenced by feminist writing which most poignantly taught

me that social emancipation isn’t owned or led by any social group, and nor does it belong to any one theory.

Recently I have been reading quite a bit of Boaventura de Sousa Santos (there are 6 or 7 of his books in English). I now consider myself a Liberation Marxist someone concerned to liberate Marxism from the Marxists and, where necessary, even from Marx!

Peter Waterman signing protest form against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia during the ‘Prague Spring’. Prague, August ’68.

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And liberate people from dominant ways of viewing things? I recently wrote a paper with Rolando Vasquez when we came across this quote from John Holloway (in Change the World without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today, Pluto, London, 2002): “…when we see things through the eyes of the dominant system, we suppress other ways of seeing the world, other hopes and

ways of doing things”. Do you think we in academia can look through other eyes, the eyes of those without positions of dominance?

Speaking only of ISS during the period I was there, it was always geared towards management of the Global South. After the global intellectual and political crisis symbolised by 1968, the Institute witnessed a high tide of critical social science – there was Marxism,

Protesters at the 2007 World Social Forum in Kenya, attended globally by over 80,000 people. ANP / AGE.

Dependency Theory, Maoism, RadicalNationalism and Populism. There was teaching on peasant movements, labour unions and organising, urban movements, and later on, women’s movements. Colleagues of mine from elsewhere in Europe and the Third World thought the Institute at that time was a real hotbed of radicalism! But the radical wave did run out of steam, with the collapse of radical-nationalism in the South and the short-lived nonaligned ‘Spirit of Bandung’ (Third World non-alignment). Most guerrilla movements in Latin America lost their way and there was an obvious emerging crisis of Communism. All this changed things in many ways. I was never personally convinced by the project of ‘development’. It still seems more about management than about social change.

As an ISS colleague once remarked in passing, ‘there seems little coincidence between your research interests and those of the Institute, Peter’; and in many ways I think that he was right! For example, when I left ISS, the courses I taught were dropped. A shame, but there it is. I just hope that today staff in ISS are using to their own advantage the growing body of scholarship that is emerging about – and through – emancipatory social movements, as I believe there is some urgency to include these. And who knows, the World Social Forum may galvanise scholars the way the Spirit of Bandung once did. I do hope so, but I won’t bet my money on it!

Do you think it is possible for young academics to engage with social movements while there are strong current trends of hyper-specialization during their academic career?

Absolutely. While hyper-specialisation may be taking place, there has also been a mushrooming of academic centres focused on the ‘global justice and solidarity movement’. The WSF as an expression of this global movement is also a focus of research interest. There are centres on labour movements, women’s rights, peace and conflict, the environment and so on, so specialization is not all bad news! Most of these are created by students and youngergeneration academics, and much of the socially-committed academic research and writing tends now to be less ideological and more specialized than in the past. It’s more professional, if you like. There is a growing wave of

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reflection on the academy and activism, and presumably this DevISSues edition is an expression of that. We live in a ‘social movement society’ where social movements are increasingly central, major actors on the world scene, and especially in many countries of the South. If universities continue to engage directly and democratically with emancipatory social movements, then the future of engaged academia looks pretty good.

When I first joined ISS in 2007, several people advised me to meet you. We have both worked on the WSF as a major ‘event’ of this new global movement era. How did your own involvement in WSF come about?

Well, my first ever ‘world social forum’ was a World Festival of Youth and Students, organized by international communism in East Berlin, back in 1951!

I was 15 years old, and it’s a very long way from there to here. By the time I wrote Globalization, Social Movements and the New Internationalisms in 1998, I was influenced by post-Communist and post-Social-Democratic movements of the 1980s and 1990s. I have always supported the WSF and my partner (one-time visiting ISS lecturer) Gina Vargas from Peru, was heavily involved with WSF from the start. I suppose that’s how the connection began. A few years ago, I co-edited a compilation with Jai Sen and other friends (World Social Forum: Challenging Empires, 2004).

The collaborative work with Jai will continue with a couple more volumes coming out in 2008. I’m pleased that these publications are becoming basic reference points for others going on to study the WSF in more detail This year the process aspect of the WSF has been emphasized more than the ‘event’ aspect, and smaller, local but globally connected WSF events were organized in over 40 countries at the end of January. How do you regard this development?

I regard the 2007 WSF in Nairobi as the most controversial and disputed one yet. A lot of common WSF problems came to a head. What was obvious was the dominance of bigger international NGOs, the high cost of entry, how difficult it was to access the site, and the sheer commercialism of the event.

New problems were added to old ones, with conservative churches openly

expressing hostility to sexual minorities, for example. For 2008, the International Council decided to learn from this event, and wanted to stimulate WSF events locally (see A3 article on pp1011). The date was set towards the end of January.

Maybe this is how the WSF should evolve – in two directions at the same time; into localities at national, urban and rural levels, and into cyberspace!

Local groups could advertise their events on the WSF site this year, and anyone who attended could go back and give feedback on the whole process and read about other events.

Should the WSF not be more open to newcomers and even enable them to creatively find common solutions to the pressing problems they face?

Low-caste people, slum-dwellers and shunned minorities, like homosexuals in Kenya, all complain they are marginalised in WSF events. So how democratic is the WSF really?

Now this is not a cop-out but it depends on what you mean by democratic. My experience of the Forums at different levels is that they are more open than any similar kind of event. The WSF has a clear consensus (1) against neo-liberal globalization and (2) in favour of forging alternatives. There is obviously no way the Forum organizers can micro-manage such huge events, so everyone is able to speak and be heard. There are inequalities of power, but the space is quite free. I have been present in one WSF International Council meeting, without any ‘right’ to be there, and no one objected or even noted this.

Individuals and groups can give back very critical feedback about the WSF. And if criticism is a sign of freedom, then this is a pretty democratic setup. So, in my view, the WSF is actually remarkably porous to people and information – leaking both out and in – so that you can have one foot in a Forum event, and be equally at home in a marginal or even counter-event somewhere else in the host city. And notice how the web, both inside and outside Forum actions and events is of growing importance. Through this, oppositional voices are picked up, distributed, ‘sold’ if you like, in and around the Forums.

NGOs, which are incremental in their general orientation. This is a problem that is not always recognised. I think it dampens radicalism, but this too is a sign of democratic processes at work. The major restriction on how representative the WSF can be is its class composition. Participation of women is close to 50 per cent, but around 80 per cent of those who take part in social forums are university educated. It is great in my view that we have an anti-globalization movement among the middle classes internationally. But this does marginalize the vast majority of the world’s population. There is much room for improvement in terms of how democratic the Forums can be. There is a danger that the WSF starts to shape up as a counter-elite, social-democratic, operation, influenced by 20th century orientations and operations, and for my part I hope it develops in more radicaldemocratic directions. As Naomi Klein once said at a WSF event, what we need now is less civil society and more civil disobedience!

If we look at the broader ‘global justice and solidarity movement’, the trade unions have been doing some really inspiring work with low-paid workers, like the cleaner’s campaign (www.steundeschoonmakers.nl). This was inspired by Justice for Janitors in the US and Justice for Cleaners in the UK, and the movement in Holland has already had some of its demands met.

Migrant and female cleaning workers in the Netherlands number around 150,000 and have been often paid under 9 Euros an hour (before tax)! Cleaning is a multinationalised capitalist industry so trade unions have organized crossborder campaigns fitted to each case.

