30th edition – Resistance – Pike & Hurricane

Youth in Action

Pam Tannous — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 13:09:14 +0000

17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted on the 25th of September, 2015 with the aim of transforming our world by 2030 by ending poverty, protecting the environment, and ensuring prosperity for all. However, for this to be possible, everyone needs to do their part; the governments, private sectors, civil society and, most importantly, ordinary citizens of the world. Realizing their roles in helping shape a better community, more than 50 youth leaders decided to start implementing the goals by presenting innovative and sustainable projects targeting gender equality, economic empowerment, social cohesion, and good governance in a regional workshop held in Kuwait.

According to the United Nations Development Program, the goals represent the international community’s response on today´s global development challenges and were adopted to guide our development priorities for an entire generation. Focusing on the Arab region, there are several problems and challenges which require immediate attention such as the population growth and its impact on economic development resulting in unemployment. Other problems in the region are also associated with social cohesion, good governance, and gender equality where social indicators and gender statistics reveal that women in the Arab region are on average more disadvantaged economically, politically, and socially than are women in other regions meaning that they suffer from social exclusion and having limited access to natural resources, economic and political opportunities.

From the UNDP fast facts sheet, today’s generation of adolescents and young people (between 10 and 24 years old) is close to 1.8 billion – more than at any other time in history – approximately 90% of whom live in less developed countries. As this is the case, the UNDP partnered with several youths for the implementation of the SDGs; lucky I was one of them . Thus, recognizing the need for youth to shape the future and their knowledge and creativity to essentially realizing the development goals, the Ministry of Youth in Kuwait in partnership with UNDP Kuwait and UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States (RBAS) convened a regional workshop on “Youth Action for the 2030 Agenda” in the Arab region that was held from December 14 till December 19, 2016. More than 50 youth from across the Arab region came together to discuss and share innovative ideas in developing their countries, targeting four pillars; social cohesion, gender equality, global governance, and economic empowerment.

Picture 2: The participants at the final presentation session of the workshop.

Fortunately, I was chosen to be one of the youth leaders representing my country Lebanon. The four pillars discussed in the workshop mainly focused on the importance of diversity along with the elements that bring and hold people together in society such as respect, a sense of belonging, participation, inclusion, recognition and legitimacy under social cohesion. The framework of gender equality was referred to through several perspectives. First, the role women play in the working place and the importance of integrating them into a coherent job in which they will have the capability to depend on themselves. Second, the importance of increasing the amount of women in the educational fields of science and technology. Third, empowering women to seek help and protect themselves when they are in danger. The workshop also discussed the importance of good governance and that it should entail processes, decisions and outcomes that sustain natural resources, alleviate poverty and improve the quality-of-life. It also focused on integrating the youth and newly graduates into the working place in order to decrease unemployment and brain drain which is the departure of educated or professional people from one country, economic sector, or field for better living pay and living conditions. This workshop brought together a diversity of thoughts and cultures to share the difficulties of living in a society where change is needed.

As a participant representing Lebanon, it was evident that not only do we share the same political and societal problems as the rest of the ten Arab countries but we also share the same desire to change and end corruption. As a generation that fights for gender equality, human rights, and justice we decided to act rather than watch. The workshop was an inspiration to contribute to a better society by improving our understanding on leadership and strengthening our initiatives and ideas by implementing, advocating and acting on the development goals.

All youth leaders that participated in this workshop now hold the ability to make a change in his/her community and in the Arab region. This is because at the end of each day, sessions were given to the participants where they had the chance to talk and discuss their projects directly with UNDP focal points, UN Women, and several NGOs and professors in the field of development. The importance of those sessions was that each person had the chance to receive specific advice on his or her project directly which made it more interesting and useful for the participants to further develop their ideas and innovations. The projects involved art such as artistic educational training centers, technology such as apps or devices, awareness campaigns, and agricultural perspectives in solving problems of social cohesion, gender equality, good governance, and economic empowerment.

As a participant of this program, my project mainly focused on empowering women to seek help when she feels that she is in danger by connecting professional NGOs and the Lebanese Security Forces to the victim through a device. This project still has a long way to go and is now being researched and will hopefully soon be prototyped. Over the course of working on my project I experienced the importance of taking into consideration the opinion of others and accepting them with an open mind. This project also strengthen me as an individual to contact companies and NGOs for help and knowledge because you always think that people do not have time or do not want to help you. However, it is truly amazing what one can receive when it comes to further knowledge in a particular field. As this workshop gave us the trust and the ability to improve our leadership skills, several projects are now being prototyped, planed, and even implemented in the region with the goal of ending unemployment, discrimination, and bad governance.

