ECOSPRINTER Yearbook 2012

YEAR BOOK 2012

YEAR BOOK 2012

INTRODUCTION Dear Young Green Activists, The Ecosprinter board is happy to present the Ecosprinter Yearbook 2012. It contains articles from two Ecosprinter boards and some older texts with a fresh update by MEP Ska Keller. Our articles are published within interesting topics as Youth Revoltes, Climate Change, Violence against women or Youth Unemployment. Most of our authors are somehow active within the Green Movement somewhere in Europe, but Ecosprinter is an open magazine. We try to deliver a platform for people, who want to spread a message within the Green Political Sphere.

We are especially happy to publish articles from Jasmine Roman. She is a Syrian activist writing under a Pseudonym about the protests in Syria. Her articles give an intimate insight into the Syrian Revolution. For this yearbook Jasmine provided a touching introduction. Her articles are embedded between articles from Egypt, Tunisia and Spain. All these countries have experienced protests and revolutions. The spirit of young people, who risk their lives for their ideals, can be an inspiring example for young people all over Europe.

The Ecosprinter can be as good as its authors. If you have a message, we will try to deliver it!

Have fun with the lecture!

Your Ecosprinter Board

DEMOCRACY & MASS MEDIA

YOUTH REVOLTE

08. CENSORSHIP: 18.

THE SILENT KILLER 18. & 10. DEMOCRACY 20.

MASS MEDIA IN 12.

HUNGARY ON THE WAY TO THE EUROPEAN SURVEILLANCE UNION

21.

24.

27.

28.

30.

DIARY FROM SYRIA.

YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT 34.

WHITHER SYRIA ?

DIARY FROM SYRIA : WILL I BE THE NEXT ?

ON THE FRONT LINES IN SYRIA, WOMEN’S ROLE IS STILL UNDEFINED

36.

AND SPAIN WOKE UP - SOME INSIGHT IN TO THE #SPANISH 38.

REVOLUTION REVOLUTION, AND 39.

THE FUTURE OF ECOLOGICAL ACTIVISM IN TUNISIA? WILL THE ARAB WORLD EXPERIENCE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE THE IMPACTS OF THE PLACE AND CONFLICTS IN THE TRACE

A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE : YOUTH EMPLOYMENT YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT FROM UKRAINIAN PERSPECTIVE UNEMPLOYMENT AND CRIME WORK IN A GREEN SOCIETY: WHAT MAKES LIFE WORTHWHILE ?

CLIMATE PEACE & CHANGE/ENERGY CONFLICT

GENDER / VIOLANCE AGAINST WOMEN

41.

62.

44.

48.

50.

MYTHS ON NUCLEAR POWER THE END OF ATOMIC AGE A PLEDGE FOR POSITIVE / ENERGY/ POLITICS. THE ENERGY CRISIS IS COMPLEX ?

SWITCH TO RESILIENCE AND MASS COLLABORATION!

54.

56.

58.

60.

GLOBAL WARMING AND CONFLICTS : ABOUT MYTH AND REALITY OF CLIMATE WARS RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT WHEN INTERVENTION BECOMES NECESSARY RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT: THE PROBLEM WITH NEGLECTING ITS POLITICAL DIMENSION

SUMMARY

66.

68.

70.

ANOTHER LOOK AT VICTIMHOOD : UNSC RESOLUTION 1820 AND VICTIMS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN ARMED CONFLICTS TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN : SHATTERED DREAMS! TRAFFICKING WOMEN… TODAY’S GROWING BUSINESS WOMEN AND MIGRATION

DEMOCRACY & MASS MEDIA WORDS BY

MAXIMILIAN JEMIES 1ST OF MAY 2012

Democracy. A word that needs to be redefined all the time. The will to build up a society, where everybody who is affected by some sort of power, can decide about the source of this power, was one of the strong motivations behind the uprising in the Arab World and many other countries during the past two years. In this Yearbook we got the chance to publish authentic stories of Syrian and Tunisian citizens. We also had some insight into the Spanish Protests against a two party system for a true change towards real democracy.

But it is not enough to go for a quick regime change. A democracy needs active and critical citizens, who ask about the legitimacy of power every day. The articles in this section help to identify dangers Democracy is confronted with. Human rights can be an important force against state power and for individual freedom. But they loose their content, if a state seeking for ‘security’ overrides them. Jan Philip Albrecht points out, how the European Union is on it’s path to a ‘European Surveillance Union’. Free media is essential for every democracy. If censorship occurs, critical journalists and citizens should oppose it. Every government, that tries to stiffen it’s power by changing the democratic rules should be stopped immediately. The developments in Hungary are a bad example in the middle of Europe, but can serve as a warning for all of us.

DEMOCRACY & MASS MEDIA

DEMOCRACY & MASS MEDIA

CENSORSHIP: THE SILENT KILLER WORDS BY

MARIE ANNE ZAMMIT 16TH OF MARCH 2011

08

If my writing is censored, Then what would be the use of writing.

If, my thoughts and ideas are controlled then what should I think Imposed in walls of dictatorship which undermines my right to be myself, threatening democracy.

I become a no one.

The use of censorship is without doubt a silent way of suffocating innovative ideas and a direct threat to freedom of expression.

Citizens in a given state do well in fighting for their rights and protesting against Authorities which deprive them of this right. But, it often comes at a price. Notwithstanding, the ongoing progress in the world, the use of censorship is still widely used across the globe.

Last year in Malta we experienced situations where creative and theatrical works were being censored and forbidden from the public eye just because of certain language and certain scenes involved. This sounded rather absurd and creative expression was dictated by a Board of Conservatives who could not draw an objective line between what is artistic expression and what is moral. As a result, artists and creators were demoralized and their creative expression restrained, hence having effect on the final result on their work.

Another recent example would be the uprisings in the Maghreb region. Throughout these last weeks, the eyes of the world were on this region, most particularly, Libya. What we all have witnessed in Libya is to what extent censorship can arrive to in a dictatorial state.

In the case of Libya, accurate information has been withheld and Muammar Gaddafi's control over reporters and journalists has made it utterly difficult for them to provide detailed information on what was really taking place during the protests. The world has seen the massacre and the outcries of the people through various eye witness reports and hidden coverage.

many sources which were hidden from the world and concerned only certain states.

Censorship of ideas, of information and creative works has always a way of controlling and restraining public opinion. Throughout history, we have read of many forms of controlling peoples’ minds.

Such cases go back to the dark days of Catholic Inquisition, then in Spain under the Franco regime, in times of the Iron Curtain and in some states in the Middle East, to name a few. Writers, educators, journalist across the globe have been penalized for expressing their views and influencing the public. Some were tortured and killed in prisons.

In my views, censorship of information is unjust and violates Human Rights. Much to our dismay, it appears that certain Authorities are still being allowed to censor whatever they want for their own particular reasons.

To add with this, censoring this type of communication is most often represented as justified and as protecting the public.

Similar situations jeopardize freedom of expression and the likelihood is that democracy is subverted. Also, it shows lack of respect to the public who in other circumstances should be presented with comprehensive and unbiased information on government politics and current events.

Resorting to censorship intoxicates people s’ minds which as a result they end up making decisions based on information which is withdrawn for the purpose of power and control. Censorship shuts the voices of people who want change and promulgates loss of dignity and violates rights and the right to objective information. Democracy is therefore undermined and loses its political liberty where even journalists fail to transmit accurate and objective information.

In other days, Libyan citizens may have travelled or used other form of network and were able to compare their life in their country with other countries. This has empowered them to fight for their rights.

In other scenarios, in an ideal democracy the role of the mass media is to provide the general public with accurate comprehensive information and careful review of such information. Access to the media is essential to the health of democracy where citizens have a right to clear and even-handed information.

In a given society a level of antagonistic relationship between the media and governments create a healthy environment. It leads to open discussions and the transmission of objective information leading towards a progressive society. Also, creative expression is the pathway to innovative ideas which shape the future.

Wikileaks too, has contributed by unravelling

So, no to censorship.

It was also reported that residents in Libya could access the Al Jazeera's coverage as the site was blocked in the country. Nevertheless, the riots were a response to this type of censorship which unfortunately led to the Genocide of masses of innocent people. Even, to date there is an element of denial from the Head of State.

DEMOCRACY & MASS MEDIA IN HUNGARY WORDS BY

DANIEL OROSS 15TH OF APRIL 2011

The Hungarian democracy is changing. The former 20 years of the country’s democratic transition was based on the rules of the consensual democracy. This model was a result of a consensus among the members political elite at the period of the regime change. The system of checks and balances, protected by constitution was challenged several times in the former years (blocade of taxi drivers in 1991, the economic reform in 1995, attack on the TV building in 2006, economic crisis in 2008). However these storms of public life did not have any effect on the fundaments of the Hungarian democracy. The political elite respected the rules of the established political system. In 2009, a radical right wing party (Jobbik) succeded in entering the European Parliament and the result of the elections had an important effect on the party system. The peoples party, Fidesz have started a communicational offensive to attract voters of Jobbik. In 2010 after the general elections the former party system has completely changed. Emblematic parties of the regime change have disappeared, new parties (the green party Politics Can Be different and the radical right wing party Jobbik) have entered the Parliament. The former governing party (MSZP) has collapsed, while the right wing party Fidesz received 53 per cent support from voters at the general elections, and due to the electoral system, this translated into a two-third majority in Parliament.

The two-third majority of Fidesz allows the elite of the governing party to break the rules of the consensual democracy. Since the inauguration of the second Orban government, the instituions of the Hungarian democracy are under permanent change. Hungary is heading toward a political system where power is concentrated in the hands of the party winning the elections. The MP’S and intellectuals of the governing party stress the democratic legitimation of the government and while reforming the political system, they refer to the majoritarian model of democracy established in the United Kingdom. As a conservative party, Fidesz often refers to the traditions of Hungary, and regards the democratic traditions of the United Kingdom with great sympathy. However, the ideological standpoint of the government is paradox. Following the results of the 2010 general elections, Orbán declaired that the election was "a revolution in the voting booths”. The revolutionary vehemence of the government’s communication is influenced by the intention of attracting voters of the radical party. Since that moment, the 20 years of Hungary’s democratic heritage is criminalised by rampant populism. Although Fidesz is declaired to be a conservative party, the party elite has little respect for established democratic norms and little self-restraint toward the checks and balances of the liberal democracy. Every moment, when they break the rules, they refer to their assignment to change the political system of Hungary and their commitment to the majoritarian model of democracy.

The ideological paradox of Fidesz is intensified by the revolutionary vehemence of the government. The turbulent reforms of the government stands in contrast to the idea of the rule of law in several cases. The Hungarian media law became a symbol of this contrast because of three main reasons: the law threatens one basic value of the democracy;

DEMOCRACY & MASS MEDIA

because the legislation process is not based on democratic consensus (the law has passed the Parliament without any accepted amendment of the oppostion) and bacause of its timing: the law was accepted right at the beginning of the Hungarian Presidency of the European Union. The media law seriously threatens the freedom of the press and will throttle diversity in the media. The new legislation slackens regulations where it should do the opposite and tightens them where it makes no sense to do so. The regulation of public media and the oversight

of the entire media sector, including print and online journalism, will be subjected to party control. The law has serious impact on reporters and on public opinion: in a country where 40 years of dictatorship has a vivid impression on the collective memory of the society, the right of the media authority to issue disproportionally high fines through flimsy arguments will lead to self-censorship.

The present situation in Hungary is the result of the loss of credibility of democratic

politics of Hungarian citiziens. When citizens ignore politics, politics ignores citizens. Narrow group interests easily prevail against weakly represented common interests, thus destroying the environment around us and endangering the lives of future generations. Although the change of the political system is explained by the government as a path toward a majoritian model of democracy, several measures of the government are endangering the foundations of social solidarity and people’s faith in democracy itself.

ON THE WAY TO THE EUROPEAN SURVEILLANCE UNION

In this legislative period of the European Parliament European security policy forges a new dimension.

The Lisbon treaty

has not only strengthen the co-decision of the parliament in many areas; it also meant a change to the procedures in almost all legislation proposals concerning police and judicial cooperation. Above all, the new treaty basis led to the spheres of the previously so-called third pillar of the European Union being incorporated into Community law. At the same time a binding fundamental rights catalogue – the Charter of Fundamental Rights – has become part of EU law. In addition the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) – a convention of all EU Member States within the

framework of the Council of Europe and upheld by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg – already stipulates a similar level of rights. But the policy made by the European legislator including the national governments in the area of freedom, security and justice is still dominated by very far going and fundamental rights intrusive measures. A mid-term review.

TECHNOCRATS’ WISH LISTS – THE ERA OF SURVEILLANCE WORDS BY

JAN PHILIPP ALBRECHT 21TH OF APRIL 2012

Jan Philipp Albrecht (29) has been active with the Young Greens since 10 years before he became a Member of the European Parliament in 2009.

He is the home affairs expert of the Greens/EFA group and chairs the EGP working group on Digital Rights.

During the German EU presidency, the German ex-Federal Minister of the Interior, Wolfgang Schäuble, and the then EU Justice Commissioner, Franco Frattini, established an Informal High Level Advisory Group on the Future of European Home Affairs Policy (Future Group), whose recommendations for justice and home affairs 2010 to 2014 were announced in June 2008. The tenor of their recommendations was so alarming that numerous civil rights activists and politicians vociferously warned that the EU was mutating into a European Union of surveillance. The report submitted by the Future Group argued for further dovetailing of EU and US security policy. Above all, data exchange should be made easier.

Domestic and foreign security policies should be further merged and include extended data exchange between EU states as well as between police and secret services. There should be a network of so-called anti-terrorist centres to impede ‘recruitment and radicalisation’.

Above all, there should be strengthened surveillance of the internet and the introduction of international standards of criminal law. Refugees are also further criminalised. The Future Group was literally demanding “new and flexible means for deportation and surveillance”.