In the Netherlands, the FNV is helping cleaners themselves to come forwards and organize. I would love to hear the voices of such workers, the 70 percent of workers who are still unorganized and work in informal and low-paid work, at the next WSF! Peter Waterman taught Labour and International Movements at ISS until he retired in 1998. He is currently writing his autobiography due to come out in late 2008. He can be contacted at p.waterman@inter.nl.net. Rosalba Icaza works on governance, trade and development, and she has

I regret that WSF is excessively influenced by the big international

just completed a study on the WSF. She can be reached at icaza@iss.nl.

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Challenging the Conservative T h e Tra nsnational Ins titut e Experienc e Dr Daniel Chavez With the previously highly respected concept of intellectual now being reduced to very low standards, we are nowadays suffering a sad bastardisation of the notion of intelligentsia. A position that used to be occupied by deep and politically committed thinkers, is now being replaced by a new generation of ‘intellectual’ media stars, more interested in promoting themselves than developing innovative thinking on how to effect change in a progressive direction. Similarly, in viewing the global spectrum of think tanks, the balance has tilted towards conservatism – influenced by the heavily funded US-born neocon movement and the neo-liberal paradigm.

FROM DREYFUSARDS TO ‘INTELLECTUAL’ The concept of the ‘intellectual’ first appeared in France at the end of the nineteenth century in the context of the so-called ‘Dreyfus affair’, a political scandal with nationalistic and antiSemitic overtones triggered by the unlawful conviction for treason of a promising young military officer. A group of progressive thinkers and artists, led by Emile Zola, launched a campaign

in defence of Alfred Dreyfus’s rights (the J’accuse that titled Zola’s article spurred the campaign to showing the racism and biases that were underlying the conviction). The group was referred to as ‘the intellectuals’ in the French press of the time. In its original context the concept intimately linked creative thinking to peaceful resistance against injustice and oppression and the promotion of solidarity. Tracing the evolution of the concept from the dreyfusards to our times, the towering Spanish sociologist José Vidal-Beneyto reclaims the concept of intellectual as applicable to somebody who produces original and relevant knowledge guided by an intransigent public integrity that is not contradicted by private behaviour, and an unalterable commitment with progressive collective action.

Unfortunately, the ethical and epistemological legacy of the dreyfusards is being eroded by the rise of a generation of self-styled ‘intellectuals’ who seem to be the product of a meticulous marketing strategy, supported (or driven) by powerful media conglomerates and ambiguous political forces. A large number of the ‘new thinkers’ are bornagain conservatives with ideological roots in the radical left. They are very visible in Europe, but a similar sort of ‘intellectual’ can be found all over the world, including in many countries of the South. Social scientists and development theorists are a minority among them.

The hegemonic group is composed of writers (including world-famous figures such as Mario Vargas Llosa, from Peru) and philosophers (such as Bernard-Henri Lévy, purportedly a generator of ideas for France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy), who doubtless write beautifully, albeit with dubious rigour and little knowledge of the vast array of issues they expound on in their op-eds, articles, talks and books – ranging from democracy promotion to economic development, the expansion of Islam, international migration and climate change.

THE SPECTRUM OF THINK TANKS Besides individual intellectuals, the other major current actors are the socalled ‘think tanks’, the overwhelming majority of which lie on the right side of the ideological divide. Think tanks can be broadly defined as non-governmental and non-profit organisations that seek to provide evidence-based advice on public policy issues. Their purpose is to provide an informed and independent voice in policy debates, and to translate ideas and emerging problems into policy issues. They are also expected to generate spaces for the exchange of ideas and information among key stakeholders in the policy formulation process.

Although think tanks have proliferated across the world in recent years, they are not new. What is new is that most of the current generation of think tanks are conservative, whereas historically some of the most influential tended to be rather progressive. The Fabian Society appeared in Britain in 1884 as one of the earliest think tanks. It aimed to counter the prospect of social revolution through the promotion of a set of gradual but progressive reforms.

Across the Atlantic, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was founded in 1910, seeking to find peaceful alternatives to the looming prospect of war. After World War II, the objectives and structure of think tanks began to change. In 1948, the US Air Force provided financial assistance for the launch of the mammoth Rand Corporation, currently operating with a budget of over US$150 million, supplied by both public and private donors, and a staff of over a thousand. Following a steady rise, the most aggressive and conservative generation of research and advocacy centres emerged in the 1990s in the context of the end of the Cold War and the global expansion of free market economics. With a clear right-wing agenda and openly financed by private interests, the most notorious

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Intellectual Hegemony: are based in the US, although with political clout reaching all corners of the world. These include the Project for the New American Century, the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Cato Institute, the Center for Security Policy, and the Manhattan Institute.

They have been highly influential in reshaping US domestic and foreign policy, particularly under President George Bush.

There are other, somewhat less conservative, think tanks in North America that counter the above. The Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Center for American Progress and the Institute for International Economics – also endowed with huge budgets and staff – oppose the rise of extreme conservatism, but fail to develop really progressive alternatives. Further to the left, we find the Institute for Policy Studies, the Progressive Policy Institute, the Council of Foreign Relations, the Liberty Tree for the Democratic Revolution, and the Polaris Institute (in Canada), among others.

In Europe, the rise of ‘third way’ politics has also promoted the creation of a series of research centres and foundations aimed at ‘reinventing social democracy’. On this side of the Atlantic, however, the panorama is much more varied. Most political parties have their own think tanks, many more are broadly aligned with one or another political tendency, albeit presenting themselves as ‘independent’, and many of those tending to the left have good relations with progressive counterparts in North America and the South. Corporatefunded think tanks are far less common in Europe than in the US. In the South, there tend to be more influential think tanks with closer links to social movements than to political parties or corporate interests. Few would categorise themselves as ‘think tanks’, seeing themselves rather as ‘activist research and advocacy

TNI-organized seminar at World Social Forum 2007 with Walden Bello (Philippines), Carlos Aguilar (Costa Rica) and Dot Keet (South Africa).

networks’. They are very active in network-building at regional and global levels, promoting joint initiatives through processes such as the World Social Forum, the Hemispheric Social Alliance (across the Americas), or Enlazando Alternativas (Latin America and Europe). Examples include Focus on the Global South (Asia), the Brazilian Institute for Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE), and the Third World Network. This type of politically independent and social movementoriented research and advocacy networks can also be found in the North. They are usually characterised by strong links with partner institutions in the South and take advantage of networking opportunities through Social Forum processes. In comparison to conservative think tank resources their budgets are relatively small, and are often associated with eminent names, such as Walden Bello, Susan George, Patrick Bond, Naomi Klein, Atilio Boron or Boaventura de Sousa Santos – to name a few – but their social status and political profile have nothing in common with media-star ‘intellectuals’.

The Transnational Institute (TNI) is a prime example of this type of movement-oriented type of organisation. Perhaps the oldest of the surviving progressive institutes in the world, it was founded in 1974 as an independent, international network of activist-scholars at the

service of progressive movements.

All TNI programmes aim at having a real social and/or political impact, and conceive research as a tool to advance progressive change. Since its foundation, a central focus of TNI work has been global inequalities of wealth and power and the relationship of these to the actions of the wealthy, powerful states and transnational corporations.

Loyal to the tradition of resistance against injustice and oppression, and the promotion of solidarity built by the dreyfusards and many other committed intellectuals, TNI is devoted to addressing ‘big themes’ and global systemic challenges across disciplines, across sectors and across continents.

There are undoubtedly many other ‘think tanks’ that specialise in one or another of the themes covered by the Institute, but few are able to make the links both intellectually and politically across them all.

Dr. Daniel Chavez, an Uruguayan anthropologist, graduated from the ISS MA specialisation PADS in 1997 and from the PhD Programme in 2004. He is currently the New Politics Programme Director at the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. TNI has a long history of working together with the Institute of Social Studies. Its present Executive Director (Fiona Dove), two Fellows, and many current and former staff and interns, are also ISS graduates. You can find out more about TNI at www.tni.org and you can contact Daniel Chavez at chavez@tni.org.