This workshop taught me that we as youth should work hand in hand to achieve a world that we dream of because we are not alone, many developing countries are experiencing the same problems and difficulties and thus it is important to share our ideas. The Youth Leadership Program is an experience that truly strengthen you as an individual with a vision of change by giving you all you need as a youth leader and as an asset for development. From this experience I have taken with me many memories and friends for life in different parts of the Arab world. It has also given me the opportunity and enthusiasm to start working for my beautiful country Lebanon which requires a new vision of hope from youth like me.

The goal now is to start fostering an environment that is conducive to tolerance and mutual understanding and where there is mutual trust, diversity is acknowledged and respected, and minorities are included, leading to more stable and resilient societies.

Remember, we are the largest number of adolescents and youth in history. For this reason it is time to make a change and to protect our planet and the next generation to come. At the end, I would like to quote Mr. Ahmad Alhendawi, Secretary-General´s Envoy on Youth who also had a big part in the Youth Leadership Program; “We believe young people are an opportunity, and they are an asset for development, peace and prosperity to their countries.”

By Pamela Tannous

Image Credit:

Picture 2: Cezar Mahmoud, used with permission. (Featured Image)
Picture 1: Cezar Mahmoud, used with permission.
Picture 3: United Nations Development Programme- Arab States Photo stream , licensed under CC BY 2.0

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Evo Morales – Weak State Populism from an Indigenous Perspective

Anna Bernard — Tue, 28 Feb 2017 11:29:50 +0000

Bolivia, a country once termed “ungovernable” by former president Carlos Mesa, and known for its political and economic instability, elected its first indigenous president, Evo Morales, in 2005. Morales rose to power from a political movement called the Movement for Socialism, and he recently celebrated his 11th year in office, a milestone demonstrating his long-lasting and solid popularity amongst the Bolivian people. I will look at how the institutional weakness of the Bolivian state creates a need for populist politics in order for an administration to embark on an uninterrupted program of reform with success. There is a viable connection between the historical social, cultural and economic oppression, and Morales’ rise to power with his novel type of indigenous democracy that functions as a charismatic appeal to the disgruntled, structurally excluded majority.

Populism of a weak state

The status of the Bolivian indigenous population as the marginalized political minority stands in contrast to the fact that some 44–66% of the population identify themselves as belonging to an indigenous group (depending on the source, results vary based on the wording of the ethnicity question and the available response choices).

However, despite the structural exclusion of the masses of the poor and the indigenous portions of society, and despite ingrained racism and the elites battling against indigenous cultural survival, the masses have had a significant role in populist politics in Bolivia. On several occasions in the 19th century, the state targeted indigenous communities through agrarian reforms with destructive intentions, but the indigenous population successfully resisted such attacks, forcing the government to back down on their reform programs.

This leads us to examine the function of populism in Bolivia regarding the institutional weakness of the state. Without strong institutions and consolidated democratic practices a situation is created where these weaknesses ultimately force the state to engage in political practices rooted in a direct appeal associated with populism. In essence, there needs to be a method that mobilizes the rural and poor urban masses behind a state-sponsored common goal. From this perspective, the weakness of the state and its institutional incapacity means that political survival requires an administration to successfully embark on a program of reform with a convincing ‘appeal to the people’.

Evo politics – indigenous perspective on democracy?

Morales, who is from the Aymara indigenous group, began his political career as a leader of a coca-growers union, lobbying on behalf of the cocaleros, farmers involved in the traditional, yet internationally contested, livelihood of coca production. This made him the first president to come from the social movements that forced Bolivia’s two previous presidents from office. In fact, Morales was directly tied to the 2005 collapse of democratic institutions as the widely supported cocalero movement under his leadership paralyzed the economy with roadblocks and protest-marches, thus paving the way for Morales’s road to executive power.