Video surveillance should be of greater significance. EU security services like EUROPOL, EUROJUST and FRONTEX should be expanded and EU border controls should be upgraded in their technical equipment and have military presence as in the US. It is bad enough that it was civil servants in the Future Group who, in their enthusiasm for the obviously technically unlimited possibilities of new surveillance structures, drew up plans for the dystopia of a total control system. It sends a shiver down one’s spine, however, when one realises how uncritically and with what enthusiasm Europe’s security politicians incorporated these proposals into their repertoire of measures. With the so-called Stockholm Programme which was adopted in December 2009, the EU security policy is geared towards the Future Group’s vision and only embellished with very vaguely formulated guarantees for the protection of citizens’ rights. The stated trend is continuing. The willingness to anticipate a state of emergency challenges even the last bastion of a free constitutional state exposing it as a bolt-hole for terrorists. Politicians are regularly found wanting when it comes to providing proof of these allegations. We can obviously no longer expect the ‘etatists’ in the interior ministries to protect European citizens’ basic rights and guarantees. This is left to a small group of ‘grumblers’ and the constitutional courts. The freedom that these have so bitterly tried to defend is publicly conveyed to and regarded as being a danger. When a ‘concrete, terrorist threat’ is conjured up – as is happening repeatedly – those who campaign for the defence of abstract basic principles are actually the ones seen as a danger to security.

They protect the terrorists, they even act as accomplices. At least, this is what Europe’s politicians have been saying for years every time they put in place a new security measure.

These measures are put together in such a piece-meal way that anyone claiming to see a trend in the legislation could regularly be branded a conspiracy theorist. The Stockholm Programme purports to find a balance between basic human rights and citizens’ rights on the one hand and security and control on the other. We Greens opposed the idea that people’s fundamental rights can be weighed against the security measures of the state and managed to get a wording by the European Parliament which stated clearly that security is a tool to ensure freedom. Our society is based on the principle that basic and human rights are upheld in every case, an exception only being an individual situation based on detailed justification and accompanied by comprehensive legal protection. Constitutional basic rights, like a fair trial and the presumption of innocence, must remain inviolable.

Unfortunately, this is all becoming more and more of a farce as the executive- biased policy of recent years has consistently tried to introduce security as a new constitutional principle and, amidst the fear of terrorist attack, turn everyone into a potential criminal – some such as immigrants, asylum seekers and Muslims more than others. Arbitrariness is creeping into our constitution- based systems.

BOUNDLESS INFORMATION EXCHANGE – THE END OF MEANING AND PURPOSE Along the lines of the Stockholm Programme and the ideas gathered in the Future Group the new Commissioner for home affairs, Cecilia Malmström - a former liberal MEP under pressure of the ministers for interior – decided to propose a number of far going surveillance measures. After a debate on the US TFTP programme - which analyses SWIFT banking data - came up in the European Parliament and the EP with its new powers under the Lisbon Treaty voted a data transfer agreement with the US down in February 2010 (the Greens have been the leading opposition) the Commission had no better idea to install EUROPOL as the safeguard for European data protection rules and propose an own EU framework to analyse banking data without concrete suspicion, the so called TFTS (Terrorist Finance Tracking System). And after the European Parliament had stated clearly that the collection and processing of all passenger data (PNR) through the US authorities was exercised in a disproportional way and not justified the European Commission negotiated new agreements with the US which where even worse that those before. The developments of PNR agreements between the EU and the US from2004 over 2007 to 2012 is a story of widening the scope of purposes for which the blanket retention and profiling of passenger data could be used for. After September 11th everything has started with the fight of internationally searched terrorists. Today the measures are entitled to prevent all ranges of crime. The system is even used for simple border security and immigration purposes. And now the Europeans – obviously convinced by the repeated mantra of the usefulness of such measures - are on their way to create the same mass data storage and profiling

systems. In 2011 the European Commission proposed a Directive for the storage and usage of all passenger data in the EU. For the first moment it was limited to extra-EUflights but it took only some weeks until there was a group of EU governments which widened the scope also to intra-EU-flights.

While this was happening the exchange of data in the police and justice cooperation area was already on the way to be intensified also. The Council of interior ministers drove a proposal for a European Investigation Oder (EIO) which allowed mutual recognition of all different investigation measures and evidence gathering including interception and covert investigations. In future police and justice authorities could already cross borders virtually and access all available information in any system besides national security bodies. The European governments even formulated a guiding principle for this: The principle of availability. Every data base should be interoperable which all other systems and accessible for all authorities.

The Stockholm Programme already provides standardisation of IT with which the uncontrolled flow of personal information will become even easier. Of the principles of data protection – the limitation in purpose, access only in justifiable circumstances and the obligation to erase stored data – there is no trace. The only light in the whole development is brought by the proposal by the new justice commissioner of the EU Viviane Reding who for the first time tries to substantially harmonize the minimum standards for police and justice cooperation and thereby implement the fundamental rights charter and the jurisdiction of the ECHR in Strasbourg. All her proposals are struggling to come forward in the Council of ministers.

THE LOSS OF PROPORTIONALITY – THE RETENTION OF DATA As if the millions of already available data were not enough, in more and more areas there is blanket surveillance of the general public. Under current regulations on data retention, the telecommunications data of all 500 million EU citizens are stored for at least six months and made accessible to security authorities – without there having to be any hint of suspicion or acute danger.

This serious encroachment on the right of all to freedom was pushed through in the fastest legislative procedure in the history of the EU – it took less than three months from the presentation of the commission’s draft to the vote in parliament. There was no open debate with data protection bodies and the public as the Data Retention Directive was adopted in 2005. The principle of the presumption of innocence is virtually on the brink of collapse.

The fact that private telecommunications networks and companies are forced to structure their technical installations to suit security policies already has lawyers talking about the emergence of a police state. The fact that there has been no real necessity is largely ignored. According to the German Federal Office of Criminal Investigation’s own figures, in only 0.006% of cases has a lack of

telecommunications data led to a crime not being solved. In contrast, the ever-increasing accumulation of data is a disproportionate encroachment on the individual’s right to private communication and informational self-determination. Moreover, it gives rise to further security risks as the danger of misuse and unauthorised disclosure is always lurking in these data stockpiles. The anti-terrorist strategy that you can find a needle in a haystack by increasing the size of the haystack has long been proved to be an illusion. This argument is only promoted by the surveillance industry able to use such technology to make a profit out of the constant panic-making. When the German Federal Law on data retention was implemented at the beginning of 2008, a petition against it signed by more than 34.000 people was handed in to the Federal Constitutional Court. The finding of the court in March 2010 was a disaster for the German government as the constitutional court trashed the implementation and formulated very strict ruled under which a blanket retention of telecommunication data could only take place. After this judgement it would be almost impossible to justify data retention in all fields of police and justice.

DATA COLLECTION DOES NOT PREVENT TERROR – WHAT REALLY COUNTS

16

George Orwell’s portrayal of a comprehensive surveillance state is, little by little, becoming reality. Surveillance mania is a helpless attempt to cover up policy failures in other areas with draconian methods.

On the whole, public debate on security issues does not include discussion about the complex causes of terrorism. The exception is when religious fanaticism is used in a populist manner as the single cause for terrorist acts. The fact that religious fanaticism needs a breeding ground and that an unjust world economic order provides it is generally overlooked.

Terrorism is not the cause but a symptom of this global illness. The failure to realise this is developing slowly but surely into a danger for freedom, democracy and the rule of law.

The experiences of the Weimar Republic show how easily freedom, once attained, can be lost again. In Germany we have also had to experience how quickly surveillance can lead to the restriction of democratic co-determination like in the Nazi- as well as in the Stasi-regime. Those interested in reducing the crime rate and thus effectively combating serious crimes and terrorism must turn their backs on the symbolic gestures of experimental politicians and concentrate on the difficult challenges posed by important societal problems. Therefore the alternative security policy that the

Greens are pursuing is aimed at combating all the dangers faced by people and the environment in whatever area. Whoever ponders the causes of criminality, terror and war will soon come up with rather banal reasons such as poverty, lack of education, environmental problems and dictatorships.

To think that you can solve these problems with surveillance cameras and data banks is not only absurd but also foolish. Behind the constantly recurring demands of security lurks, above all, a lack of enforcement. The police and security forces in Europe are not suffering from a lack of authority but from a lack of equipment across the board. The EU Member States are doing little about this – to the detriment of the citizens and their rights. This is where it would be necessary to take the essential, time consuming and costly measures, something that is generally unpopular in politics. Instead, the meaning of fundamental rights is stood on its head whereby it is not the encroachment of the state on fundamental rights but rather the limit of state investigation that requires justification. This shows, in an exemplary way, the importance of independent – not merely legal – controls where fundamental rights are concerned. In this time of a rapidly advancing information society this is especially relevant for personal data protection.

AN ALTERNATIVE SECURITY POLICY FOR EUROPE – WITHOUT DOUBT GREEN

The Greens’ justice and home affairs policy is based on clear legal principles, effectiveness and the prevention of conflict.

That means that there should be above all no arbitrariness on the part of the state. The relationship between the authority ‘state’ and the sovereign ‘population’ should be one of unbroken, recognisable legitimacy and constant control. Therefore the core element of Green security policy is constant and comprehensive evaluation of existing security measures. Three basic elements are of prime importance: 1) the effectiveness of the measures; 2) the necessity of the measures; 3) their effect on fundamental and constitutional rights. Not only has not enough consideration been given to these three principles in the debate on security; they have, against better judgement, simply been ignored. As a result, in not one case has there been any proper debate – be it at international, European or Member State level – as to whether the measures that have been put in place have actually provided better security. Security has always been presented as preventing horrific terror attacks and serious criminal acts.

Criminologists, however, have known for years that extending the powers of security authorities does not lead to any significant reduction in the number of crimes. Anyone deciding to contravene the norms of society and the law will not be prevented from doing

so merely as a result of security measures. As long as there is no all-embracing elimination of all freedom of action, criminals will always find a means of committing their criminal acts. Thus, the present focus on increasing security regimes in fact creates an element of insecurity. It prevents us fighting the real causes and lulls society into a false sense of security. In order to provide effectively for the greatest possible security we must instead focus on the causes of crime and terror. A good justice and home affairs policy must concentrate on correcting existing deficits in investigation and enforcement, invest more in justice and crime prevention as well as better training and equipment of police authorities at local level. We Greens want the European security laws of the last few years to be re-examined. We also want EU fundamental rights to be not only legally binding but that all citizens have the right to enforce their claim by legal action. The Greens in the European Parliament want, together with other movements, to lay the foundations for a policy U-turn that will free us from the psyche of a society of fear and lead us into a Union where law is supreme and there is recognition of the causes of danger and that with the engagement of the people these can be minimized. In view of the present mood and the conservative parliamentary majorities this will be an enormous challenge. In Parliaments and - of course - in election campaigns.

YOUTH REVOLTE WORDS BY

JASMINE ROMAN 22TH OF APRIL 2012

With joy and enthusiasm, and a bit of envy, we watched the Tunisian and Egyptian people and admired their determination to topple their dictators last year. We were stunned by their massive and peaceful protests and we supported their righteous demands to have freedom and dignity. The chorus of the unprecedented protests and movements has swept the Middle East and North Africa to fight oppression, brutality, and corruption. While the revolutions have had different approaches in the different countries in the MENA region, the Syrian crisis has endured the most lengthy, violent and complex path.

Significant number of non-violent protests took place in Spain and other parts of Europe; they called for radical change and economic reforms. The grassroots people worldwide have impulsively united to attest that human beings struggle for common values and needs to have democracy, freedom, and better living standards at all levels.

Amid the political schemes and battles, the rapid changes, and the ruthless crackdowns; the diaries and anecdotes of the revolutionary days will remain the reminiscence of the history and the human features of the future.

YOUTH REVOLTE

20

DIARY FROM SYRIA : WHITHER SYRIA ?

“JASMINE ROMAN ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED THIS ARTICLE ON JUNE 5, 2011 IN THE EMAJMAGAZINE”

Shaping the new social structures for Syria’s future and the daily struggle to survive all the revolt- related pressures takes on an even greater dimension when one has to lead this battle and face family members that sometimes use systems of oppression similar to Arab political autocracies.

“I am a hypocrite, I say things that I am not convinced about, and I express feelings that I am not overwhelmed with”.

This is how Rana, (not her real name) an Alwaite woman friend, confessed her frustration to me while sitting in a coffee shop in Damascus.

At the beginning of the unrest Rana tried to convince her family to resist: that being Alawite didn’t mean they would be targeted by the Sunni majority. She knew that the regime and its various organizations were sowing the fear in the hearts of Alawites and other minorities to derail the turmoil, trying to convince them that without the persistence and stability of Assad’s regime they would be attacked by the Muslim Sunni majority, who

are inevitably outraged by the forty years of control by the Assad father and son..

“My family members are completely blind and convinced that the Sunni will attack us, slaughter us, and disfigure our bodies in revenge for the regime’s abuse of power and atrocities”, she said.

Rana explained how her mother feared for her sons and sent them to hide at their relatives’ village on the west coast. Then her mother and the rest of the family started to keep a closer eye on Rana in order to protect her from any deviation from the right path. Rana is expected to be loyal and show full devotion and obedience to her family, her sect, and especially to the Assad regime; otherwise, she will be misled and deluded.

At the beginning of the crackdown, Rana’s brother was an eye witness when security man in a petrol station in the Damascus outskirts brutally beat up a suspected dissident in the middle of the street, dragged him to a car, and took him away. Even though Rana’s brother had heard and seen what happened, he still

JASMINE ROMAN / 05.06.2011

YOUTH REVOLTE / DIARY FROM SYRIAN denied the truth, in fact he was content to see the victim beat up without justification.

“I am not allowed to watch any channels, except the State TV, which only tell lies. In the early days, I could sneak and watch a little when everybody else was busy at home, now all my family is busy focusing on me, surveillng what I read and what I watch.”

Rana’s family obsessively watches the Syrian media, gives it full credibility without verification or analysis. They tend to accept whatever is said: their fear of the unknown future makes them unwilling to listen to other points of view.

“I hate Fridays; I have to celebrate whilst hearing about the death of Syrian people every Friday. Can you imagine? I do that indeed. I feel exactly like Raafat Al Hajjan, the famous Egyptian agent did, when he was informed about losing the 1967 war while he was in Israel, have the same feeling of being torn apart. How can I celebrate when people of my country are dying? This is nothing but torment for me!”, she added.