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Lessons learned for students who are Activists for Alternative Awareness

A³ stands for Activists for Alternative Awareness. Pronounced ‘A-cubed’, it is a student-run initiative at ISS outside of the formal institutional structures. A³ was founded by an initiative of a group of seven current MA students, but which to-date includes twenty or so members, depending on the projects and campaigns. Through the group’s campaigns and activities, they have found themselves learning as much about organizational processes and awareness building outside of classes as within them. Since the first term of 2007 the group has organized three different activities to build awareness and promote activism around different themes; this article recounts each of them as well the lessons learned.

Alongside the MA programme coursework, students are elected to the central student board or encouraged to set up various committees that are supplied with financial and administrative support for their activities

by ISS. Of course, students are also able to create groups outside of that, such as the Activists for Alternative Awareness. Backed by the financial, organisational and moral support of Martin Blok and the Welfare Office, the spontaneous forming of this group’s activities brought opportunities to put more alternative ideas into practice.

As none of the member students hold particular roles within this group, they purport to be nothing more than a

porous organization held together by an interest to discuss and learn from one other’s ideas concerning activism and awareness.

CONTROL ARMS The Control Arms campaign was organized in late October, 2007. It originated from a well-known global initiative of NGOs who are critical of the unregulated global arms trade. A³ wanted to do more than just promote awareness of this message within the ISS community by providing detailed information through flyers and a debate with invited speakers. To promote the conference they plastered the walls at ISS with different-coloured posters

ISS students showing their banners during the Brussels march.

and disseminated bulleted fact sheets for a week, each day with a different theme. Similarly, the students received

The power of media to manipulate and incorporate biases into the mainstream public free t-shirts from Oxfam which were distributed through a quiz held during a lecture. For the conference itself, representatives from Oxfam and Amnesty International shared the floor with one student who has practical work experience in the field.

The irony was that, despite all the fanfare and the generally positive response from students and staff, the aspects of ‘activism’ and ‘awareness’ were somewhat muted; the flyers had been intended to target students based on their specialisations and so attract them to the conference. But by midweek, and following all of the poster announcements, many complained of being saturated by the advertising.

As a result people gained a general knowledge of the issues, but little in actual detail. Similarly, as both invited speakers essentially supported the campaign, little substantive debate emerged from the conference. Some students, in turn, seemed as attracted to

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the event by the prospect of free drinks and t-shirts as they did to learning more about the issue itself.

Nevertheless, the campaign created a lot of attention and allowed people to become more informed on the topic.

For A³ it was a generally successful first step, although the real goal was to actually enthuse other students enough to become engaged themselves.

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM Acting under their dual leadership roles for both A³ and the International Relations (IR) committee (most of the students are in both groups), a series of ISS events were organized in conjunction with the World Social Forum (WSF) – a global initiative to promote an alternative to the capitalistminded World Economic Forum held annually in Davos, Switzerland.

Following a successful “Forum of Social Movements” with ISS faculty and representatives from local Dutch movements, the IR committee organized a trip for over 40 ISS students to Brussels, Belgium to participate in the Belgian version of the WSF (this year’s WSF was held simultaneously at numerous international locations; the group chose Brussels for its proximity and pertinent themes). Expectations were high for the trip with the prospect of meeting various social movements and NGOs, but the Forum turned out to feel more like an educational day for tourists than a meeting space for social action, what with only a few large-scale NGOs being represented.

The apex of the group’s disappointment came at the end of a long day when local police prohibited the group from marching on the streets and displaying the ISS banners – with critical messages of awareness on world issues – in public. In response, a majority of the ISS students waged a silent protest against the impossibility of freedom of expression on the so-called Global Day of Action. By taping their mouths closed and writing various messages over the tape, such as ‘silent action’ or ‘democracy’, the group effectively created interest from passers-by, and even from representatives of the Belgian mass media that recorded the protest and interviewed some of the ISS students. While this was far from the original intention of the trip, the entire day was a lesson in public apathy (lack of participation in Brussels Social

Forum), societal jurisdiction (local police authority over the group’s free speech), and group bonding with a common purpose (silent protest). In the end, the day felt like a gain in ISS spirit, rather than a loss in not reaching expectations and objectives.

MEDIA AWARENESS Following the lessons from the Control Arms campaign, A³ chose a new direction for their second major awareness campaign; the power of media to manipulate and incorporate biases into the mainstream public.

The main events of this campaign

ISS students waged a silent protest against the impossibility of freedom of expression on the so-called Global Day of Action would be a public dialogue that included various members of the Dutch mainstream and alternative media (this time with a broader spectrum of viewpoints) and a Saturday morning student workshop highlighting different styles of alternative awareness. Rather than follow the standard, traditional publicity campaign as they had done for the Control Arms campaign, A³ created a more innovative way to grab people’s attention based on the campaign’s theme itself; the members created a false television news video exploiting a fabricated story of financial scandal at the ISS. The initial plan was to use footage from ISS students who had been asked questions about a completely different subject – corruption and scandal in their home countries. By manipulating the student’s words, A³ wanted to create a sense of impassioned anger over the misuse of their words and intrigue about a potential scandal within ISS; enough to motivate a large attendance at the media-awareness conference. During the process however, they realised that because of the sensitivity of the subject, they should limit the hoax interviews to members of the group.

Only eight posters were hung within the ISS building, depicting a fake newspaper article bearing the headline

The faked newspaper headline for the media awareness campaign.

“Scandal at ISS”. The rumour then ran that there was a scandal within the school, with the video evidence to prove it. Having ISS administration informed before the newspaper was hung up was invaluable, not only in maintaining its legitimate status as an ‘outside’ student group, but in the ability to continue the campaign.

Attendance and involvement at the debate was high, with the video highlighting the role of media today and the legitimacy of who can decide what is ‘news’. Students’ reactions to discovering that the video was fake and a means to draw publicity were mixed; many were not happy at being misled and were worried about the institution’s reputation, but they got the point behind the promotion of the campaign.

The initiative continues to give the A³ members a deep understanding of event management and promotion, the challenge of achieving ISS student involvement, and the delicate nature of balancing a group identity of being both inside and outside the realm of formal institutional regulation. However it is the spontaneous nature of planning the events and overcoming unexpected problems that A³ members value as the biggest reward of their hard work.

The seven A³ members interviewed for this piece were Ana Rodrigues, Daniel Mejia, Joanna Cabello, Jasper Hootsman, Krista Hund, Paula Ellinger and Daniel Seth Shapiro. The Media Awareness and the Belgium World Social Forum videos can be found with the online edition of this article at www.iss. nl/devissues.

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Youth Transitions and Sustainable Development in Africa An int erv i e w w i t h P ro fe s s o r A l c i n d a H o n wana Last year marked the five year anniversary of the Prince Claus Chair. The position was created to continue the work of the late Prince Claus (1926-2002) by supporting research and teaching in the field of development coordination. This year Professor

them out of the armies into wardevastated communities will not solve their problems unless education, skills training and employment are available to provide former child soldiers with the prospects for a better future.

Alcinda Honwana, Director of the International Development Centre at the Open University, accepted the offer to hold the chair for the 6th year, beginning in April 2008. This interview highlights a number of aspects of her background and work.

Could you briefly review your academic career?

Prior to my professional career, my family and country’s social-political environment already set the stage for my academic interests in cultural politics, war and social transformation.