Keeping in mind the above discussion on the populism of a weak state, and the required appeal to the masses, one of the most defining election promises Morales made was to govern in favor of Bolivia’s indigenous majority, who have experienced centuries of marginalization and discrimination. Along the lines of his election promises, Morales engaged in a radical push for a re-interpretation of Bolivian national identity largely through constitutional reform, in order to raise the indigenous values and identities to prominence.

In August 2008 a referendum approved his plans for the new constitution, setting out the rights of the indigenous majority, granting them unprecedented recognition, representation, and autonomy. The new constitution also enshrines Bolivia’s controversial coca crop as national patrimony and includes unparalleled language on environmental protection, while also entirely redefining Bolivia as a “multi-ethnic and pluri-cultural” nation. These were arguably important steps in a vigorous program of decolonization that Morales’s anti-imperialist ideology supported, giving Morales evermore credibility amongst those who felt marginalized and in need of an administration that would look after their needs.

From a socio-economic perspective, one of the first and most significant moves Morales made according to his socialist focus, a few months after taking office, was to re-nationalize Bolivia’s oil and gas industries. The growth in tax revenue allowed Bolivia to extensively increase its public investment, benefitting the large portions of vulnerables in the Bolivian society. This program has reduced poverty by 25% during his government, while extreme poverty has fallen by an estimated 43% (as of 2016).

From an indigenous perspective, the protection of the environment took precedence in the vision Morales initially furthered through the new constitution in 2009. The aims of the constitution have been influenced by an indigenous Andean spiritual world-view which places the environment and the earth goddess known as the Pachamama at the centre of all life. In 2010, a law was passed that defines Mother Earth as a collective subject of public interest. The Law of the Rights of Mother Earth declares both Mother Earth and life-systems (combining human communities and ecosystems) to possess inherent rights that the human representatives are required to defend.

Additionally the law states that Mother Earth is considered sacred in the worldview of indigenous peoples and nations, once again displaying Morales’s solemn commitment to forward an indigenous perspective. Morales garnered support in many environmentalist circles and indigenous communities by propagating this environmental focus. All in all, the law is an internationally unrivalled shift from an anthropocentric perspective to a more Earth community based perspective to say that Mother Earth is of public interest.

The new constitution has also supported the inclusion of women in politics, and Bolivia’s National Assembly currently consists of more than 50% of women, having the second highest women’s representation in the world, after Rwanda. This aim for gender parity in the cabinet emanated from Evo Morales’s indigenous background: for the Aymaras and Quechuas the notion of Chacha warmi entails that female and male forces are the opposing but complementary constituents of the cosmos. For Morales, gender parity is thus a part of his decolonization program and, in his own words, a way of showing homage to his own female relatives.

In December 2009 Evo Morales was re-elected president with 64% of the vote. In 2014 he was re-elected for his third term with 61% of the popular vote, speaking of his wide support base in the marginalized majority. This points to his apparent success in making a long-lasting appeal to the masses by addressing issues critical for various portions of the society. Support within the core of the population has continued to be strong over the years, but Morales has been increasingly criticized. Some of the indigenous leaders, environmentalists and activists have argued he is becoming a sell-out: compromising with the elite establishment and shifting his policies to benefit the whiter, upper-class minority.

Ego politics – an end in sight?

The controversy around the president has been growing, getting fire from one scandal after the other: from a secret child to influence-peddling to the construction of the “Evo museum” worth 7 million dollars of taxpayers’ money.

Corresponding with these murmurs of criticism, having ruled for over a decade, a referendum was held in February 2016 on allowing Morales to run for a fourth term, and it seems he lost the vote narrowly. However, in December 2016, the leftist party, Movement for Socialism, proceeded to pick Morales as its candidate for the 2019 presidential elections, blatantly defying the results of the referendum and taking a course into unexplored terrain with uneasy reflections of authoritarianism.