Yet, Rana seemed to be living in a small posh prison. What kind of life are we really maintaining? We move from the school’s prison, family’s prison, community’s prison, and the regime’s several virtual and physical prisons. Prisons that are well-equipped and decorated but at the end, they give the same fears, anxiety, inequality, and hypocrisy.

Rana has struggled to break through her prison’s walls, but she is suppressed by her family who even arranged for her to sit with a well-educated relative whose duty was to exorcise her demonic ideas and return her to the right path in the interest of her family, her sect, and her country.

Nevertheless, Rana does not object to her family, but rather has been asking them to look impartially at the crackdown, to accept other viewpoints, and notice all the casualties because Syrians deserve to live better lives and deserve above all to be counted as human beings.

Through our conversations, I realized that Rana avoids details, doesn’t deliver specific messages, and doesn’t admit the daily fears she is living . She is maintaining the family’s bond, she doesn’t want to have unknown destiny either. She bluntly told me that she sometimes feel hatred toward her own family.

She can’t see them as she used to, and she can’t mingle with them every evening as she used to before she started to lose her faith, to abandon her convictions, and reconsider what her relatives say and think. She frankly told me that she has changed her perspectives and she now hates what she used to love, and loves what she used to hate.

“I sometimes provoke my mother when I see her frightened and crying and I ask her to save her tears for those days when we will be deported or massacred”. Rana told me with a sarcastic smile, hoping that this will not really happen.

While writing this piece, I noticed that I’ve been, unthinkingly, mentioning the religion and sect of people taking part in discussions and events which usually should not add any value to the core of the subject. However, this not only gives reliability, but also indicates to the molds of people that have been formulated in a country that always boasts its coexistence, diversity, and security. My regular question now is whither Syria?

DIARY FROM SYRIA: WILL I BE THE NEXT? “JASMINE ROMAN ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED THIS ARTICLE ON AUGUST 3, 2011 IN THE EMAJMAGAZINE”

JASMINE ROMAN / 03.08.2011 - Sunday, will be fine!

- Yup, it’ll be perfect.

We were supposed to meet together on Sunday immediately after work to further recount her journey with the hijab. A while ago, we had an unintended conversation about hijab; why Darin, a Syrian young woman, decided to take off her head cover! Why she left her circle!

What phases she went through to attain her own beliefs and convictions! How religion affected her life and how her life changed with and without the hijab! As she made debatable and interesting points and shed the light on her inner struggle, confusion, and labyrinth, I considered interviewing her in depth to write about the issue and she pleasantly approved. We were designating the date last week when Darin pointed out that she witnessed the demonstration last Wednesday, organized by Syrian artists and educated people in Damascus, demanding to immediately and ultimately stop the security solution and violence and to release the political prisoners and detainees.

Yesterday, I came to work and an hour later I heard that Darin was detained by security as she was caught together with a European citizen, whose laptop and cameras were scanned to track any videos or photos. Both Darin and the European female were referred to the State Security Court awaiting for the verdict to be issued in a couple of days.

Obviously, the foreigner will be arrested for few days and deported back to her country later. But what about the Syrian national?

Darin and I were supposed to go out and instigate nonpolitical discussion over a coffee and shisha only one day after her arrest.

Though we are not close friends, we are relatively good colleagues. We could touch

on some issues but never dared to dig further and talk openly about the unrest in Syria.

However, I sensed that she is not in favor of the current turmoil, yet, we never shared our opinions, we never illustrated our visions, and we never put our voices together. As Syrians, we learn to speak and comprehend each other by signals.

In Syria, they raise us with fear and anxiety; they nourish us with mistrust and suspicion.

They teach us not to trust or talk our minds even to our own families; not to trust any friend, brother, colleague, relative, or neighbor; to avoid the grocer, taxi driver, street seller, building guard, and scavenger.

They convince us that Syrians have “nice handwriting” and they are all “reporters”.

One forgery report is adequate to make someone a prisoner of conscience, to have a travel ban, or to loose one’s life. They panic us so we don’t confide our own selves; we don’t dare to think out of the box; we even fear that we would report ourselves or they are so advanced that they are willing to scan our heads and search our hearts.

In Syria, they don’t only punish us for our words or actions, but also for our dreams, for our hopes, and for our drives. They judge us if we decide to sing like birds not like parrots.

They address us to be cowards, to swallow our insult, and to forget our dignity. They literally make us “shit in our pants” when we only hear the words: Security “Al-Amn” or Intelligence “Al-Moukhabarat”. They scare us even if we have never violated any rule or said any “inconvenient” word. They dedicate their creativity to present us “sweet” nightmares of torture in their confinements and persecution that our families and beloved ones will be subject to. They teach us to look under our shoes, to walk beside the wall, and to hide ourselves under a tiny branch of a tree.

In Syria, you never know when you say your sincere words for the last time; when you meet your dear ones for the last time; and when you struggle for your principles for the last time. You never know if you’ll be the same person you used to be or you dream to be.

The arrest of Darin afforded me with soreness, melancholy, fright, and sleepless nights thinking about her trial, condition, state of fear, accusations, and survival during and after the detention. One day you hear the laughter and dream of a young person, you see him/ her sitting behind the desk, occasionally approach you to say good morning or have a quick chat, and suddenly absented in a prison waiting for a mysterious destiny. Those detainees leave while holding their inner baldness, and aloneness with nobody to support or really sympathize.

Not only because they are young Syrians, but simply because they have the right for freedom of expression. Shockingly, I even heard some say with a smirk that Darin deserves it; she must be a lesson to every single Syrian who acts as a traitor.

The security apparatus randomly arrests children, women, and youth; they easily accuse people of conspiring and dealing with foreign hands. However, shouldn’t they go after the authentic betrayals and conspirators who have been plundering the country for decades, torturing the Syrians, looting the resources, and acting like gods. How will Darin and peers contribute to “weaken the national sentiment” and “undermine the security and stability” of the country?

I am not positive if this will not be my last piece of writing or diary. I panicked... I don’t know if I can ever draft the book I dream about; I freaked... Will I be the next?

ON THE FRONT LINES IN SYRIA, WOMEN’S ROLE IS STILL UNDEFINED

“JASMINE ROMAN ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED THIS ARTICLE ON JANUARY 22, 2012 IN PRINT AND ON THE WEBSITE OF THE NATIONAL”

JASMINE ROMAN / 21.02.2012

persecuted. She has refused to leave the country.

Where are all the women in Syria’s national uprising? Judging by the scarcity of articles detailing the role of women in Syria – compared to the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt or Yemen – it might be easy to assume Syria’s women are staying on the sidelines.

May Skaf, a Syrian actress, was detained for taking a role in peaceful protests and calling for an end to urban siege.

That assumption, of course, would be false.

But how involved women remain will depend largely on the direction the uprising takes.

And Fadwa Suleiman has become the epitome of Syrian female activists, often seen singing in support of the uprising.

For now, women are participating in the uprising in Syria in increasing numbers.

Despite the risks and the viciousness of the government’s crackdown (more than 5,400 have been killed), Syrian women are displaying bravery by leading initiatives and protests for the release of prisoners and to support the Syrian revolution.

But there are many more women who are being arrested, tortured and harassed without being widely recognised or acknowledged.

They come from all walks of life and are conservatives, liberals and secularists. They fight for Syria, but they also fight for their own rights. Syrian women have been marginalised and systematically isolated due to conservative cultural values, and the brutal and notorious practices of the Syrian security apparatus.

Female-led protests have erupted across the country, anywhere arrests and torture are occurring on a large scale. In one instance it was women’s activism that organised protests to release their male- relative prisoners. Syrian women, furthermore, have generated their own discreet circles and coordination efforts to collect money and provide medical kits, food and non-food items to affected families in the worst-hit areas.

In some cases, Syrian women alone interrupted the Arab League patrols and took inspectors to meet affected families when the security forces attempted to mislead the monitors and take them to pro- regime inhabited areas. Women have even been kidnapped by “Shabiha” – regime-affiliated thugs- or gone into hiding to avoid such a fate.

Razan Zaitouneh, a human rights activist, has been hiding in many places to avoid being

Razan Ghazzawi, an outspoken blogger, was released after being arrested at the SyrianJordanian border.

I do question, however, how much longer women will continue to stand up to the brutality so publicly. As one young Syrian journalist recently told me, the tendency towards militarisation of the uprising is one of the most dangerous aspects for women.

“It will really end meaningful participation of women, given that they will not be on the battlefield,” the journalist argued.

Some activists are already scaling back.

“I participated in many protests in the beginning until I was detained for few days,” a young female activist said. “I stopped because I feared for my family; I was still intensively under scrutiny ... after my release”.

In the early days of the uprising, now 10 months old, women were less exposed to torture by the security services. But in time, some believe they have become a burden that male protesters feel they must protect. One male activist from Aleppo recently reflected that since the women are usually the weakest link, they will be the first casualties in any strife.

Across the Arab world, post-revolution periods have provided few rewarding outcomes for women, despite the fact that women were involved in helping to lead change. Moreover, as post- revolutionary governments become Islamised, the temptation will be to exclude women, secularists and religious and ethnic minority groups to curry favour.

Referring to “Haraer Souria” or the Free Syrian Women, the male activist from Aleppo continued: “Haraer is the right word to describe free women, but [it also] reminds us of harem and those libertine sultans.”

Syrian women will evolve their struggle, moving from fighting oppressive dictators to reeling under religious fundamentalism.

Women embrace revolutions and their work should be seen as a vital component of political and social reform.

My 75-year-old mother whispered to me the other day: “I wish I were younger [so I could] join the protests and call for freedom.”

She said today’s uprising reminds her of her university days when she joined activists all “living in the same house” – from the secularist to the Muslim Brotherhood member, the Syrian nationalist to the Nasserite – to challenge authority.

Where Syrian women fit into that house today is still being determined.

AND SPAIN WOKE UP SOME INSIGHT IN TO THE WORDS BY ALEXANDRE ROND / 6TH OF JANUARY 2011 THE BEGINNING Corruption, dismantling of the social protection systems, unfair electoral law, privatizations, mass amount of public funds injected into private banks, huge unemployment, housing problems, bipartism, total disconnection of politicians with the citizens - these are plenty of reasons to be pissed off (especially one week before local elections). Surprisingly, people did not really show it. Instead, they stayed at home, away from the big unions (general strike in September 2010 was a failure) and the political parties (which represent no real alternative or have no options to make it real).

Maybe that's why the demonstration on the 15th of May 2011, under the slogan "Real democracy now!", with a open and wide call (away from any political side) and organized through the social media gathered over 15 thousand protesters in Madrid. A great success, unseen in a long time. Of those, 200300 people formed an unplanned assembly and decided to camp in Sol Square. Their aim?

To make their protest visible to the rest of the people.

Being their protest totally pacific, respectful, most of all reduced, police removed them on the second night. And that was it: that was the moment when everyone could not take

THE ELECTIONS it anymore. Thirty thousand people filled Sol Square on Tuesday 17th to reclaim the public space as a place to make their voices heard.

The number grew on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday... as politicians tried to use it in their own benefit and judges kept on sentencing the gatherings were illegal. Under the tension that authorities may think of evicting peaceful demonstrators again. And this happened not only in Madrid, but in many places around Spain and some around the world.

The campers at Sol and the rest had a big challenge: organizing thousands of people in a non-hierarchical system with the objective of finding out why they were there and how they wanted things changed. The camp divided itself in many commissions and subcommissions. Some of them dealing with logistics (free food for everyone, health system, cleaning, security), others dealing with every topic you can think of: long term politics, short-term politics, art, environment, dissemination, press, legality, thought... All of them making decisions under the principle of consensus (so everyone would feel included), which introduced a common goal: to reach ''consensus of minimums''.

In the meantime, the local and regional elections were held in Spain on the 22nd of May, under the big question of how the 15M movement would affect the results. And well, it did not, which was a pity, but also the expectable thing to happen.

The movement had no a consensual position on voting. Still some things were clear: do not vote the big parties (PSOE, PP) as ''they are the same shit''. Therefore, the influence of the movement in the elections was divided among those who did not vote, those who cast invalid votes, those who voted blank and those who voted one of the many small parties. Too many options to have a real effect, other than the PSOE socialists crashing and PP conservatives losing a bit but not much. But that was going to happen from the beginning.

POST ELECTIONS Nevertheless, the movement continued moving towards their consensus of minimums.

They made their first real approach by agreeing four lines of debate: -Electoral reform towards a proportional representation system and more citizen participation mechanisms.

THE DEMONSTRATION UNDER THE SLOGAN "REAL DEMOCRACY NOW!" HELD ON MAY 15TH WAS THE AWAKENING OF THE MOVEMENT WHICH IS SHAKING SPAIN, AND PARTICULARLY MADRID, SINCE THEN.

E #SPANISH REVOLUTION -Fight against corruption and more transparency -Real separation of public powers -Creation of control mechanisms in order to effectively control the political responsibilities.

They also realized that the movement could not stay focused on Sol Square. It needed to be extended to other places, particularly to every city district and any town in Madrid. This was a successful move, with over 50 new assemblies born on the 29th of May. Autonomous bodies to organize their own protests, actions and to make decisions that would travel up to a Popular Assembly of Madrid.

VIOLENCE, POLICE VIOLENCE Despite the stress that the 15M movement has put in the ''peace'' and ''respect'' words, we have shamefully watched the police respond to it with two serious violent episodes, one in Barcelona (27th of May) and another one in Valencia (9th of June). Note that it is not the first time that peaceful protests are violently repressed in Spain (Bologna protests, or housing protests before are a good example), but certainly it is the first time that it happens on a movement with very clear, proclaimed and proved peaceful attitude (a large media coverage that can only support it).

The problem is very serious: in a so called

''democracy'', the police is simply free to hit, arrest, set up fake accusations on peaceful demonstrators without any consequences.

Despite the videos, despite the photos, despite the witnesses, nothing happens. And our politicians see that, and believe than they can basically use violence whenever it comes handy. This lack of morals contrast with a movement which sits down, put hands in the air and shouts ''these are our weapons'' to the uniformed.

It is sure at least that the movement will never stop as long as some policeman can come and freely smash your face while you are peacefully defending your rights. The amount of energy we gather from every episode of police violence to keep fighting is huge.