As a youth I was active in the National Youth Organization and concerned with Mozambique’s post-colonial future as the country sank into civil war between 1977 and 1992. I obtained my education both within Mozambique and abroad, covering history and geography before settling into anthropology. It was in this context that I became interested in the role of spirit possession and healing practices during and after the Mozambique civil war, and in post-conflict social reintegration of individuals and groups. I focused on the ways in which communities dealt with the hardship of the war and managed to negotiate transitions and in particular the transition from war to peace. My comparative studies of post-war child and youth rehabilitation in other countries such as Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia and Sri Lanka reveal similar characteristics to those in Mozambique.

The phenomenon of child soldiering is a critical one to examine in the context of war and transitions to peace as it dramatically upsets established boundaries between childhood/ adulthood, victim/perpetrator and protected/protector.

Currently my research concerns postconflict rehabilitation and reintegration of young people, their transition to access full citizenship and their potential to contribute to development in African societies. Recently however I have become more interested not just in child-soldiers, but youth in general. The world in which these young men and women are making their transition to adulthood has changed dramatically with the enormous impact of rapid globalization, the explosive growth of information technology, the spread of HIV/AIDS and increase of conflict and war in the last decades.

You have researched both rural institutions as well as worked with NGOs in supporting youth rehabilitating processes. How do you see both of their roles?

NGOs and international multilateral agencies have been deeply involved in the protection and service provision for war-affected children and youths.

They see child soldiering primarily as a humanitarian issue and try to address it by supporting them on the ground.

One of the problems that arise from focusing on child soldiers as simply a humanitarian problem is that it often overlooks the socio-economic and cultural processes needed to resolve the problem. In other words, the links between child soldiering and social and economic development are critical to fully address the problem. Taking

However, child soldiers are often treated

by NGOs as a homogenous group of victimised children. While I would agree that most of them are victims, they are not so homogeneous – some joined at the tender age of 8 while others are 17. And while they start as victims they also become perpetrators of terrible atrocities. So child soldiers become this complex and interstitial category of people straddling between childhood and adulthood, between civilian and soldier, and between victim and perpetrator. Most international treaties and conventions place children within the 0-18 age bracket, traditionally recognised as a time for nurturing and protecting. Under ‘normal’ circumstances this is fine, but for some young men who are coming out of war at the age of 16 and 17 they no longer want to be seen as children. Indeed, their communities don’t regard them as such any more; they might have gone into the war as children but they come back as young men. They want to be independent, have a job and take care of their lives.

Moreover, apart from entering military life at different ages, young people also experience it differently. Girls are often victims of sexual violence and are made wives of soldiers. Some receive military training to defend the camp while male soldiers are fighting in military incursions. Their labour is also exploited as they are made to cook, clean the camps and search for water and firewood. Boy soldiers involved in combat may react differently to their situation. Some may experience a lot of fear and never grow into their military role, as opposed to those who

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may excel in what they do to please and become the favourites of the commanders. For many child soldiers the possession of a gun empowered them in ways that they never expected.

They could terrorise people, kill, loot and get all the girls they wanted. In my work I try to show the complexity and contradictions in these children’s lives, located in this twilight zone between being simultaneously child and adult, victim and perpetrator. Humanitarian agencies and NGOs tend to regard these young soldiers simply as victims.

And while this is certainly valid, the story is never so simple.

How do you see this complexity reflected in the rehabilitation process itself?

The healing of war trauma and reintegration of these youths into society will always be a major challenge.

In Mozambique the limited number of local psychologists led to the use of foreign psychologists from western Europe and North America.

The experience did not work so well, because psychology is in my view a social and cultural construction; some kind of social and cultural empathy, and the sharing of similar world views, needs to be established between practitioner and patient. This is not to say that foreign practitioners can’t help, but that the social and cultural contexts differ greatly, not to mention dealing with the vast populations affected in countries like Mozambique and Angola.

Through my research on social reintegration of war-affected populations I came across an amazing

repository of post-conflict healing practices for children and youths conducted by families, healers, diviners and religious groups. Such practices were instrumental in restoring harmony and solidarity in the communities in the aftermath of war. Many distressed children desperately needed forgiveness and social re-acceptance after committing random killings and other war atrocities; some needed the psychological relief for their traumatic experiences; others just needed solidarity, compassion or food and shelter. Rural ‘religious institutions’ of this kind attracted large followings after crisis situations in Mozambique and Angola, as they were able to provide some support during the huge emotional upwelling. The rituals of spiritual cleansing, the ceremonial acceptance back into their families, or the presence of a healer that can grant pardon for a youth’s past atrocities are just some of the mechanisms that helped restore balance into society after the war.

However, while these community healing and cleansing rituals offered forgiveness and reacceptance into community and, thus, helped facilitate their psychological and emotional recovery, the fact that former young soldiers have no education and marketable skills, and have no access to employment or other forms of livelihood makes them vulnerable to a myriad of problems. In these circumstances, programmes for healing war�affected youth must be complemented by job creation and skills-training programmes.

A general alleviation of poverty is

urgently necessary in order to offer these young people some prospect of a better future.

Could you mention some of your interests for future research?

Child soldiers only make up a fraction of the young population of Africa; I am becoming interested in understanding the youth more broadly across the continent. Much of the younger generation is attracted by modernisation and the city, and want to change the status quo. However, their permanent migration to urban spaces decouples them from rural societal rituals such that a divide is emerging between the traditional and the modern.

I am interested in understanding how new societal rituals are designed that can bridge these divides. How can youth find proper representation and citizenship so that they are less marginalized? Underlying this is the question of how Africa can harness the potential of this, its next generation?

Historically, youth have always been at the forefront of major social transformations, and so they need to be today as well. Understanding African youth and recognising their needs and potential is essential for the future wellbeing of the continent.

Alcinda Honwana’s inaugural address for the position of the Prince Claus Chair is available at http://www.iss.nl/news/past-events. It provides a supplemental history of her past work and current interests. Full references to this article can be found in the digital version at www.iss.nl/devissues. More information on the Prince Claus Chair can be found at www.princeclauschair.nl

Adolescent boys wearing civilian clothes walk away from the weapons they once carried as child soldiers. UNICEF/ HQ01-0093/Stevie Mann

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ISS News & Publications Alumni: Receiving Alumni Newsletter?

Did you study at ISS, but do not receive the Alumni Newsletter? Then we may not have your (correct) email address. Please send an email to alumni@iss.nl with Alumni newsletter in the subject line and we will make sure that you receive all future newsletters.

Alumni: Organize a Refresher Course Would you like to refresh or deepen your knowledge in a certain field? Contact ISS to develop a proposal for a Refresher Course. Refresher courses are intended for alumni who studied at ISS 2-12 years ago with a fellowship from Nuffic (NFP) – and preferably are a member of the Netherlands Alumni Association. The courses are aimed to increase the impact and prolong the effect of earlier NFP-funded training in the Netherlands. They usually last about two weeks and take place in a NFP-eligible country. If you want to find out more about how to set up a refresher course, please contact Wieke Blaauw at blaauw@iss.nl.

Submission deadlines for each year are in October.

Merit Medal for Thanh Dam Truong and Peter Knorringa Dr Thanh Dam Truong and Dr Peter Knorringa of ISS received the Merit Medal ‘for the development of women in Vietnam’ from the Vietnam Women’s Union (VWU) on 20 March 2008 in Hanoi, also attended by ISS Rector Professor Louk de la Rive Box. The VWU has conferred the Merit Medal “in order to express its high appreciation and to recognize the efforts and effective cooperation offered by ISS to VWU in general, and the contribution of the two consultants in particular for the development of women in Vietnam.” ISS is involved in several projects that were implemented by the VWU, including the ‘Training of Women in micro & small enterprises, phase 2’ and ‘Strengthening the Central Women Cadres Training School towards Establishing the Women’s Institute of the Vietnam Women’s Union.’