Morales has argued that continuity is needed to forward the decolonization project, to redistribute wealth from nationalised resources equally to all levels of society, and to consolidate indigenous rights. Regarding his keenness to stay in power, Morales is quoted of saying: “I have to respond to the people. It is not the power of the Evo, it is the power of the people”. Only time will show if Morales’s populist appeal still resonates in the Bolivian population to the extent that a single man is allowed to lead the country for two decades (or more?). The future developments in the political landscape of Bolivia will be particularly interesting due to Bolivia’s institutional weakness, its turbulent past and the resilience of the social movements when they unite behind a common goal.
Anna Bernard

Photo 1: Evo Morales By Eneas De Troya, Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0); Photo 2: 2014 March of la Central Obrera Obrera by Eneas De Troya, Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0); Photo 3: 2013 Socialist and Indigenous Congregation By Cancillería del Ecuador, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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David Cairns, the United Kingdom Ambassador to Sweden, Tells Us How He Got There

Yaroslav Mikhaylov — Tue, 28 Feb 2017 10:47:26 +0000

On January 25th, Malmö högskola hosted His Excellency David Cairns, the United Kingdom Ambassador to Sweden. Mr. Cairns has had a long career with the British Foreign Office and shared some of his insights and experiences with the students. Pike and Hurricane also had a chance to sit down with the Ambassador and ask him about his career, the latest developments in world politics and, most importantly, how to get a job doing what he does.

He has nothing but good things to say about a career in diplomacy, calling it “pretty unrivaled in the variety of things you get to do and the places you get to go and, of course, the people you meet.” Though, he is quick to mention, it is not exactly the path to political power: “you are not the big boss. The bosses are politicians.” And there are other drawbacks to working in the public sector, he concedes, “you’re never going to be rich. But, as I said, the quality of what you get to be involved in far and far outweighs the material side.” Nonetheless, he absolutely recommends the diplomatic track to students close to graduating who are considering their options. Cairns considers it especially important to reach out to people who, for one reason or another, are not commonly represented in diplomatic circles, since they are also among the people that the diplomatic corps represent. “We are a very popular employer, but a lot of minority communities and sometimes women as well, might think that it is not for them. And actually, we want to represent the Britain of today, and that is a very multicultural society and we have to represent that to be relevant,” says he.

Cairns’ own journey to the British Foreign Office started at university, where he was studying Japanese. During his third year, he went on exchange to Tokyo with the intention of not just studying, but working as well, so he reached out to the embassy. “I wrote to the British Embassy in Tokyo, asking: ‘Can I have a job?’. And they said ‘No, you can’t have a job, but we will send your letter to some of the British companies who are there in Japan.” One of these companies hired him for the duration of his time in Japan, but he was still a regular visitor at the embassy, playing squash and attending holiday parties. Despite that, even though he applied for a job with the Foreign Office after graduating, he did not have high hopes. He instead got a job working for a securities firm. When he finally heard back from the Office a year later, he went into the interview with no stress or pressure. “I had a job, I was doing quite well, I was very relaxed and so, of course, it all went very smoothly. And they said ‘You are through.’ and ‘You want to join?’ and I said ‘Sure!’ and that was it,” he recalls. There were a few hiccups along the way, such as the language aptitude test – “On the basis of that actually, I wasn’t very good.” – but soon a position opened up and Cairns was on his way to Tokyo.

This was the part of a long career that took him to Japan twice, Geneva once and even to a British research base in Antarctica. He considers the latter to to be one of the memorable highlights of his career: “We spent a couple of days out on the ice, in tents, seeing the staff. And that is quite memorable I must say.” Now, Cairns is about a year into his four-year rotation in Sweden and is not spending too much time worrying about where he will be sent off next. “I try to enjoy the day, and enjoy being here in Sweden, which I am doing,” he says, “I’ve had a pretty lucky run so far, to be frank. We’ll see what comes up and how it comes up.”

In terms of the key skills necessary to be a successful diplomat, Cairns singles out three most important ones: analytical skills, communication skills and people skills. “You, as students,” says he, “absorb a lot of information and then you distill that down into answering questions on, I don’t know, why were the Taliban successful, or what is happening in Syria. So we do the same, but with a slightly different angle, which is ‘What should we do?’” He mentions his own first-hand experience with that question, when he was invited to sit in on an office meeting with the top Foreign Office staff, including Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd, as a junior staffer writing down the meeting’s minutes. They were discussing whether to purchase American-made Tomahawk missiles when the Minister turned to him and asked his opinion. “That was pretty scary,” remembers Cairns, “I mumbled some rubbish, completely. It was terrible. But it was a super good lesson, because of what I learned from that was actually that this is what it’s all about. On this particular issue of ‘Should we buy this?’, the answer is ‘What do I think? What should we do?’”