CONCLUSION: WHAT WE GOT AND WHERE ARE WE HEADING? Apart from police control, Spain has been lacking a deep democratic culture since the end of Franco's dictatorship, not only in the institutions (filled with too many corrupt politicians), but also in the streets. The 15M means a huge step for people to reclaim their space, learn, discuss, organize themselves and build up different realities that provide what the institutions are failing to give: from

networks of social support to direct democracy, real dialogue or organic crops.

It is not about making politicians change things in the short-term. That is impossible.

They will not change the rules of their own game nor are ready to face the economic powers as the movement basically asks. All of this is rather about building up a strong social fabric working at all levels (quarter, city, region, national) on very simple demands which are full of sense: more democracy, less corruption.

Of course many problems arise: it is difficult to reach consensus, Sol Assembly is hyper divided, many people lack political culture and make others lose time by repeating arguments or blocking decisions in assemblies, demands are too simplified and proposals rather na誰ve... but this is just starting. Problems are being given solutions via the collective mind of the assemblies and the share of knowledge. For example, the new decision making system in Madrid has been imported from Barcelona and allows consensus not to be blocked by a single selfish person.

So despite all the problems and critics that can be addressed to the movement, we have much more faith in it than in our current politicians and, sooner or later, we will manage to change them.

REVOLUTION, AND THE FUTURE OF ECOLOGICAL ACTIVISM IN TUNISIA? WORDS BY

YOUSSEF HLAOUI 10TH OF APRIL 2012

MEMBER OF THE TUNISIAN GREEN PARTY AND THE TUNISIAN GREEN YOUTH FEDERATION

On January 14th of 2011, people of Tunisia went to Habib Bourguiba Avenue in Tunis, struggling for freedom, fighting against dictatorship and demanding social justice, and the right to dignity… etc etc…

We know the story, like we know all the historical mythology of revolution.

So what’s the truth?

No one could exactly describe the real face of revolutionary movement in Tunisia. I can tell you that in the 60’s, there was a political movement called ‘Perspective’ who has been repressed by security forces and political police. I will also describe to you how syndicalism, through years and years has been fighting for social rights, and human dignity.

The key of this problem is that Tunisian people are taken into an unclear way that can, or not, lead to a democratic change.

Therefore, while we cannot give an explanation to the situation, we should simplify the analysis and take it from one side, from mine.

I’m a young Tunisian man, 27 year old under dictatorship of Bourguiba than that of Ben Ali. I’ve never seen free election anywhere in my country before January 2011. I’ve been active as a dissident singer in a music band called ‘Ajras’ in 2003. I’ve seen repression in 2002, when people in the street have been arrested for the only crime of having expressed their solidarity with Palestinian people.

I’m also an ecologist activist in a country, where, when I went seeking for a ‘Green Party’, I’ve found a ‘pseudo’ party, supporting the dictator, when the real ecologist party was not allowed to exist (my actual party).

So from my point of view, the problem is easy

to solve. People who protested in January 14th are the same that protested in solidarity to Palestine in 2001. A minority of Tunisians was there, asking for Ben Ali to leave (fifty thousand from a total number of twelve million people). A very small minority of these men and women were conscious of the importance that protesting can acquire.

In these conditions how to spread ecological ideas and to promote the ecologist alternative in Tunisia?

I think by building human, or by re-building Tunisian people; so that they become mentally independent. Then we can try to spread the awareness about ecological problems.

We essentially need a strong communication strategy, based on simplifying concepts. We also need an ecological ideology in coherence with our cultural characteristics.

Tunisian people can adopt the ecological way of life easier because Tunisia is not a big industrial country. An on the other hand, the state here is under construction, so that it’s easier to start an ecological transition.

We need to work hard on creating an alternative way of life; we need to go ahead, but never forget.

Tunisian Green Party has never been authorized under dictatorship and now it has to struggle to take a place in political spectrum of Tunisia.

To conclude, there’s a need of mind revolutions in the countries of the Arab Spring, and also of ambition in alternative movement so that the Tunisian revolutionary movement can lead to a deep change in the actual international system.

WILL THE ARAB WORLD EXPERIENCE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE Being just to yourself or to your society is actually part of being just to the environment and not the other way around. In fact environmental justice remains to be the most holistic and comprehensive aim towards sustaining our vulnerable existence on the surface of the earth, not because being environmentally conscious is something good but certainly because there is no other possible

way we keep living on this planet.

I am Egyptian, African and also Arab and the three ethnic backgrounds combined in my character along with being concerned and actually working in the field of environment taught me that it's only through nature conservation peace will come to earth.

WORDS BY

WALEED MAHMOUD MANSOUR 12TH OF APRIL 2012

In the Arab region we recently experienced the Arab spring, this was phenomenal and no one saw it coming although it arrived too late, in fact it might have not even arrived till now. The endless battle between the youth and the prominent dictators imposed by the capitalist part of the world is still there and may not leave till later. Egypt and Tunisia have succeeded to throw out their presidents but have also ended up with a fundamental religious parliament. The current parliament does not necessarily have the problem of being religious because certainly it does not pertain to religion.

YOUTH REVOLTE

The case in Egypt was members of the new parliament expressing anti-human rights arguments that might take the country back so many years, we saw MPs expressing their interest in banning pornographic websites claiming their interest in social reform, another one calling to legalize marriage of girls at the age of 16 to prevent adultery and last but not least; legalizing female circumcision.

Among many other similar issues discussed at the post revolution parliament was the latter in addition to other irresponsible acts. I have to combine all that and worry about the future of Egypt's environmental profile. A parliament like that has proven a big failure in conceiving its responsibility towards the human race, basically legalizing the age of marriage at the age of 16 means that the child to be married will be eventually raped legally without her consent, to allow circumcision for women is another catastrophe, by considering it a normal societal aspect. How can such mindsets be seriously questioned on formulating laws and policies for environmental protection and nature conservation, where would it be possible in their books to see words like accountability and responsibility towards the environment and the society?

Looking to the other side of the world I may not be able to see things differently, the oppressive capitalist regime is simply everywhere and seriously continuing to oppress each and every living creature on this earth. Sooner than later, the Rio +20 will come to tell us about Green Economy, no one knows what that particularly means because there

isn’t a reason to label responsibly economic systems by green, blue or any other color.

What is happening is only washing the face of the capitalist economy controlling the earth. With no environmental consensus or evidence, hundreds of people will fly around the earth to Rio +20 and perhaps thousands to Copenhagen in Qatar and the outcome will still be more money is available to buy weapons than to reform education and health.

As a citizen of the so called developing countries (I am being called so because the developed countries that contributed massively to the world’s pollution and natural destruction preferred to call it so) I will have to wait and see what the developed part of the world has decided on the destiny of my country given the world’s environmental road map and not having the right to contribute to it. Because first; I am not classified as that type of country which can lead the negotiations and second I don’t have a parliament or a government that represents my ideas and impressions along with possible solutions to my country’s environmental profile. It does not hurt me much because I also know that it's perhaps the case for most environmentally conscious citizens in Europe, the US or perhaps elsewhere in this world; but again it’s the exercise of power that resulted in this situation.

This power is only exercised to serve the interest of the capitalist regime governing the earth and controlling the unsustainable consumption and production of goods and

services all around the globe.

My own solution to our socio-economic environmental crises is stimulating selfgovernance and effective citizen participation in decision making, the entire example of someone representing you in a parliament does not serve the cause anymore, basically with our growing world, concerns and life patterns along with problems; not a single MP can particularly represent their people. They normally don’t know better and have a basic social interest that may contradict with us as citizens. They don’t live the suffer and are therefore not able to react to it.

We are therefore in a need for a new model of governance that ensures the best representation of our interest and that of the environment in a cross cutting way when formulating policies, for us as humans we can elect government or people to do the job, but nature may not be able to do the same while it remains to be the only possible way we exist on this earth. It is therefore wise we learn how to speak its language and cater for its needs before it would decide to get rid of us.

I would therefore conclude that the manifestations of the uncivil and undemocratic governments experienced in the global south are the only possible twins of their capitalist right wing government in the north where the two exhibit their stress on the world natural resources and subsequently on us as citizens of the globe creating irresponsible consumers and citizens.

29

THE IMPACTS OF THE PLACE AND CONFLICTS IN THE TRACE

WORDS BY

AZIZ RAMADAN 25TH OF APRIL 2012

THE ENGLISH WRITER JOHN DRYDEN ONCE SAID: “ERRORS LIKE STRAWS UPON THE SURFACE FLOW; HE WHO WOULD SEARCH FOR PEARLS MUST DIVE BELOW” THAT HAPPENED ONCE AGAIN WHEN TRACING THE PATH OF EXISTENCE IN THE TIME OF DENIAL OF THE SELF IN THE SHADE OF SO-CALLED PROPRIETY AND THE WILLING TO OVERCOME THE SPEAR-HEAD PREJUDICE THAT HAS BEEN IMPLEMENTED FOR SO LONG. When parents were directing their children to how to survive in a society based on threewise-monkeys survival principle to “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” or what exists in “Analects of Confucius”; “look not at what is contrary to propriety, listen not to what is contrary to propriety, speak not what is contrary to propriety”; the Syrian youth were in the conflicts of either abiding by these rules and traditions, or taking the sway of lifelong ambitions for dignity and freedom in the dominating arena of politics.

If the regime would be considered playing the role of the “farmer’s wife”, the Syrian youth is thus placed at the level of those poor mice who are looking forward to accomplish their lost dignity and freedom of speech, unlike their fathers and forefathers who have always accepted to be followers to the principle of the three-wise-monkeys and kept yielding to the unfair circumstances of their time.

The parents used to advise their children, how to behave according to their age; mainly based on the three-wise-monkeys principle.

Three blind mice. Three blind mice.

On the other hand, the regime was playing the “three blind mice’s game”, pushing people to reveal their hidden thoughts and ideas; the moment they express and do so, their tongues will be cut and their fingers will be broken.

In each Syrian family, at least one member can be found detained, arrested or tortured due to expressing him\herself.

They all run after the farmer’s wife,

The “Three Blind Mice” which is an English nursery rhyme that says:

See how they run. See how they run.

The same concept could be concluded from the situation of the Syrian youth who grew up in a state where emergency-law has governed all areas of their daily life over decades; a security-state which could terrorize its people and got them constantly afraid of expressing, criticizing, or even choosing their suitable path of life regarding education and society.

In 2008, I got arrested after organizing a Kurdish cultural festival; which is not allowed to do in Syria without permission. The colonel told me that I have to consider him as my old brother. “Listen to my advice! Go down and write all names of other participants” he said.

They took me to the basement and tried to make me write by all means but I couldn’t write anymore as I lost my writing senses the moment I entered that place.

Who cut off their tails with a carving knife, Did you ever see such a sight in your life, As three blind mice?

The colonel said: you are Kurdish! I said no, I am Syrian! He repeated, no you are Kurdish and a traitor. I said no sir! I am really Syrian and I am not a traitor; then, he attacked me himself and started beating me.

It was the first moment that I really felt that my country is going to be in serious troubles, experiencing first hand, the ugly face of that totalitarian mentality of a regime based on feeding sectarian conflicts among its people.

We had nothing to hate or love, only “her” which means two words: one is freedom and the other one is state, as in Arabic both of them are feminine; where “eyes” another symbolic word which refers to Intelligence.

If you want to criticize just curse her “state” and if you want to feed your hope with more faith just love her “freedom”.

When Arab spring started, the Syrian youth pretended turning a blind eye on it, as “eyes” were watching them, but their hearts were longing to “her” although her love costs too much.

When those “eyes” were busy watching her doors, the Syrian youth have snatched “her” from the window, starting the journey of saving “her” from those “eyes” who have been doing the impossible to steal “her” back from them.

The Syrian youth were charged enough with enthusiasm and determination, playing the fool with the regime, transforming the compliance of fathers and forefathers with tyranny into a bridge of challenge facing a regime infamous for its most brutality and ploys.

A regime notorious for systematic marginalization, corruption, and muting the voice of truth; moreover, the long-term fabrications of official media and hypnotism of state spokesmen practiced on Syrian people.

The Syrian youth is the catalyst of the peaceful ongoing resistance and the axis of major peaceful protests, mainly university students who must be a leading part of drawing the future Syria.

It is difficult to overthrow a tyrannical regime, but it is a daunting task to rebuild a country with its institutions in the post-revolution.

Regardless of the fragile political opposition, the Syrian youth are determined more than ever to rebuild the state of justice and equal opportunities in the free peaceful pluralistic civil democratic and new Syria.

Eternal Impact To whom it may concern, a story of a child That was born so quickly, thoughtful, mild and wild Tasted the bitter-sweet tears of a daily thought Killing the very inside for what life has brought Sometimes smiling merely and sometimes drawing a shrine Beating very quickly the little heart of mine Eternal hunger and grief step by step has seen You have born in misery as a child and teen Oh my little son wake up from this dream Take the goal bravely, and be as the stream may seem Childhood like a lake full of dirty spots Feeling along the way lonely all the rots Today let it be, no cowardice or fears Face to face to a lady if she really hears Here I am and now the game is very hard I was neither a hero, nor a super bard To whom it may concern, a story of a child Looking for a pearl, swimming against the tide I have been taught to fear, and not to touch a pen I have been taught to hide and behave like a hen Words are still inside, covered by the rust Do not spit them out, just under the dust Till when I shall pay for the thought a fee Headache in a mind, stinging like a bee If a nymph appears, take my hand and be A savior of a story, seems so close to me It might heal the wounds of a daily death It might be a cure, give the hope more faith Escape didn’t work to get this echo over The thought still is living in a mind and hover If I do not think, so am I really man Man I am but still, the thought is under ban Can u see the sea as I see the sea?

If you do then come and take this thought to thee Struggling all the sides till the twenty three No difference could work, to change the thought in me Hardships made me wild, thought has brought me wisdom Suffering taught me patience, but what can give the freedom Not to live oh thought, not to leave outside Hanged and tied by eyes those feed the thought inside Come my dear friend and listen to this folk Strange to you but easy, like a puff of smoke Lo, Human being! Thou art made by clay Why thou art firing each other today

YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT WORDS BY

JAKOB SCHWARZ 22TH OF APRIL 2012

In Europe one of the tragic consequences of the first big economic recession in the 21st century are high rates of youth unemployment. As companies lay off workers their incentives to hire new employees are extremely low and this has made young people particularly vulnerable to the crisis.