Winners of Development and Change subscription!

In the last edition of DevISSues a call went out to renew your subscription. Five winners would randomly be picked from those that kindly replied to this request; in addition to DevISSues they also will receive a free annual subscription to Development and Change! They are Mohammed Shafi Agwani (India), Tanchainan Sucheela (Thailand), Hwan Koo Lee (Korea), M.A. Hannan (Bangladesh), Arockiaraj Mariasusai Rai (India).

Nobel Peace Prize The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize has gone to the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC)

and to Al Gore for popularising research on the matter.

ISS’professors Hans Opschoor and Mohamed Salih are both participants in the IPCC as review editors of the panel’s publications. This prize can be considered as a major recognition for their scientific work.

Staff Publications EU Development Policy and Poverty Reduction: Enhancing Effectiveness. Wil Hout (ed), Ashgate Publishing, 2007.

Monitoring and Evaluation of Soil Conservation and Watershed Development Projects. John Cameron, et al (eds), Science Publishers, 2007.

Trade Unions and Workplace Democracy in Africa. Gérard Kester, Ashgate Publishing, 2007.

International Law and the Question of Western Sahara. Karin Arts and Pedro Pinto Leite (eds), IPJET, 2007.

Foreign Investment, Human Rights and the Environment: A Perspective from South Asia on the Role of Public International Law for Development. Shyami Fernando Puvimanasinghe, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2007.

The Feminist Economics of Trade. Irene van Staveren, et al (eds), Routledge, 2007.

Global Democracy and the World Social Forums. Including articles by Rosalba Icaza Garza and Rolando Vázquez.

Paradigm Publishers, 2008.

Advancing Refugee Protection in South Africa. Jeff Handmaker, et al (eds), Berghahn Books, 2007.

Religion and Society: An Agenda for the 21st Century.

Gerrie Ter Haar, Yoshio Tsuruoka (eds), Brill, 2007.

Staff Changes Bart van der Mark, who worked in Financial Affairs for almost 40 years, and Jacqueline Dellaert who worked in the library for 19 years, have both left with early retirement.

Niek de Jong has received a teaching position at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, and Marlene Buchy has moved to England. There are two new academic staff arrivals; Sylvia Bergh will be teaching Development Management and Governance, and Karin Siegmann will be lecturing in Labour and Gender Economics.

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Global Terror Laws and Engaged Social Research Dr Helen Hintjens and Associate Professor Eric Ross

This article considers on the basis of a few examples how anti-terror legislation can be used to try and curb academic freedom in ostensibly liberal democratic countries. Since 9/11, state-directed actions against the alternative globalization movement in various countries have been increasing. Examples of incidents from Germany, UK and the US are used to show that there is an uncomfortable relationship between academic research on social change and ‘the war on terror’. Academic freedom needs to be unambiguously protected in such situations.

GERMANY: TERROR OR ARSON? On 31 June 2007, three men from Berlin were arrested and accused of an attempted arson attack on three German military vehicles. At the same time, an urban sociologist, Andrej Holm, was arrested at gunpoint in his home.

His partner, Ann Roth, suggests that his “writings on gentrification, together with him being a political activist and not always taking his mobile phone along” were what led police to suspect him and start a terrorism investigation a year earlier. Andrej was accused of conspiratorial meetings with the others arrested and was suspected of being a member of a “terrorist” (later “criminal”) group. The construction of “terrorism” and belonging to a “terrorist” group falls under Article 129a of anti-terror laws, dating from the 1970s. Other scholars and journalists were accused at the same time, their offices and apartments raided and their computers and address books confiscated. Among the reasons given for their arrest and the charges brought by the Federal Persecutor, were that they were seen as having access to libraries and as being intellectually capable of authoring “sophisticated texts” that might support terrorist activities. Holm suffered

severe beatings by police and solitary confinement. After issuing subpoenas to try to find more evidence, the police released him on bail, though he still reports regularly to them. Federal Prosecutors, however, have lodged an appeal against his release. Meanwhile, his partner was subjected to police and secret service surveillance; their phones were tapped, video cameras aimed at the front door, she was followed by plain-clothed police and her e-mail and internet were tampered with. Her blog kept a daily review of the intentionally overt surveillance she herself, as well as her colleagues, friends and family came under. After release from prison, Andrej’s charges were taken back and turned into accusations of having formed a ‘criminal organisation’.

Socially engaged German scholars were shocked, though some have thought it so wholly exceptional situation as not to merit all the attention it received.

However, there should be voice for concern as similar cases have happened in the US and UK as well.

THE UK SCENARIO Academic freedom is the best protection scholars can ask for, as it protects their right to say what they

mean and research what they think matters most, however unfashionable or sensitive. Under UK law, researchers’ academic freedoms may not be as well protected as one might expect. A significant and steady erosion of civil liberties in the UK over the past twenty or thirty years, and especially since 9/11, is the main concern of the human rights organisation, Liberty, which reports that the UK now holds terror suspects, legally, and without charge, longer than most other countries, including the US, Spain and Turkey. This suspension of the rule of law means the right to academic freedom becomes more difficult to protect. Pressure of public opinion can also silence even normal scholarly research that should be uncontroversial. One UK jurist, Richard Edwards, Principal Lecturer in Law at the University of the West of England, Bristol, objects to Clause 2 of the new UK Terrorism Bill – presented to British Parliament after the London bombings. He says it; “is so broadly framed that a university academic is likely to be caught by its application…

In essence the overbroad Clause 2 represents the worst sort of thought control worthy of a police state”.

He provides a hypothetical example

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wherein at the University of Penzance – an invented institution – a lecturer would lend a Muslim student Sayyid Qutb’s ‘Signposts on the Road’; the book provides the ideological bedrock for Al-Qaeda, and as such is vital to understanding the problem of militant Islam. Although Qutb did not advocate the use of violence directly in his tract the implication is nevertheless clearly there…under Clause 2 the Penzance academic could be guilty of an offence.

Any researcher trying to present a range of perspectives to students and in their writings, needs to be protected from this kind of censorship and control. This also applies to research organisations, NGOs and think tanks.

Sensitive issues, such as refugee rights, environmental politics, housing or civil liberties for terror suspects can also result in surveillance. In the UK, protests of all kind, camps and internet groups are monitored by the Forward Investigation Teams (FIT) and Evidence Gathering (EG) intelligence officers. Researchers involved in proasylum movements are being included in data-bases built up by Intelligence teams, and the FITWatch website

42 (PROPOSED)

NUMBER OF DAYS DETAINED

28 (CURRENT)

(at http://www.fitwatch.blogspot.com) complains of an increasingly political usage of public order policing.

THE US: SPOOKS ON CAMPUS In the US, meanwhile, an organisation known as Campus Watch – a kind of self-appointed watchdog and website – has been busily monitoring thousands of scholars, who like the hypothetical ‘University of Penzance’ scholar, are

Pressure of public opinion can also silence even normal scholarly research that should be uncontroversial simply doing their jobs, engaging in research and teaching, mainly on the the Middle East. The American Studies Association and a host of other bodies have condemned Campus Watch for mointoring and reporting on scholars in the US and beyond. Campus Watch adopts aggressive tactics to hound those it pinpoints as enemies of the US or Israel; it expresses outrage for

DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY DAYS YOU CAN BE HELD WITHOUT CHARGE? 5

1 UK

CANADA

6

7

7.5

IRELAND

TURKEY

2 USA

RUSSIA

FRANCE

From a campaign on human-rights awareness by Liberty / www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk

instance, that some individuals are ‘still employed’ in prestigious institutions, even after having been pointed out as unsuitable scholars by Campus Watch!