That anecdote goes hand-in-hand with the second set of skills that he recommends budding diplomats to practice: communicating your ideas. He recalls that in his first year with the Office, he was already expected to attend meetings and conferences and articulate the UK’s point of view on relevant issues. Even today, communication remains a big part of the job for him, as a big part of his job is appearing on Swedish radio or television to give the UK’s take on relevant issues. Cairns also reminds that it is always important to have good interpersonal skills, “Enjoying being with people, being happy to get out and meet them, trying to be a good listener to them.”

Cairns brings the same positivity and optimism to questions about current events in the world as well, focusing on finding solutions that work best for everyone. “There is a lot of discussion about what to do about Trump,” he says, “Well, the answer for us is the same as what to do about Obama or what to do about Bush or what to do about Reagan: be involved, work with him as close as we can, so that we can further our interests as best we can.” He likewise appeals to the long history of engagement with Europe that Britain had when discussing the withdrawal from the European Union. “We’ve had an ambassador here in Sweden since 1535. We have had a relationship with the continent forever, and we will continue to do so.” he says, before elaborating that it is now up to the Europeans and the British to figure out the way that this new relationship will look. “It will be different, but it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be bad.”

However the events unfold, Cairns urges people, especially students, to get involved by either joining the foreign ministry, a non-governmental organization or going into politics. “I think the important thing for people like me and the next generation thinking about it is that the future isn’t written and you can be passive and let somebody else make it happen or you can get involved and try to make it as you think best.” So let’s sharpen up those analytical, communication and people skills and get out there, shall we?

Yaroslav Mikhaylov

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The #Resist Phenomenon

Ioana Pavel — Tue, 28 Feb 2017 10:26:41 +0000

An epic battle is taking place in Romania, of all places, between two 9-headed dragons trying to slay each other: us vs them. On their side, they have the corrupt government officials armed with absolute political power and paid internet trolls, a self-perpetuating system. On our side, we have the hipsters and the corporate lackeys, as they call us, armed with pins that read “resist”, signs that read “thieves”, flashlights and colorful pieces of paper.

On their side, they have the Parliament and the government, the former elected by the majority vote and the latter appointed by the former, eloquently exemplifying the tyranny of the majority. On our side, the judicial system, desperately trying to send the other side to jail. Them, passing laws that help themselves. Us, hundreds of thousands of people protesting in the streets for days on end.

This particular battle has been waged for 28 consecutive days at the time of publishing, although the war is years old, perhaps as old as time. Each evening protesters gather in front of the government building demanding the government’s resignation, denouncing the epidemic of corruption among public officials and expressing their support for the judicial system. While the judiciary is trying to send corrupt politicians to jail, they are trying to discredit, weaken or outright dismantle it.

Specifically, in the dead of night, on the 31st of January, the Government passed an emergency decree effectively watering down anti-corruption laws and keeping some of those in power safely in their seats and comfortably out of jail. It later emerged that several governmental advisory bodies had advised against this decree, citing insufficient evidence for the urgency of the move. In spite of this, it appears that they were strong-armed into destroying the original negative notice and providing a positive one with the same registration number. Yes, that is illegal.

While the protests were massive – the biggest since the fall of communism back in 1989 – the government had a rather slow reaction time, presumably because they were expecting the protests to die down. As instead of dying down, they merely expanded in number of participants and number of cities, the government decided to throw us a bone and rescind the decree, not without wallowing, complaining and maintaining that they were right all along. The official reason for the take-back was “maintaining peace”. That’s hardly a legitimate reason, as the protests were so peaceful that people comfortably brought their young children along. Even that was a source of discord: parents were denounced to the National Authority for the Protection of Children’s Rights for supposedly using their children to get political advantage, i.e. taking down the government.

The two dragons are relentless and creative. There is no doubt that ours is the smaller one with the broken wing and nostrils that don’t always blow out fire but rather hot, thin smoke. Nonetheless we are a large group of self-organizing people, using social media to find each other and volunteering our skills for the greater good: copywriters, graphic artists, lawyers, programmers, people from all walks of life and all demographics are coming together to fight the bigger, uglier, stronger dragon. Whether we win or not is irrelevant, because we woke up from our apathy, we reached out and we found each other.

Romanians are facing an uphill, long-term battle, but mine is a message of hope. In the face of adversity, injustice, disproportionate advantage, don’t panic. Organize!

Ioana Pavel, A Concerned Romanian

Pictures taken by Octav Drăgan

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