The issue gained attention across Europe partly due to its role in the street-protests that recently shook a host of countries in the Mediterranean.

It has been seen as one of the main factors for the upheavals, next to the considerable rates of inflation and the frustration about democratic deficits in the respective countries.

This section hosts four articles from young authors from different European countries, looking at the triggers for youth unemployment, effects on young people, political and economical implications, and possible solutions to overcome these problems.

A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE : YOUTH EMPLOYMENT WORDS BY

JENS CHRISTOPH PARKER 4TH OF OCTOBER 2010

YOUTH UNEMPLOYEMENT

Today the economy has a huge impact on young people growing up. Across the globe, the economic crisis has had a dramatic impact on the challenges facing young people seeking jobs. Between 2008 and 2009, the youth unemployment rate has seen the largest annual increase on record, reversing the precrisis trend of declining youth unemployment rates since 2002 and rising to 13 per cent in 2009.

In times of crisis especially the youth faces unemployment which has long term negative effects on their development and creates marginalization and devastation.

In 2009, about 81million young people were unemployed, the most ever. Youth unemployment rate rose from 11.9 percent to 13.0 percent between 2007 and 2009, an increase of 7.8 million. In 2008, an estimated 152 million young workers –or nearly 25 percent of the world’s working poor– were living with their families on less than US$1.25 per person per day.

The life of young people is full of fear about their future. Will I be able to get a job, to make a living, to support my family? These questions jeopardize in many ways social progress creating egoism, destructive competition and disinterest in the common welfare.

Young women have more difficulty than young men in finding work. The female youth unemployment rate in 2009 stood at 13.2 per cent compared to the male rate of 12.9 per cent.

Unemployment rates, however, reflect only the tip of the iceberg. Young people are prone to work longer hours under informal, intermittent and insecure work arrangements characterized by low productivity and earnings and reduced social protection. Young workers are more exposed to poverty than other age groups.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has long been active on youth employment, through its normative action, its technical assistance work and the promotion of strategic alliances across the UN System. Examples of alliances on youth employment include that with Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on the promotion decent employment for youth living in rural areas and UNESCO on the promotion of access to quality technical and vocational education and training.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the youth employment challenge. Policy responses depend on national circumstances.

Policy options should be part of an integrated framework that promotes economic development and employment growth.

Furthermore, young people have different experiences and their needs depend on individual characteristics. This calls for combining policies for employment expansion with targeted programmes that overcome the specific labour market disadvantages faced by many young people.

A good education is the key to improvement.

Policies and national programmes that provide incentives to enterprises to hire young people, promote youth entrepreneurship, and facilitate access to finance and to other targeted active labour market measures can also help countries to improve decent work prospects of its young population. The development of national action plans on youth employment that are focused on these elements can guide countries to translate national commitment into action.

It is not acceptable that the economy dictates young people´s lives. Every state should take actions to ensure that every young man and woman is able to choose their profession reflecting their interests and potential.

YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT FROM UKRAINIAN PERSPECTIVE WORDS BY

VIKTORIIA GNATENKO,

4TH OF OCTOBER 2010 , EUROPEAN YOUTH OF UKRAINE NGO

" HE FOUND IN THE WORLD WITHOUT AS ACTUAL WHAT WAS IN HIS WORLD WITHIN AS POSSIBLE. " JAMES JOYCE While reading textbooks, studying case studies, analyzing data, verifying resources you are dreaming about your great future.

While obtaining an internship, you are planning your great successful future.

You study foreign languages, improve your communication and IT skills. You follow news and events in your field of study. You prepare yourself for excellent and successful future. But if you are youngster from a former Soviet Union state things are getting different for you.

You cannot plan anything because there are too many bricks that can fall on your head on your way and thus can prevent you from desired and deserved (!) future.

Today I am going to discuss some of them with you – the most visible and the most important for me.

Issue 1. Classical. Authentic. Eternal.

If your father/uncle/boyfriend doesn’t have an enterprise, you won’t get a proper job. Even if you have relevant university/ college degree and required skills for the particular job, the system of universal corruption[1] and nepotism[2] won’t give you a chance to get the wanted position never and ever. One can write volumes about corruption and nepotism in our countries, but I prefer not to give any comments on it, because it was always and I don’t see any prospects of changes in this (unfortunately).

Issue 2. Global market influence.

S*it happens.

The economic crisis of 2008 made economies from many countries collapse.

As for Ukraine, an Eastern-European country which left Soviet Union in 1991, the crisis almost destroyed the county’s economy. Just by chance (and some international help) the Ukrainian economy didn’t default[3]. The most visible effect of crisis was on labor market. A huge number of people were dismissed from their positions. Those who weren’t fired had to work for diminished salary (usually the salaries were diminished dramatically – for half and more). And of course the young workers didn’t have any indulgence while dismissing or cutting down salaries.

After the crisis happened it became impossible to find any job in Ukraine.

Especially if you are young and with little work experience. Especially if you don’t have some fluent relatives. A friend of mine Dmytro S. was working for a private bank for more than 2 years. He has a Bachelor degree in Finance, and is working on his Master degree in one of the best Ukrainian universities. He is fluent in Ukrainian, Russian, English, Polish and German. Also he has a lot of certificates from different economic symposiums, conferences and seminars.

A year ago he was fired from his position in a bank without any explanations and excuses. The official explanation why this happened was: “Fired because we have to decrease our staff”. Before this happened Dmytro had an unofficial chat with his boss where boss made a hint/proposal to Dmytro about decreasing his salary; but of course Dmytro as ambitious and bright worker didn’t agree with this proposition.

After he’s been fired the company took other person on his position – a person without any relevant college degree and without any experience in relevant field; but the person was OK with extremely low salary. I would be happy to say that this is possible only in Ukraine, but I am afraid it is common for many Eastern European and post-Soviet countries now.

Issue 3. Brain drain[4].

One more negative point we have in Ukraine is what westerns call “labor mobility”. For the Ukrainian economy and future this phenomenon is a tragedy. A lot of youngsters go abroad in search of better

jobs, better opportunities and better future. And very few of them come back to Ukraine. Even though Ukraine needs them… but there are no opportunities for youth in their native country…

Issue(s) 4+. All over youth tensions.

Issues I’m not going to discuss here but they are common for majority of countries, - youth doesn’t have equal status while applying for a position and competing with an experienced person; while studying youngsters should decide whether they want to work now or do other (more important?) stuff like community services, volunteering etc; the problem of lower salaries for inexperienced workers; and some others.

[1] the abuse of public office for private gain (source: http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/ aid/233/What_is_corruption_.html). In post Soviet countries C.is a system of giving and taking bribes everywhere and everytime.

[2] patronage bestowed or favoritism shown on the basis of family relationship, as in business and politics (source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ nepotism ) [3] act of failing to meet a financial obligation, loss resulting from failure of a debt to be paid, fail to pay up (source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/default ) [4] The loss of skilled intellectual and technical labor through the movement of such labor to more favorable geographic, economic, or professional environments. (source: http://www.answers.com/topic/brain-drain )

UNEMPLOYMENT AND CRIME WORDS BY

MARIE ANNE ZAMMIT, 4TH OF OCTOBER 2010 I am waiting here in the coldness of my prison cell.

It is dark, resembling my lost soul.

Yet, a small window offers hope for life outside.

What awaits me?

Is it a closed chapter? I long for it, to work, to live, to raise a family.

To love, one day!

The same room protects me from dope, from stealing, from streets and from gangs.

I am twenty two and unemployed.

One day, I hope I get a job.

Yes, I must return.

To the other life.

To work.

Jonas (fictitious name) is twenty two and has been sentenced to two years imprisonment for committing the crime of theft. This is not Jonas s’ first time in custody, in fact he has been imprisoned for more than three times, in most of the cases for breaching the conditions from the Courts of Justice.

At the age of eighteen Jonas wanted to work as his family could no longer support him.

With a low level of education and no adequate skills, finding a job was a hard task and with no results. One fine day, Jonas met a group of young people who introduced him to another way of sustaining himself. That was crime.

Locked, in the lonely community of prison, Jonas still dreams of finding a job one day.

It is not uncommon in prison to come across a group of young people all idle and waiting for time to pass. These youths could have contributed in society but something went wrong, very wrong and crime has become a means for their living. Unemployment is one of the many factors leading to criminal activity whilst employment and work keep young people busy and open up for further development.

for young women; they may end up being violated by their clients and beaten up by their pimps if they do not provide them with enough means from their work. Another risk is that of being exposed to sexually transmitted diseases at an early age.

Lack of employment amongst youths is more serious as it adds to more risks. This puts young adults into a vulnerable position opening the risk of drug abuse, crime, involvement into gangs and even recruiting into terrorists groups.

This shouldn't happen. Youths are the driving force of economic development and neglecting this potential will undermine social stability and waste a lot of money. It can also create a lost generation as many young people remain out of the labor market. Unemployment may have considerable long term negative impacts on young people.

The economic and financial crises have made it harder for youths to enter in the labor market. The numbers of unemployed young men and women have increased in this financial turmoil.

Young women have more difficulty in finding jobs. Those with low levels of education and lack of opportunities in the labor market suffer more as they resort to illegal actions as a means of survival. Theft and prostitution are the most sources which provide money for a satisfactory standard of living. Getting involved in prostitution may be dangerous

Sooner or later, these illegal actions will bring them face to face with the law and if incarcerated it will be very difficult for them to find employment later, due to their criminal records.

It not only discourages young people, but also reduces sources of income for the State in any given country. The State fails to receive contributions for security system and also society loses its investment in education.

Youth employment should be on top of the agenda in every State especially those who fall below the margin line and with no skills.

Young people should never ever be involved in crime in the first place!

WORK IN A GREEN SOCIETY: WHAT MAKES LIFE WORTHWHILE? WORDS BY

ALEXANDRE ROND, 4TH OF OCTOBER 2010 We find in the "production - work consumption" circle one simple way to explain how the core of modern societies is organized. In short, we produce goods and services that need labour force. Jobs help us to earn money. We use the money to consume those goods, creating a demand for them to be produced [1].

The circle goes on and the story is well known: we have come to a point in which we are producing and consuming too much (exhausting earth resources and polluting massively). Leaving the calls for efficiency and the faith in techno-miracles aside [2], any serious policy oriented towards the reduction, reform and greening of production and consumption, must confront "employment" from the same radical vision.

Up to now, the labour market is the medium around which our whole social organization is built. It is the place to which we put a big slice of our life-time. After all, it is the way through which we get the money to satisfy our needs (and whims). However, when it comes to thinking what plays a big part in our welfare and happiness, it has little or nothing to do with paid work.

The path towards sustainability requires replacing paid work as the centre of our lives and putting the stress in promoting all the universe of activities that play a major part

in the social welfare and the preservation of the environment.

It is not too congruent to ask individuals too green up their lifestyles – by using slow transport means (bike, train, bus), eating healthy (local, bio), join social movements, involve in the democratic processes, share house tasks with their couple, reduce their footprint... – without letting them have the time to do it.

We spend too much of our time preparing for, looking for and doing a job. So much that it has become a hurdle to push society towards sustainability. The answer to this problem is an old, forgotten demand from the unions: reducing the working hours.

If we take seriously the famous quote that GDP "measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile" (Robert Kennedy), we should also acknowledge that what makes life worthwhile is not at work for many people. This "core economy"[3], where money and profits are not all that matters, should nevertheless be accompanied by stronger systems for the redistribution of wealth (being Basic Income [4] one example).

Promoting youth employment, under this optic, cannot be as simplistic as demanding more jobs for young people. As Young

Greens, we should rather demand that young people (and the future generations) have the possibility to choose their lives the way they feel happiest with, with a strong accent on sustainability and occupations which, being unproductive and unprofitable, are keys to a better world.

NOTES: [1] For a deeper explanation on the "production - work - consumption" circle and its alternatives check: Sanjuán H., Marcellesi F. and Barragué B (2010): "Degrowth, Work and Basic Income".

Poster available at : www.degrowth.eu/v1/ uploads/media/sanjuanENG.png [2] The rebound effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Rebound_effect_%28conservation%29) and a look into the techno-catastrophes of the past decades indicate this path is not going too far towards real sustainability.

[3] The concept of "core economy" is widely explained in the "21 hours" report by the New Economics Foundation. Available at http://www. neweconomics.org/publications/21-hours [4] Basic Income understood as an "universal and unconditional income for citizens, delivering the possibility of satisfying basic needs to carry a decent life" ("Basic Income is a right". 2007 Spanish Young Greens: http://www.jovenesverdes.org/joomla/index. php?option=com_content&task=view&id=288&It emid=56 )

CLIMATE CHANGE/ENERGY WORDS BY

TUGCE TUGRAN 5 OF APRIL 2012 TH

04

Some very old minds are starting to get distressed. The world as they knew it will come to an end. Soon. Technocrats, billion dollar investments, lobbyists, corruption, iron triangles, expensive, centralized, wasteful energy systems: you had your time! Step aside! No more secret meetings, ribbon cuttings at grand openings, bribing politicians, no more destruction of the world's living systems, jeopardizing our future! Times are changing: technology is at our side but more importantly we have the vision! The vision needed to open up a new era of smart grids, transparent information and localized energy production!

You, archaic minds, you can hold on to your chairs and powers as long as you like but the change is inevitable. And this change will be a key moment in human history. Our articles testify to that: you will get this overwhelming feeling while reading them. Young people with their sharp minds and extraordinary vision are here to contribute to this epic moment in history.