After 9/11, a number of Middle East scholars, especially of Middle East origin, were arrested on terror charges and lost their jobs in US campuses.

Campus Watch has not objected to this, and turns a blind eye to such blatant contraventions of civil liberties. Indeed it assists in the process, since security and intelligence work is openly being carried out across US campuses by this small group of self-appointed experts on the Middle East. Increasingly this kind of initiative needs to be watched, since it undermines the right to academic freedom of anyone critical of US policies, especially in the Middle East and Palestine.

Scholars can find themselves accused of anti-Semitism, of supporting fundamentalism and of aiding and abetting terrorism. If all else fails, they can be accused of being ‘Jewish left wing loonies’, one choice phrase used

by Campus Watch’s journal, Middle East Quarterly. This is less a journal than a collection of reminiscences and bits of gossip. The winter 2008 issue ridicules the late Edward Said, a well-known Paletinian moderate. An article by a ‘muslim’ scholar lambasts three USbased Imams for mixing spirituality with politics, seeming to defend the arbitrary arrest of the three at a US airport. The moral self-righteousness that one finds in Middle East Quarterly might be amusing if its implications were not so serious. Claiming to have respect for the ‘facts’ of the Middle East, Campus Watch disregards facts that undermine the case for war on Iraq, the war on terror and defending the interests of America – as narrowly defined by its current leaders. The historical roots of current problems are not seen, conflicts are reduced to simplistic struggles between good and evil.

WHAT CAN BE DONE? Dominant ‘regimes of truth’ are being elaborated in this “Liquid Age,” as Zygmunt Bauman calls it, dubbed the age of terror. A common understanding of such takes on reality is that the citadels of civilization, whether in continental Europe, UK or US, or in the Middle East, are being beseiged by hostile forces. In this worldview, since ‘they’ are determined to undermine

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‘us’, we must first defeat them. This fairy tale vision of the world is central to the imagination of the war on terror, and it is anathema to academic freedom or the rule of law. Where there are only good guys and bad guys, saints or sinners, we are dealing with political propaganda.

And unfortunately, propaganda is used because it works. A lot of people believe that the threat of terror is the main security risk being faced today, even to the extent that many regard it as reasonable that previously taken-forgranted freedoms be given up in the name of security.

Of course, the losses of academic freedom in Germany, U.S, or UK, though bad enough, do not compare with the impact of the ‘war on terror’ on academic freedom elsewhere. In Birzeit University in Palestine, one cannot even be sure that the University will be open, that books will be in the library or “that a class can meet.” Under occupation, “(n)othing can be taken for granted”. In such a situation, it can look as though “there are no means through which to exercise academic freedom.” Yet the desire for knowledge is such that students and staff of Birzeit maintain a website (http://right2edu.birzeit. edu) which provides the much-needed spaces for staying in touch, being informed, and where possible getting to class.

In the ISS itself as in the wider world, those engaged in social science need to be free from surveillance and control over ideas. If critical research is to survive well into the twenty first century, including on the Middle East, Islam and security questions, such topics need to be given room in the curriculum and on publishers’ lists. This has been a strong principle of the work of ISS historically, where faculty and students who work on social movements, legal advocacy and campaigning, women’s movements, peace movements, human rights, war and violence, children and youth issues and social justice all had the freedom to explore these issues.

Questioning prevailing ‘regimes of truth’ is a duty of any academic. But the picture is not all gloom and doom; engaged scholarship continues and is even growing (see interview of Rosalba Icaza with Peter Waterman). The neoliberal orthodoxy is challenged from all sides, and in Development Studies,

where researchers have to deal with sensitive and controversial issues, the wider academic community needs to support them in doing so. When staff or students come under attack for their research, for whatever reason, they need to be defended. Otherwise, as happened to Sami al-Arian, they may be further victimised. One day he was a tenured professor at the University of South Florida, the next he was suspended because, having received

death threats, his university considered his continuing presence as ‘unsettling to campus life.’ Scholars and practitioners, ideally working together, need to be able to express their views, and explore those of others, freely. We need to be able to publish and not be damned!

Helen Hintjens and Eric Ross are lecturers at ISS and can be contacted at hintjens@iss.nl and ross@iss.nl.

Full reference details for this article can be found in the online version at www.iss.nl/devissues.

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Just Intellectuals?

Oppression, Resistance, and the Public Role of Intellectuals Omar Barghouti

Omar Barghouti, an independent Palestinian political and cultural analyst and commentator, is a long-time advocate of a unitary, secular democratic state in historic Palestine. He is a co-founder of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), established in 2004, which promotes an international institutional boycott of Israel, inspired by that imposed on apartheid South Africa. Here he argues that, in situations of colonial oppression, in particular, intellectuals cannot be neutral, “apolitical,” or apathetic towards the struggle for freedom, equality and self-determination.

“Your essay is great, but can you make it less ‘intellectual,’ less analytical, and more personal?” This was the reaction I received from an editor in New York after submitting an article on art and oppression she had solicited from me for publication in a collection of similar essays. Remarks like this – this was not the first time! – often betray a deep-seated perceived dichotomy, even among those committed to social justice, between intellectuals in the “global North” and their counterparts in the “global South,” where the former are better equipped to think, analyze, reflect, create and theorize, while the latter are “naturally” – excuse the Aristotelian allusion – more predisposed to merely exist, experiencing corporal aspects of life and reacting to them.

The way most Israeli academics and intellectuals, particularly those selfdefined as ‘leftists,’ reacted to the Palestinian call for an academic and cultural boycott of Israeli institutions lucidly embodied that dichotomy. Some screamed that they felt ‘betrayed’ by the ‘ungrateful’ Palestinians; others openly lectured us that such a boycott was ‘counterproductive’ for our own interests; yet others resorted to lies, innuendo and all sorts of deception

and intellectual dishonesty to refute the strong case for boycott – inspired mainly by the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. Many were genuinely shocked that Palestinians would be so impertinent as to dare take the initiative and decide how best we want the world to help us resist Israel’s own apartheid system. Having gotten used to their “self-appointed role as sole licensers of the form the anti-occupation struggle should take,” these Israeli leftists, predominantly soft Zionists who publicly

The right to live, and freedom from subjugation and colonial rule, must be of more import than academic freedom oppose the occupation but otherwise endorse the racist and apartheid reality of Israel and stand firmly against Palestinian refugee rights, have “arrogated to themselves the exclusive right to arbitrate every issue dealing with the Palestinians.” It is as if they’ve created in their minds this unconsciously

racist, static image of us, the native intellectuals, as servile followers, or even relative humans, who lack the faculty of reason or, at best, possess it but lack the ability to put it to use for our own good.

Colonial patronization aside, these Israeli thought leaders, intentionally or otherwise, became arguably the most effective instrument used by Israel and its Zionist backers abroad in fighting the spreading boycott, especially in Europe and the United States, through an immoral, protracted campaign of sheer intimidation, defamation, smearing and straight-out bullying.

The claim most parroted by those selfstyled progressives in numerous wellpublicized columns in the mainstream western media was that academic and cultural boycotts stifle the open exchange of ideas, hamper cultural dialogue, and infringe on academic freedom. Other than the hypocrisy of anyone who supported blanket boycotts against apartheid South Africa in the past and now moralizes about the ‘intrinsic’ danger of boycott against Israel, there is a disturbing bias in this claim, because it only regards Israeli academic freedom as worthy of any consideration or concern. “The fact that Palestinians are denied basic rights as well as academic freedom due

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Pedestrian gates for entrance to the city of Bethlehem, West Bank, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Sept ’07 / Stan van Houcke.

to Israel’s military occupation is lost” on those posing it. In addition, “its privileging of academic freedom as a super-value above all other freedoms is in principle antithetical to the very foundation of human rights. The right to live, and freedom from subjugation and colonial rule, to name a few, must be of more import than academic freedom. If the latter contributes in any way to suppression of the former, more fundamental rights, it must give way.

By the same token, if the struggle to attain the former necessitates a level of restraint on the latter, then so be it. It will be well worth it.”

But, some have questioned, shouldn’t Palestinian Intellectuals just focus on what they can do best, producing unadulterated, apolitical thought and art that can in their own right contribute much more substantially to the Palestinian cause? Isn’t activism best left to activists? Admittedly some of our own workers in the cultural and academic fields uphold similar ideas. One glaring problem in this line of argumentation is that it creates another, no less artificial, dichotomy between thinkers and doers, intellectualism and activism, thereby drawing a static hierarchy that treats intellectuals as the patriarch and

activists as the hapless masses who are in desperate need of direction. While each group may have its own domain of action and creation, there are no solid, impermeable boundaries that separate the two. And there is a truly dialectical relationship between the two that ought not be dismissed or ignored.

Israeli thought leaders became arguably the most effective instrument used

by Israel and its Zionist backers abroad in fighting the spreading boycott Another serious flaw in the above argument is that it assumes that intellectuals in the context of colonial oppression can indeed be just intellectuals, in the pure sense, if such a sense ever exists, who can and should distance themselves from the pressing and often depressing reality of oppression to be able to generate creative, quality works that have any

potential of countering the oppressor’s occupation of the mind – a far more dangerous and tenacious affliction than occupation of the land – and rekindling hope in the oppressed community, nourishing in the process self-development, particularly in the key cultural field. From my personal experience as an analyst and dance choreographer working in the midst of conflict, I do not think that, in a situation of oppression, intellectuals have a choice of whether or not to reflect the impact of conflict on them and on their society. Oppression, in a way, forces itself upon their work, their creative process. Their basic choice seems to be, then, whether to passively reflect it, or to actively transcend it. Oppression, it seems, has its own way of touching everyone within its reach, irrespective of one’s actual involvement in it or will to get involved in it.

Anti-boycott writers would argue, in this case, why boycott and not engage ‘positively’? There are many more ‘constructive’ ways of engaging in resisting oppression, the most potent of which is winning substantial sectors of the oppressor community to your side, through dialogue and joint projects in every field, the argument goes. With

20 Mothers and children wait in line at the pedestrian gates.

the lucrative funding available from European countries – bent on repenting for their Holocaust by sacrificing Palestinian rights under international law – and the prestige and personal gains that come with it, even some conscientious Palestinian intellectuals may acquiesce to shifting the focus of their work from resisting oppression to communicating with ‘the other’ to bring about change through persuasion, even if their own record shows a dismal failure in this endeavor. A joint PalestinianIsraeli dance work, for example, may be highly sought after as the ultimate model for promoting coexistence and mutual-recognition between the ‘two sides.’ Such an agenda – for these projects more often than not stem from underhanded political agendas – essentially advocates a change in the “consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them,” to borrow Simone de Beauvoir’s perceptive remark. Or worse, it aims at changing the world’s perception of the conflict, by giving the impression of normal, even amiable, relations between artists on either side of the divide. The inescapable implication is that all what is needed is to accumulate enough of such collaborations to eventually overcome the ‘hatred’ imbedded in this ‘conflict.’ With time, however, impression and image replace ending oppression as the ultimate objective sought in this peace business.

Those who think they can wish away a conflict by suggesting only some intellectual channels of rapprochement, détente, or ‘dialogue’ are crucially seeking only an illusion of peace, and one that is devoid of justice, at that.

Striving for peace divorced of justice is as good as institutionalizing injustice, or making the oppressed submit to the overwhelming force of the oppressor, accepting inequality as fate. Boycott, therefore, remains the most morally sound, non-violent form of struggle that can rid the oppressor of his oppression,

thereby allowing true coexistence, equality, justice and sustainable peace to prevail. South Africa attests to the potency and potential of this type of civil resistance.

Even if we forget the main political issues involved in the above arguments, is it possible to have equitable, mutually nourishing intellectual communication with the other? Of course, but not under all circumstances. One other crucial problematic of interculturalism in a context of persistent oppression is asymmetry. Beyond all the complexities of cultural differences per se, asymmetry adds a whole new dimension, more vertical than horizontal. And because it has to do with stratification, it can be detrimental to an inter-cultural communication if not addressed properly or sufficiently.

There is also the concern that the ‘weaker’ side in such an asymmetric communication process may be exploited by the ‘stronger’ party as an object, a tool, in an ostensibly progressive, considerate and quite open atmosphere, with great intentions, but a tool nonetheless. This would negate any possibility of having a two-way bridge between the communicating sides; only a ladder can work!

At the core of this concern lies the relative worth attached by the stronger side, or even both, to the perceptions, wishes and needs of the weaker side. If those are relegated to a comparatively lower status, the communication becomes another instrument of oppression, whereby the needs and

objectives of the stronger party are the main driving force behind the process.

Under these circumstances, dialogue is simply not possible. Any communication at this stage is within the realm of negotiation. Only after both sides have challenged preset attitudes and stereotypes and agreed a priori on the basic principles of justice that ought to govern their communication and common struggle can the relationship become more equitable, more balanced. Any relationship between intellectuals across the oppression divide must then be aimed, one way or another, at ending oppression, not ignoring it or escaping from it. Only then can true dialogue evolve, and thus the possibility for sincere collaboration through dialogue.

In conclusion, in contexts of colonial oppression, intellectuals that advocate and work for justice cannot be just intellectuals, in the abstract sense; they cannot but be immersed in some form or another of activism, to learn from fellow activists through real-life experiences, to widen the horizons of their sources of inspiration, and to organically engage in effective, collective emancipatory processes, without the self-indulgence, complacency, or ivory-towerness that may blur their moral vision. In short, to be just intellectuals.

Omar Barghouti is an independent researcher and cultural analyst, living and working in Palestine. He can be reached at omar.barghouti@gmail.com. Full reference details for this article can be found in the online version at www.iss.nl/devissues.

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Linking to Bangladesh:

Ins titu t i o n a l C ol l a b o ra t i o n a n d Suppor t i n g t h e M a rg i n a l i z e d Dr Meghna Guhathakurta Meghna Guhathakurta is the executive director of Research Initiatives Bangladesh (RIB) and post-doctoral fellow of a collaborative capacity-building project between the University of Dhaka and ISS. She discusses the underlying reason and value for the collaboration as well the results RIB’s work has had in supporting marginalized voices through academic research.

INSTITUTIONAL COLLABORATION The University of Dhaka has been at the core of important political developments; the struggle for democracy, the battle for instating Bengali as a state language, the struggle for independent nationhood, and the fight against fundamentalism. That scholars and students of the University of Dhaka had been some of the first hit in the genocide committed by the Pakistan Army on 25 March, 1971 on the Bengali population reveal the extent of such engagement. It is little wonder therefore that Bangladesh is one of those rare nations which commemorate an Intellectual Martyrs Day each year to remind us of the roles intellectuals can play in their own societies.

With a growing vibrant civil society, academics in Bangladesh have had multiple entry points in engaging with society, whether through the different NGO/CBOs that have mushroomed in the post-independent period, or through the various social movements that have been part of a people attempting to transform themselves into a secular and democratic polity. Among these is the women’s movement and the movement for the rights of indigenous people.