MYTHS ON NUCLEAR POWER WORDS BY EDVIN PACARA 31TH OF OCTOBER 2010 IT IS CHEAP, IT IS SAFE, IT IS GUARANTEED, IT MAKES SENSE ECONOMICALLY, AND IT WILL SOLVE THE CLIMATE PROBLEM! THESE ARE THE MYTHS WE ALL HAVE HEARD BY THE NUCLEAR POWER LOBBY BEING REPEATED OVER AND OVER. WELL, GUESS WHAT, THEY AREN’T TRUE. WE HAVE EVEN HEARD ENVIRONMENTALIST JOURNALISTS LIKE MARK LYNAS, THE AUTHOR OF THE FAMOUS BOOK “SIX DEGREES”, SUPPORTING THE NUCLEAR POWER AS A SOLUTION TO SOLVE THE CLIMATE PROBLEM. THE PRESENTATION OF THE THE BOOK "MYTHS OF NUCLEAR POWER - A GUIDE", AT THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ON OCTOBER 26, 2010, BUSTED THE MYTHS ABOUT NUCLEAR ENERGY. TWO OF THE AUTHORS OF THIS BOOK, ANTONY FROGGATT AND STEVE THOMAS PRESENTED CLEAR FACTS ON THE INEFFICIENCY AND THE INABILITY OF THE NUCLEAR POWER INDUSTRY TO SURVIVE WITHOUT MASSIVE STATE SUBSIDIES AND GUARANTEED RECOVERY COSTS OF THEIR PRODUCTION FROM CONSUMERS. THE BOOK CLEARLY STATES FACTS WHICH CONTRADICTS THE CLAIMS OF THE NUCLEAR POWER INDUSTRY.

41

MYTHS NUMER 1

MYTHS NUMER 2

IT IS SAFE AND THERE IS NO RISK IN USING NUCLEAR POWER.

NUCLEAR ENERGY IS EFFECTIVE, ECONOMIC, AND IT IS CHEAP TO PRODUCE.

Supporters of nuclear energy have successfully concealed the potentials for catastrophe from a nuclear power plant incidents. Most of the public remembers Chernobyl, but few know or remember potentially catastrophic situations in nuclear reactors in France, UK, Japan, Germany, Sweden, US, and Hungary.

With the new danger of terrorists attack, the nuclear energy exposes not just the risk of terrorists attacking nuclear power plants, but also the increasing risk of nuclear proliferation. The expansion of nuclear power stations to insecure or dictatorial states increases the circulation of plutonium and fissile material which might end up in malicious hands.

40

Climate change deniers and skeptics have always opposed the renewables claiming that they are expensive and the world cannot afford them. The nuclear energy supporters have used this fear to move in the discussion and claim that nuclear energy is cheap and that it is on the brink of a “nuclear renaissance” which will provide energy at a price $1000/kW but in reality the price is estimated at $6000/kW and increasing.

There have been 21 orders in the present time for nuclear power plants from China, Russia, Korea and Brazil, but just 6 from the EU and US. Although nuclear power has been in the market since the 50s, its costs are increasing and it is surviving thanks to massive state subsidies and contracts that their market will be guaranteed with the price born by the consumers. Although France might seem as a perfect model for relying on nuclear energy, the truth is that the costs to produce this energy have tripled. The most well-known case is the case of Olkiluoto nuclear power plant in Finland—its costs have already increased from a 3 to 5.4 billion Euros, although it is not even close to the end of construction. So, the nuclear technology failed to reach the economy of scale where renewables are heading to. If the world would start rapidly build nuclear power plants, it will lead to a shortage of uranium fuel which would further increase prices. And there is always the problem of a permanent nuclear waste disposal which the nuclear industry has failed to solve.

1

THE MYTHS ON NU

IT IS SAFE AND IN USING NUCL

2

NUCLEAR ENER EFFECTIVE, ECO AND IT IS CHEA TO PRODUCE.

NUCLEAR E WILL SOL CLIMATE PRO

UCLEAR POWER

D THERE IS NO RISK LEAR POWER.

RGY IS ONOMIC, AP

3

ENERGY LVE THE OBLEM.

MYTHS NUMER 3 NUCLEAR ENERGY WILL SOLVE THE CLIMATE PROBLEM. There is a growing campaign to show that nuclear power plants are the solution to the climate problem, compared to the “expensive” and not “reliable” renewables. The fact is that the number of nuclear power plants in the world is decreasing. Why? Because they are expensive, and they are funded by massive public subsidies.

In Germany only, subsidies are up to 100 billion Euros and ongoing. In the the first 15 years in the US, the nuclear and wind technology produced comparable amount of energy but the subsidies going to them were very imbalanced—$39.4 billion to nuclear technology and just $900 million to the wind technology. As you see, the subsidies going to nuclear are 40 times more than those going to the renewables, but still the nuclear technology is not reaching the economy of scale, and its costs are increasing continuously. Whereas the costs of renewables are decreasing continuously as they go towards the economy of scale.

It is a shame and economically not sound if we devote our resources to a technology which is not efficient and effective, it is not reliable and bears risks, when we can devote these resources to renewables which are cheaper, and sustainable.

The other point is that even if humanity decides to invest in this costly and risky form of energy production, it is a technology which takes a long time to be developed. The construction time for a nuclear power plants goes averagely 9 years, but it can take also 18-24 years due to complexities and costs.

The costs of decommissioning the nuclear power plants after their lifetime of 25-40 years (depending on the type),

is uncertain and it will usually be born by the taxpayers.

Renewable energy needs much less time to be installed and produced, it is cheaper and its costs are falling, it runs for a longer time (or forever), and can be easily switched off the grid in case you don’t need it (contrary to the nuclear power plants, which you need to keep them running even when there is no need for energy).

Although the trend shows that the costs for nuclear energy are rapidly increasing and the number of nuclear power plants still operating is decreasing, some EU countries still look at the nuclear energy as the savior for their energy demands and the mandate of lowering their carbon emissions by 20% until 2020.

Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland are holding talks to build a nuclear power plant in Lithuania. Estonia is growing impatient on the slow and non-productive talks on this nuclear power plant and it is deciding to build a nuclear power plant on its own in Estonia. This would be such a waste of resources for a country with limited budget and plenty of other renewable resources. That investment could go to decentralize and diversify the energy production, hand in hand with increasing the energy efficiency.

Investments in nuclear energy would be a loss of time and resources for humanity. They will also draw all the available resources that would instead go to fund renewables. Nuclear power is a centralized form of power production which you need it running, with or without demand for it. Whereas production from renewables like wind, solar, biomass, hydro etc. can be decentralized, can supply energy more efficiently, and in a cheaper and sustainable way. If we invest again in nuclear, we will take the chance away from the renewables which can supply us with sustainable and clean energy.

THE END OF ATOMIC AGE WORDS BY

PHILIPPE SCHOCKWEILER 28TH OF MARCH 2012

THE "ATOMIC AGE" IS DEFINITELY OVER. SO OVER. 1 YEAR AFTER THE FUKUSHIMA MELTDOWNS AND REACTOR CATASTROPHES, JAPAN AND IMPORTANT PARTS COULD BE LITERALLY STANDING ON THE EDGE OF A RAZOR BLADE. NOT ONLY 4 CRIPPLED REACTORS ARE STILL POSING AN IMMENSE HEALTH THREAT, BUT ALSO THE 6 SPENT FUEL BASINS ON THE SITE OF THE DAIICHI NUCLEAR POWER PLANT, WITH SPENT URANIUM RODS ARE HEAVILY DAMAGED AND ARE CONSIDERED BY INTERNATIONAL EXPERTS AS A HUGE PROBLEM. A NEW EARTHQUAKE COULD VERY WELL DAMAGE THE SPENT FUEL POOLS AND LEAD TO MASSIVE LEAKS OF BOTH RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS AND COOLING WATER INTO THE GROUND WATER AND PACIFIC, BUT FURTHERMORE AN UNCONTROLLED CHAIN REACTION TRIGGERED

BY THE USED FUEL COULD MEAN THE END OF JAPAN AS WE KNOW IT TODAY, AND TRIGGER A CATASTROPHE OF EPIC PROPORTION. THIS IS NOT A PANICKY WAKE UP CALL, BUT A DESPERATE DESCRIPTION OF THE SITUATION IN FUKUSHIMA AS IT PRESENTS ITSELF TODAY. WHAT MAKES THE SPENT FUEL POOLS IN THE CASE OF FUKUSHIMA SO DANGEROUS: ...the spent fuel rod pools that sit right next door to the reactors. The storage pools are packed with radioactive uranium, rise several stories above ground and are always close to the reactor, thus facilitating easy transfer of the fuel rods. Their name— especially “spent” and “pool”— conveys calm dissipation. But spent fuel rod pools are actually highly radioactive, very unstable, extremely dangerous and, compared with reactors, not well supported, contained or looked over. The spent rods give off considerable amounts of “decay heat” and thus must be submerged in constantly circulating water. Expose them to air for a day or two, and they begin to combust, giving off large amounts of radioactive cesium-137, a very toxic, longlasting, aggressively penetrating radioactive element with a half-life of thirty years.

When cesium-137 it enters the environment, it essentially acts like potassium and is taken up by plants and animals that use potassium....

(The Nation, C. Parenti 15.03.2012)

THE SPENT FUEL POOLS ARE SITUATED IN THE REACTOR BULDING ON ONE OF THE TOP FLOORS. WE KNOW FROM THE SATELLITE FIXES THAT MOST ROOFS OF THE 4 REACTORS HAVE COLLAPSED AND SMOKE IS STILL EVAPORATING FROM THE SPENT-FUEL LEVEL. THIS CAN ONLY LEAD TO THE CONCLUSION THAT THE WATER IN THE SPENT-FUEL POOLS IS EVAPORATING OR WORSE BOILING. ONCE THE COOLING WATERS GONE, THE USED FUEL WILL JUST CATCH FIRE AND THUS CREATE A CHAIN REACTION, A HEAVY CHAIN REACTION IN OPEN AIR, LIKE AN OPEN-AIR REACTOR, MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE TO WORK ON ANY OF THE OTHER CRIPPLED REACTORS AND THUS PROVOKING CHAIN REACTIONS IN THE OTHER FUEL TANKS AND REACTORS ON THE DAI-CHI SITE. GERMAN STATE TELEVISION ZDF RECENTLY CALLED THIS SCENARIO "LIKELY TO HAPPEN". IF THAT WOULD BE THE CASE THEY HAD FOUND A WORD TO DESCRIBE IT "ARMAGEDDON". JAPAN WOULD THUS CEASE TO EXIST AS WE KNOW IT TODAY. CHERNOBYL WOULD BE A SCRATCH IN COMPARISON TO A MULTIPLE OPEN-AIR MELTDOWN &; CHAIN REACTION, AND DISTURBINGLY, THE DAI-ICHI FUKUSHIMA PLANT HAS ENOUGH MATERIAL TO MATCH UP THIS DISASTER : ... THE SPENT FUEL POOLS ARE OF SIGNIFICANT CONCERN, MARVIN RESNIKOFF, A RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT, SAID IN A WEDNESDAY PRESS BRIEFING ORGANIZED BY THE NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION PHYSICIANS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. RESNIKOFF NOTED THAT THE POOLS AT EACH REACTOR ARE THOUGHT TO HAVE CONTAINED THE FOLLOWING AMOUNTS OF SPENT FUEL, ACCORDING TO WWW.MDN.MAINICHI.JP MAINICHI DAILY NEWS: REACTOR NO. 1: 50 TONS OF NUCLEAR FUEL, REACTOR NO. 2: 81 TONS, REACTOR NO. 3: 88 TONS, REACTOR NO. 4: 135 TONS, REACTOR NO. 5: 142 TONSREACTOR NO. 6: 151 TONS ALSO, A SEPARATE GROUND-LEVEL FUEL POOL CONTAINS 1,097 TONS OF FUEL; AND SOME 70 TONS OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS ARE KEPT ON THE GROUNDS IN DRY STORAGE...

(SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, K. HARMON 17-03-2012)

THE FUEL POOLS ARE ALREADY IN A DESOLATE STATE IN REACTOR 4'S SPENT FUEL POOLS, EVAPORATION AND STEAM COULD BE SEEN FOR MONTHS NOW. ANT THE SPENT FUEL POOLS ARE EVEN VISIBLE FROM OUTSIDE. THE ROOF HAS SUPPOSEDLY COLLAPSED. THE BLUEISH AREA ON THE CENTER OF THE PICTURE IS THE SPENT FUEL POOL.

THE SPENT FUEL POOL CAN BE SEEN FROM THE CRANE. ON THIS PICTURE TEPCO TOOK A SAMPLE MEASURING BOTH THE TEMPERATURE AND ISOTOPES FOUND IN THE POOL. NOTE THE STEAM ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE PICTURE.

What personally strikes me most are metaphysical and sheer existentialist questions, that nuclear energy confronts us with: Not only have we to provide security and stability for the waste of the power plants for more than 200'000 years, that's over 6000 generations, the only human activity that forces us to think in such numbers, but Fukushima could very well be the first time that nuclear energy threatens the integrity of a whole country and region. It is time to end this. And we can, without further ado! Not tomorrow, but now. Japan has only 1 reactor left in operating mode, 53 are now shut down. China is reviewing their plans of massively building new reactors, even if they are far from perfect, the European stress tests triggered more protests all over the continent. A quick exit is possible in most countries. It is this generation's duty to end the "Atomic Age" or it will end us. This is not a cheesy and pathetic end to an article but a last wake up call, for an industry and political class that failed to learn the lessons from Mayak, Three Mile Island, Sellafield and Chernobyl.

Sources www.thenation.com/article/159234/fukushimas-spent-fuel-rods-pose-grave-danger www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nuclear-fuel-fukushima

47

A PLEDGE FOR POSITIVE / ENERGY / POLITICS. WORDS BY

ARMIN SOYKA 12TH OF APRIL 2012

I want to change the world. That is why I am involved with the Greens. And I would expect that most, if not all other Greens see it that way as well. In everything we do and believe in, we are working towards a radically differently working planet.

Now in politics there are two fundamentally different approaches on how to turn things around. When you argue for change you can base your reasoning on the disadvantages of how it is today. Or you can rely on the advantages of what you believe to be recommendable change.

The basic question that we, as a political organization, but especially as responsible political beings as well have to ask ourselves day after day: How do we want to communicate our policies?

Do we want to talk about the opportunities of our ideas, or about the faults of the system that is in place? Do we want to be positive, empowering, visionary, or do we want to be negative and spread fear?

And the way we communicate also indicates the answer to another really interesting question: Do you know where we want to go? Or is it just that we are against how it is right now?

All Green parties I know of are facing this question over and over again.

Do we focus on dangerous aspects or opportunity change would bring?

I feel very strongly about which way I want to go on this one. But also how we, as a green organization, should approach this fundamental question. As it is mostly characteristic for populist (usually right wing) parties to talk about the downsides of problems, spreading fear and making people to look simple solutions to complex problems and even willing to give up basic rights because they are afraid, I do not agree with this way to do politics at all.

Of course that is the easier way. And on the short run, maybe electoral-wise even the more effective one. But we can and should do better than that! We have profound and well thought, through ideas. So we do not need to rely on the negative at all.

But there is a second aspect why it is fundamental to lay out the visions we have. The challenges we face are huge and I believe that only an optimistic attitude towards them will allow us to overcome them. Because change will be a bad thing as long as people are afraid of what is to come. But if they have a positive attitude towards the future – which positive politics is capable of introducing – they are not afraid, but in favour of change. And we will need a lot, a lot of that.

So to put it into perspective for the topic of this Ecosprinter issue: when we talk about energy politics – let’s not so

much talk about how peak oil will make heating and mobility unaffordable for millions of Europeans. Let’s not so much focus on how nuclear energy waste is irresponsible and expensive. Or argue that the gas we import supports dictators all around the world.

But let’s rather talk about this amazing idea of a decentralized sustainable European energy system. And about its effects. The democratic aspect of it.

People could own their own power supply.

I mean how awesome, sustainable but especially independent would that make people? Or about how municipals could build their own power plants. And what effects that could have on their budgets.

Allowing them to invest in sustainable economy, in social and educational facilities. Rethinking energy supply.

Drawing a picture of a different world.

And offering serious, concrete concepts and ideas how to do the first steps. There have been examples of participatory solar power plants in Austria just to give one example and there are many many more.

So let’s look for those positive examples, show them off; let’s wake the desire in people for a different world by waking the desire for a different way to organize energy supply. (Rather then appealing to people’s fears, talking about danger.)

THE ENERGY CRISIS IS COMPLEX ?

SWITCH TO RESILIENCE AND MASS COLLABORATION!

WORDS BY

ADRIEN LABAEYE 15TH OF APRIL 2012

THE SCALE AND URGENCY OF THE ENERGY CHALLENGE REQUIRES BEING SMART. WHILE POLICY-MAKERS ARE USUALLY SMART, MOST ARE STUCK WITH A BROKEN ACTION PARADIGM THAT DOES NOT ALLOW THEM TO EVEN THINK OF SMART SOLUTIONS. THE NEW PARADIGM FOR ACTION RELIES ON RESILIENCE, OPENNESS, AND MASS COLLABORATION. One of the only things everybody seems to agree on is that solving the energy crisis is a hell of a challenge. On the supply side, the peak oil behind us, the supply of fossil fuels will only get more expensive, economically and ecologically. In addition, Fukushima definitely undermined the credibility of nuclear energy as an alternative option. On the demand side, the thirst for energy of emerging countries is constantly growing as their population and economies are developing. As a result energy prices are rocketing and consequences are dire for the population and the economy. Already before 2008 and the start of the financial and economic crisis, GDP growth was under huge stress due to historic oil prices. On top of that, the science is unanimous in pointing the use of fossil fuels as the main responsible for climate change. The energy

crisis is severe, but it is part of a bigger picture; its solution has to account for this bigger picture.

Shifting the focus to increasing the resilience of the energy system Through their energy system, Europeans are vulnerable to a myriad of risks. They are vulnerable to foreign decision-makers in non-democratic countries such as Russia, which can decide to cut gas supply. They are vulnerable to global oil prices which fluctuate according to factors such as speculation, geo-political events, or disasters (e.g. the Hurricane Katrina). They are vulnerable to the consequence of a nuclear catastrophe which is a more frequent event than any of the risk assessment models had ever anticipated. Eventually, they are vulnerable

to the collapse in chain of old, centralized and poorly interconnected energy grids.

As systems become more interconnected, they also become more complex, and managing risk turns increasingly difficult.

In the era of climate change, the uncertainty in the frequency and amplitude of natural disasters increases with every ton of CO2 emitted in the atmosphere. The energy system has to integrate these new conditions and become not only greener, but more resilient; resilience being the capacity of a system to absorb a shock and recover quickly after. A production dependent on a few providers or centralized in a few points is a source of vulnerability. This is the other lesson of Fukushima: an energy infrastructure that relies on the atom is by definition vulnerable. Current evaluations

CLIMATE CHANGE/ENERGY

estimate the cost of the nuclear disaster for the sole compensation and cleaning up to around 300 billion dollars. This does not take into account the cost on the economy implied by the energy shutdowns that have resulted. To become more resilient to natural disasters and global risks we have to move away from the atom and the unmanageable nature of the risk it implies; as we have to move away from fossil fuels to preserve our climate. Beyond that, we have to seek the energy independence of regions, not only countries, by localizing energy production as close as possible to the consumers.

Crowdsourcing energy production to turn passive users into critical providers Electricity is reckoned as the most promising of the energy carriers, but huge room for improvement remains. For the last ten years, everybody has been talking about smart-grids. Indeed, making the energy network able to carry production and consumption data in any direction allows to fine tuning electricity production and avoiding huge waste while increasing the stability of the grid. It also makes possible a conceptual switch from an electricity grid that is centralized around a few large infrastructures to a completely decentralized grid and energy production that are eventually more resilient and better equipped to adapt to future energy needs.

Beyond the resilience imperative, switching to such a complete decentralization approach could have a huge impact in changing our energy culture. Through the ownership of energy production, individuals and communities are likely to question their consumption. Wikipedia has answered the encyclopedic challenge by asking the crowd to provide the knowledge, and letting every

user becoming a knowledge producer. The result is the best encyclopedia you can find and it only gets better overtime. Why not crowdsourcing energy production?

How can we ask people to change their energy culture while remaining passive and blind users? Energy use should become visible at any moment. Smart meters open the possibility for the people to know about their consumption/production ratio in real-time and give them the opportunity to improve it. People need to have a free access to this data, and soon, iPhone apps would flourish allowing you to monitoring your own energy consumption and offering trips to decrease it. This is called open-grids.

By making robust energy data available and open, governments at all levels and communities would be able to better understand their consumption patterns and integrate that into public decisions.

Entrepreneurs could also propose innovative services using open data. Instead of trying to drive the boat and row at the same time policy-makers should focus on how to create a context where solutions can emerge on their own: then individuals and communities will power the engine.

Opening the data box, unleashing innovation Innovation remains a huge obstacle in solving the energy crisis. Our innovation framework is broken. In 2010 over $400 billion of subsidies a year to fossil fuels and an unknown amount for nuclear energy while the total – private and public – annual investment worldwide in clean energy is only $243 billion. This has to change. Feedin tariffs can help in getting renewables tech maturing, but they have to guarantee it does not allow some to make an excessive

profit through large-scale industrial installations. We should anyway go much further than subsidies.

In their defining book MACROWIKINOMICS, Tapscott and Williams, define a new energy paradigm based on open-grids and prosumers. But, their approach goes much further than the sole energy sector. They show how mass collaboration through the web 2.0 is changing the way we work, learn, live, create, govern, and care for one another. They apply the approach to a dozen of policy sector such as transport, climate change, innovation, or the financial markets. Importantly, they challenge intellectual property as it currently stifles innovation. They provide a full set for decision-makers to step in the era of mass collaboration and collective intelligence for the benefit of all. They urge to open the data box, to reshape patenting schemes and innovation policies in order to rip the benefits mass collaboration can bring to innovation and governance, including in the energy sector.

Energy is at the center of our current economic system. We will not solve the energy crisis without involving all actors; we cannot let our energy future to a few decision-makers who decide the construction of multi-billion nuclear plants.

The beauty of ecology is that time and, more surprisingly, technology development seems to always confirm the idea that solving collective problems such as resource scarcity can only be done with the people, by the people and for the people. At last the digital age makes this possible. As the younger generation of ecologists we have to grab this new reality and the opportunity it offers, and explain this to the others.

PEACE & CONFLICT WORDS BY

MAXIMILIAN JERMIES 22 OF APRIL 2012 TH

The earth is not a cosy place to stay. Conflicts are shaking humanity in many parts of the planet. Reasons for armed conflicts differ as much as actions we might take to avoid and stop them. The Green movement was built upon the idea of a peaceful living, which should be accessible to everybody. To change something we need to understand the roots of conflicts. One important reason for conflicts might be climate change. But is this really a main reason for a regional conflict? Which actors do have an interest in ‘militarizing the environment’?

If we can't avoid a conflict, should we intervene with military power to stop it? The FYEG working group on peace investigated this topic and tried to collect information mixed with critical analysis about the so called ‘Responsibility to protect’.

GLOBAL WARMING AND CONFLICTS: ABOUT MYTH AND REALITY OF CLIMATE WARS

1 As it is done in a report by US militaries called ‘National Security and the Threat of Climate Change’ (2007), www.cna.org/sites/default/files/National%20Security%20 and%20the%20Threat%20of%20Climate%20Change.pdf [30 March 2011].

2 WBGU (2007) ‘Welt im Wandel: Sicherheitsrisiko Klimawandel‘, www.wbgu.de/fileadmin/ templates/dateien/veroeffentlichungen/hauptgutachten/ jg2007/wbgu_jg2007.pdf 3 Cited after Trombetta, Maria Julia (2008) ‘Environmental Security and Climate Change: Analysing the Discourse’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 21 (4), 585-602.

WORDS BY

JULIA GRAUVOGEL 20TH OF FEBRUARY 2012 In 2007 the United Nations Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon underlined that global warming is likely to “become a major driver for war and conflict”. On 17 April 2007 the UN Security Council held its first ever session on climate change. In the same year, the US Senator Snowe compared the security importance of man-made climate change for the US with the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre.

Ever since the year 2007 that is considered to be a turning point in the debate – and already before – the security implications of global warming are being intensely discussed, sometimes already followed by concrete policy implications. One example can be found in Great Britain where a Special Envoy for Climate Security was appointed.

But what is the empirical truth and the political intention behind all these statements?

When looking at the debate about the link between climate change and conflicts one must differentiate between two different levels.

On the one hand, there is the (empirical) question how the interplay between climate change and its security implications looks like.

Without any doubt, climate change affects the livelihood of humans and thus contributes to the exacerbation of existing conflicts, for example in Darfur or the Middle East, as the Report by the International Panel of Climate Change confirms. But the

concrete causal link between increasing temperature and conflicts as well as its interactions with other factors such as population growth remain contested. While some argue that climate change alone can be a cause of war - as for example in the controversial book “Klimakriege” by the German social scientist Harald Welzer - there seems to be a growing consensus that climate change mostly acts as a threat multiplier.

Some voices in the debate even say that a degrading resource base should and will force states to cooperate on a global and regional level.

In addition to the debate about the exact link between climate change and conflict, this debate itself deserves attention – an aspect whose importance is often underestimated.

Since the end of the Cold War the military seeks new basis for legitimisation. The implications of climate change for the national security are a welcome point of reference in that context.

Positively seen, this development leads to increasing attention and eventually even more resources for the fight of global warming. One example is the statement of the US Senator mentioned above. Traditionally, climate change ranks relatively low in US public opinion polls asking people about the most pressing issue in their opinion, in particular compared to terrorism. The “discursive link” made between the security impacts of climate change and those of terrorism, meaning to

compare the security impact of climate change to the security threat resulting from terrorism, could enhance the awareness for climate change. However, it is more than questionable if armed forces and a military logic are appropriate reactions to the challenge of global warming.

What does this mean? To emphasize the influence of climate change on conflicts is per se neither negative nor positive. Of central importance is how this link is presented.

It makes a tremendous difference if actors underline the implications of climate change for the national security and propose for instance to adapt the military and consider scenarios of closing US borders against climate induced migration1 or if the influence of climate change on conflicts is considered to be a global issue, with the strengthening of the United Nations as the appropriate response2. These two examples do not mean that the debate in the US is entirely “bad” and the German one could function as a positive example; they are only an illustration of the different directions that the discourse can take. They should serve as a reminder that more attention for climate change should not be pursued at all price, especially not it leads to “militarizing the environment rather than greening the military” as the political scientist Käkönen already feared in 1994 3.

RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT WORDS BY

DAN LEE

11TH OF APRIL 2012

PEACE WORKING GROUP

April 6, 1994. A plane carrying President JuvĂŠnal Habyarimana is shot down over the skies of Rwanda's capital, Kigali, acting as a catalyst for the murder of around 800,000 people over just 100 days. These events should require little extrapolation here. Skip forward 7 years, past civil war in Sierra Leone, war in Congo, and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and Timor Leste, and the Canadian International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) publish a report, "The Responsibility to Protect" (R2P).

The Rwandan genocide, whilst not alone in either its scale or the extent of its suffering, caused much soul-searching and debate worldwide, not least in academic and political circles. Why did nobody act in time? Why did the pleas and warnings of civilians, civil society and peacekeepers fall on deaf ears?

The hangover that the US in particular had experienced in Somalia and Bosnia had certainly contributed to the general malaise felt towards humanitarian intervention and the protection of civilians for the rest of the 90s. But even so, these experiences didn't prevent a number of varied and notable interventions, including in Sierra Leone, Kosovo, and Timor Leste. The international community's mixed record

in response to acts of crimes against humanity, genocide and ethnic cleansing called into question the "never again" message that was promoted following the Second World War, the creation of the United Nations, and the 1948 Conventions on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide [1]. The ICISS report was published in response to the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's question of just when the international community should intervene to prevent the above crimes. The report, published in December 2001, built on the concept of "sovereignty as responsibility"; the idea of a "social contract" between state and citizens meaning the state owes its legitimacy, in the form of sovereignty, to its people, whom they have a responsibility towards. R2P built upon this concept in two important ways: it implied a hierarchy of responsibility, and based it upon ideas of "Just War" (i.e.

Jus ad Bellum, Jus in Bello, just cause, proportionality of response, probability of success). In short, the report outlined a tower of responsibility from the state to the international community. Starting with the state, it has "the primary responsibility for the protection of populations from genocide, war crimes,

PEACE & CONFLICTS

crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing." The international community then has "a responsibility to assist States in fulfilling this responsibility."