Thus when the Department of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Dhaka came into being it was in the backdrop of an active women’s movement which was raising issues of gender that needed the attention of the state and development

Institutional Collaboration Promoting Gender Studies The Department of Women and Gender Studies (DWGS) was set up in 2000 as a fully fledged department of the University of Dhaka. Its establishment signalled a unique development in the history of tertiary education in Bangladesh, indeed in South Asia, offering full courses on women and gender studies at undergraduate and graduate levels. In 2004 a five year, multicomponent project entitled ‘Institutionalizing the Department of Women’s Studies’, was initiated in collaboration with ISS, and funded by the Royal Netherlands Embassy. The objectives of this project include building academic expertise and a pool of qualified researchers and consultants in the area of women / gender studies in Bangladesh to help raise public awareness on gender issues, help remove existing forms of gender bias, and enhance women’s empowerment towards a society based on gender justice.

The ISS supports the DWGS for the development of a sustainable Department of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Dhaka through staff training at PhD and MA level; post doctoral fellowships; academic support for curricula development at BA and MA levels; research projects on the themes of gender and militarization and gender, poverty, livelihoods and entitlements; and for building linkages with Kartini – an Asian-European network of women and gender studies. The project coordinator from DWGS is Prof. Najma Chowdhury, recipient of the Ekushey Padak award 2008 (one of the highest civilian awards in Bangladesh) for her contribution to research. The project coordinator at ISS is Dr. A. Chhachhi (chhachhi@iss.nl), with input from Prof. S. Wieringa (UVA) as Senior Consultant and D. Wubs (wubs@iss.nl).

practitioners; issues that also needed to be understood and contextualized by a small but active group of feminist scholar-activists. It was little wonder therefore that most of the founding scholars of this department came from a background of research and activism that had a heavy social content. It was also not surprising that in the subsequent development of its curricula it entered into alliances with

such centres of learning which also had rich histories of linking the academia with social engagement, such as the current relationship with ISS. The project within which I am involved is called “Institutionalizing the Department of Women’s Studies of the University of Dhaka” (for details see box).

As part of the collaboration effort, two research projects have been undertaken mostly by faculty members

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of the Department at Dhaka University.

One of them centres on Gender and Militarization, and the other focuses on Gender, Poverty, Livelihoods and Entitlements. As co-coordinator of the latter project, my research looks at this issue from the perspective of global development policy and seeks to locate programmes of European NGOs with respect to extreme poverty groups within the changing architecture of global development assistance.

RESEARCH AND ENGAGEMENT WITH THE MARGINALIZED I taught at the University of Dhaka for 22 years in the Department of International Relations, specializing in development policy, gender and South Asian politics.

In the course of my work I became deeply involved in the issue of gender and development, which naturally took me into an intimate relationship with Bangladeshi women’s organizations and the broader arena of the women’s movement of which I later became a member. As an academic I had a vantage point, being both an observer and activist, such that I could shift from one role to another, but without dissonance. One foot stood on the academic side, and the other the activist side, and although I was shifting weight from one to the other it never affected the position I was standing. As a scholar I sometimes had to distance myself, but as an activist the wisdom I gained from the distance informed my action.

Likewise, in my critical assessment

as a scholar I never lost sight of the fact that I also had to take a position.

This multidisciplinary orientation in development and gender gave me a vantage point to look at different terrains; gender, ethnicity, class, caste.

It also took me to different terrains; the movement against fundamentalism, the movement for rights of indigenous people, and movement of people discriminated on the basis of work and descent. Yet the underpinning of all these terrains was my basic training in development policy through which I was able to link the local, national and the global.

and reflect on the causes of their poverty so as to seek ways out of it and enable them to act collectively. This has worked quite successfully in famine prone regions, where Gonogobeshoks, through the help of animators, have adopted new but low cost technologies of cultivations to help tide them over the crisis period. Similarly they also help Harijons, who are considered untouchable and hence discriminated against, but who have since collectively begun to challenge their exclusion in public places like restaurants and schools where their children have not been enrolled.

Research Initiatives Bangladesh emerged out of a 1992 research and development programme focused on demand-driven research, such that the agenda which would be determined and driven by the South. Now in its second phase, RIB has focused on participatory action research and its variants in order to reach out to those marginalized groups of people who have fallen through the safety nets set up by both Government and NGOs.

An increasingly successful result has been the link between the research, which makes use of the indigenous knowledge, with the broader more abstract knowledge of the scientific community, so that it gets translated into policy and academic levels.

The Women and Gender Studies of the University of Dhaka is open to this prospect and hence in their collaborative venture with ISS have not hesitated to link hands with RIB in coordinating a project on Gender, Poverty, Livelihoods and Entitlements from an alternative perspective. This project helps epitomize academia’s fruitful engagement with society as well as people-based knowledge.

RIB believes that research on the marginalized is best conducted when the development goals and priorities are articulated by the marginalized themselves. As part of its research programme over the past five years, RIB has enabled the creation of Gonogobeshoks (or people researchers) where marginalized people research

Meghna Guhathakurta is currently doing her postdoctoral research at ISS. She can be reached at guhathakurta@iss.nl.

Village musicians, or ‘shabdakars’, who are supported by RIB in researching how to diversify their livelihood. Sylhet District, Bangladesh.

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Development and Change The journal Development and Change is published six times a year by Blackwell Publishers (Oxford, UK) on behalf of the Institute of Social Studies. For more information, see the ISS website or email us at d&c@iss.nl. Available online at http://www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/online. Special rate available to ISS alumni.

Volume 39 / Number 1 / January 2008 Michael E. Blowfield and Catherine S. Dolan

Stewards of Virtue? The Ethical Dilemma of CSR in African Agriculture

Ciaran O’Faircheallaigh

Negotiating Cultural Heritage? Aboriginal–Mining Company Agreements in Australia

Steven Robins and Kees van der Waal

‘Model Tribes’ and Iconic Conservationists? The Makuleke Restitution Case in Kruger National Park

Blair Rutherford

Conditional Belonging: Farm Workers and the Cultural Politics of Recognition in Zimbabwe

Hulya Dagdeviren

Waiting for Miracles: The Commercialization of Urban Water Services in Zambia

Pál Nyiri and Joana Breidenbach

The Altai Road: Visions of Development across the the Russian–Chinese Border

Alex M. Mutebi

Explaining the Failure of Thailand’s Anticorruption Regime BOOK REVIEWS

Volume 39 / Number 2 / March 2008 Amiya Kumar Bagchi

Immigrants, Morality and Neoliberalism

Anirudh Krishna and Jan Nederveen Pieterse

Hierarchical Integration: The Dollar Economy and the Rupee Economy

Jens Lerche

Transnational Advocacy Networks and Affirmative Action for Dalits in India

Praveena Kodoth

Gender, Caste and Matchmaking in Kerala: A Rationale for Dowry

Admos Chimhowu and Philip Woodhouse

Communal Tenure and Rural Poverty: Land Transactions in Svosve Communal Area, Zimbabwe

Carolyn K. Lesorogol

Land Privatization and Pastoralist Well-being in Kenya BOOK REVIEWS

ISS Working Papers 457

Lost in translation : interpreting the Brazilian electric power privatisation failure / Sunil Tankha

456

Denis Goulet and the project of development ethics : choices in methodology, focus and organization / Des Gasper

455

An investigation of the competitiveness hypothesis of the resource curse / Leandro Antonio Serino

454

Fleeing to Europe : Europeanization and the right to seek refugee status / Wies Maria Maas

453

The role of municipal councils in social expenditure : how does politics determine social expenditure /

452

Quest for economic development in agrarian localities: lessons from West Nile, Uganda / Enzama Wilson

Gilmar Teddy Zambrana Cruz

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