Whilst doing so it can use "appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means to protect populations from these crimes." Finally, should the state fail in its responsibility, or is itself threat to its people's security, then the international community "must be prepared to take stronger measures, including the collective use of force through the UN Security Council" [1] R2P is itself split into three principles, beginning first with the "Responsibility to Prevent", the historic raison d'être of the UN. This is followed by the "Responsibility to React" and then to "Rebuild". For its many critics, the R2P is just another way for powerful states to force the hands of the world's smaller states. They argue that is another neocolonial tool, open to abuse by the powerful over the weak. The authors though would deny it should be seen this way. By implying a hierarchy of responsibility, the state is the first actor of responsibility you arrive at. It has the primary responsibility of concern towards its citizens. It is only when the state fails in this task that the international

community, whoever that may be, has the option to step in and take over that responsibility. Similarly, whilst intervention is a tool available in the "React" phase, prevention is preferable.

The principle of R2P has had a chequered history since its entrance into international relations vocabulary. The ICISS report was launched in the shadow of the September 11th 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in the US. Debate about the concept was sidelined in favour of the "War on Terror", and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. However over the past decade, the principle has been recognised by both former and current serving UN Secretary Generals, and also at the 2005 UN World Summit. Few debates about the situation in Darfur have omitted discussion of R2P. And recent international action in Libya, and debate surrounding response to events in Syria, have similarly reignited up debate over the position of R2P. The principle is of course controversial and throws up a huge number of questions. At what point does the state fail in its responsibilities? Who has authority and responsibility to decide on when to intervene? What thresholds should be obeyed with regard to

intervention? Who has responsibility for intervening? What protections are there against abuse? What happens if the international community fails?

This series of articles aims to both open up debate on the concept and attempt to give answers to some of the above questions. It will begin by exploring cases that failed to receive any (or a timely) international response, notably the situation in Darfur. It will ask why it presented a good case for intervention, and will explore why intervention failed to occur, and the problems such selectivity can create for the principle.

The second article will look last year's intervention in Libya to explore how the principle has potentially been abused to promote slim political interests. The third article will look to answer some of the wider questions above, looking at the political dimension the R2P has, looking at the "who" and "when". The final article will bring these debates together and pose the question, "is the Responsibility to Protect" alive and well?

And if it isn't, is it better to take it off live support, or try and resuscitate it?

57

WHEN INTERVENTION BECOMES NECESSARY IN 1994 ABOUT 800 000 PEOPLE WERE BRUTALLY KILLED IN RWANDA DURING A PERIOD OF JUST ONE HUNDRED DAYS. AFTER THIS EPISODE THE UN OFFICIALS, HEADS OF STATE AND CIVIL SOCIETY ALL AGREED THAT WE COULD NEVER LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN.

BUT IT DID. IN 2003 A HUMANITARIAN EMERGENCY DEVELOPED IN DARFUR IN WESTERN SUDAN BECAUSE OF A GUERRILLA CONFLICT. SOME 300 000 MAY HAVE DIED AND THE HEAD OF STATE, TOGETHER WITH

OTHER HIGH OFFICIALS, HAS BEEN ACCUSED BY THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT FOR BOTH CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY AND WAR CRIMES. THE SECURITY COUNCIL FINALLY DID RESPOND BUT ONLY AFTER YEARS HAD GONE BY WITH HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS KILLED AND MILLIONS OF DISPLACED.

WHAT EVERYBODY IS CURRENTLY DISCUSSING IS SYRIA. UP TO 9000 PEOPLE HAVE NOW BEEN KILLED AND TENS OF THOUSANDS PROTESTERS IMPRISONED. THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL HAS SO FAR BEEN UNABLE TO EVEN PASS A RESOLUTION CONDEMNING THE VIOLENCE, LET ALONE DEMANDING THE RESIGNATION OF PRESIDENT AL-ASSAD.

WORDS BY

INGRID NYMAN 4 OF APRIL 2012 TH

One might argue that military intervention is not the only way to stop this kind of crisis. On the contrary we should instead focus of creating a world where these kinds of situations are less likely to emerge. For example the global north might start with stopping to actively supporting, financing and selling weapons to brutal, oppressive regimes. Further we could focus much more resources on preventing conflict by easing poverty, work against discrimination and oppression and try to give people a dignified life with prospects for the future. Most rich countries give a ridiculously low amount in foreign aid not to mention working against the interests of pour countries in international forums.

But the question is what happens when it’s too late for all of this. At the point in time were one ethnic group is already out on the streets killing another with machetes, the point where it’s obvious that the regime in a country is supporting the perpetrators of crimes against humanity and it does not react to diplomatic or economic pressure or the point where a country is already on the verge of civil war. At this point it might not help to withdraw the support for the regime and it’s definitely too late for long-term improvements of the conditions for the population.

The UN concept the responsibility to protect says that the international community always has to react when genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes or crimes against humanity are being committed. This is not something it can chose to prioritize if convenient but a responsibility. No state should be able to hide behind sovereignty as these crimes do not only concern only that state but the entire international community. The concept also says that the reaction should be proportionate. The international community should start by condemning the violence, diplomatic sanctions, weapons embargoes, referring the perpetrators to the International Criminal Court etc. But it also leaves military intervention as a last resort. For when other means doesn’t help and this is the only way to stop mass atrocity crimes from being committed.

This is not always easy to implement though. In order to be legal intervention has to be decided on by the United Nations Security Council. There there are 15 members and at least 9 members have to vote in favor for a resolution to be carried. But in order for a resolution to be carried it’s also necessary that none of the five permanent members: the US, China, Russia, Britain or France, votes against.

This is a problem with the responsibility to protect because as a universal norm it should be applied universally and consistently. But as the Security Council works today there could never be an intervention in any of the five permanent member states as they could just use their veto.

That means that the principle is not really very universal as it can be used against the regime in Sudan for what happens in Darfur but not against the regime of Russia for what happens in Chechnya. As all the five permanent members have to agree the principle also cannot help but being used selectively, according to the national interests of these powers.

Reform of the Security Council is not likely to happen any time soon. This is mainly because the states gaining the most from the current system, i.e. the states with veto, is likely to use their veto to stop any deal where they would lose out. Besides, the unpleasant truth might be that the UN needs the world’s great powers to approve its decisions to be able to implement them, even if it doesn’t necessarily have to be exactly those five. For making the principle of the responsibility to protect universal and consistently applied it might be better to have a court decide when military intervention is legal. But the Security Council is unlikely to cede that kind of power and intervention can’t happen anyway if there is not political will.

In conclusion there are many ways to increase the chance of making military intervention unnecessary and thus saving both money and human lives. But, military intervention might be necessary in some cases when it’s too late for other measures. When mass atrocity crimes are about to happen and we have the possibility to act, we somehow bear a responsibility for what happens if we chose not to. The fact that we cannot currently manage to implement the principle of the responsibility to protect in a totally fair and consistent way cannot be an excuse for not implementing it when we can manage. Measures have to be proportionate but all measures must be considered if we are to finally create a world where these kinds of crimes do not happen ever again.

RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT: THE PROBLEM WITH NEGLECTING ITS POLITICAL DIMENSION WORDS BY

MICHEAL BLOSS 4TH OF APRIL 2012

Seeing children dying at the horn of Africa makes us feel guilty, seeing the piles of dead bodies in the streets of Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda as well makes us feel that we just bluntly have to do something against it. That we have the moral obligation to act and prevent this horror and injustice from happening. As Peter Singer, the philosopher of the New York Times puts it: We know ‘‘that suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad“ and ‘‘if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we morally ought to do it.“ – A very principled approach and in the context of Responsibility to Protect it appeals to the consciousness of the able powers to intervene.

However that approach lacks a significant and important dimension for understanding every

social phenomenon: the notion of power.

The approach neglects that actions do not happen in a powerless space without context and pretty often, there is much more involved in humanitarian intervention than just noble motives.

Just looking at the powers who really participated in Humanitarian Interventions gives us an impression of who the most powerful countries in the world are. In Somalia 1992, the United States lead a group of countries in the first proper humanitarian intervention that miserably failed. In Kosovo, it was again a force led by the United States that intervened in a conflict. In Iraq, where one argument was that Saddam Hussein killed his people and therefore they needed to be protected by the international community, it was the U.S that started the intervention. In

Libya it was the U.S that contributed most to the international intervention.

This is not to say that no other countries have been involved in the interventions, however it shows the world power structures very clearly. Nobody could intervene in a Western country using the Responsibility to Protect as a justification, whereas weak countries face the threat of their own sovereignty being undermined by the concept of R2P.

Some would argue, that the international community is pursuing the righteous way.

When looking at the first instance of the application of R2P in Somalia 1992, it is difficult to construct a vital geopolitical interest at that terrain for the Untied States.

Moreover, the long lasting crisis of the political system in Somalia and the existing food crisis

urged the U.S to intervene. However the U.S. also followed a policy of becoming the international policeman. Shortly after the collapse of the communist block, and keeping in mind that also Somalia was a communist country, the intervention was a claim for position of the global hegemon by the U.S. However, they did not really understand the internal power-dynamics of Somalia and thus were surprised when they found themselves battling against the Somalian people.

The second time humanitarian reasons were brought forward for legitimizing military intervention was in Kosovo. Here as well, it was not only genuine reasons leading to intervention and the same logic of global hegemony by the U.S. can be applied.

Yugoslavia was in the sphere of Russia, that is also why Russia vetoed the NATO-intervention in the United Nations.

Skipping the example of Kosovo, where the NATO-intervention can be seen as a widening of the influence against Russia, the war on Iraq clearly shows how political interests underlay the discourse of a humanitarian mission. The Persian Gulf with its huge oil resources is vital for the Western world to survive and since Iraq was not committed to cooperate with the West it was ousted, as an act of simple geopolitical interest.

Concerning Libya, the case pushed forward in the Security Council was that of “we do not want another Rwandan genocide”. Thus it was the obligation of the UN-Declaration to “protect” the Libyan people. What really happened was the overthrow of Gaddafi. Why was that the case: Geo-strategically, the U.S dominates the Middle East because of its oil.

The U.S was the biggest sponsor of Mubarak in Egypt, financing its huge military apparatus.

With the Arab spring in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt - all neighbours - a successful revolution with no Western influence could have created a powerful block in Northern Africa, that would have the capacity of changing the power structures in the Arab world. With the intervention and the control of Libya being a divider between Tunisia and Egypt, the old game of divide and rule can continue.

The arguments presented so far have only been looking at the geo-strategic dimension of the conflicts. Saying so, it is not my intention to disregard other causes and contingencies of

the events. However, I want to make the case that there is an intervention, only when it is in the geo-strategic interests of the global hegemon, and it is not so much about human rights. But still if the hegemon has geopolitical interests and is likely to intervene, it can lead to the immediate rescue of lives.

Now is that a good or a bad thing? It depends on the way sovereignty and freedom is viewed.

Having a global hegemony might account for stability. On the other hand hegemony is not only defined in military terms, but also capitalist economic interests follow. For example Iraq had to completely subscribe to free trade ideology after the war. The perpetuation of a global capitalist domination is sometimes as deadly as some dictatorships.

On the other hand, sacrificing human lives for the sake of not supporting the hegemony is cynical.

The current international institutions do not provide mechanisms that could facilitate sound application of R2P. First, the deciding body, the Security Council is anachronistic, not even having a permanent member from Africa – the continent which witnesses the majority of international interventions.

Second, there is no global impartial military structure that could conduct a legitimate and neutral intervention. NATO, which carried out most of the interventions, is the military apparatus of the hegemonic powers. Third, within the UN and other institutions, there is no sufficient expertise for the countries of possible intervention, making the assessment for justifiable interventions almost impossible.

Thus, there is a need for changing the global security structure, reflecting these major issues. First, the UN needs to be updated integrating all continents in the decisionmaking process. Second, the UN should complete its mandate from Article 45 of the Charter of the UN to establish its own military force, which would be freer from national interests. This force only should be allowed to intervene on the grounds of R2P. Third, there needs to be a special UN Organisation only focusing on the Responsibility to Prevent. It should consist of local expertise and gather data from conflict prone countries attempting to prevent conflicts through mediation and other peaceful means.

GENDER / VIOLANCE AGAINST WOMEN WORDS BY

TUGCE TUGRAN 5 OF APRIL 2012 TH

Maybe we made a mistake. With the other editorial board members, we agreed that it should be me, a woman, who writes the introduction to the section we devoted to Gender and Violence Against Women. That was, after all, only natural. Yet, without even noticing, we reproduced an old, archaic notion, so deeply engraved in our minds: issues about women are women's business. This in itself reflects the core of the issue so clearly: issues about women; trafficking, prostitution, war crimes, rape, domestic violence, marginalization in political, social and economic terms are NEVER only about women.

They say something about our society, our world and humanity as a whole. The way we treat individuals, be it man or woman, sheds light to our existence, to where we put the line between acceptable and unacceptable, legal and illegal, moral and immoral. The articles you will read here will inform you about gendered aspects of human trafficking, war crimes and violence. Some will provide you with statistical evidence, some will give you a fresh perspective about the relation between womanhood and victim hood. In all cases while reading, bear in mind: issues about women are everybody's business.

ANOTHER LOOK AT VICTIMHOOD: UNSC RESOLUTION 1820 AND VICTIMS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN ARMED CONFLICTS In 2008, the UN Security Council passed the resolution 1820, which condemns the use of sexual violence against civilians as a tactical weapon in armed conflicts. The particular emphasis of the resolution is on female civilians as victims of sexual violence and their special need for protection. The prevention of conflict-related sexual violence has once again shown its relevancy in 2010, as international media has reported of the wave of rapes and other forms of gender-based violence that torments the local population in the Eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The resolution 1820 is undoubtedly a major achievement in reinforcing respect for women’s and girls’ sexual autonomy in all situations including armed conflicts.

However, the manner in which the text conceptualizes the victims of sexual violence as female civilians excludes not only men and boys but also female combatants and other women associated with armed forces/ groups as potential targets of sexual violence.

In addition, the resolution seems to regard women and girls as passive objects with no active agency in conflict situations. This article

aims to make more visible the experience of sexual violence the resolution 1820 has forgotten but from which numerous female combatants and other women associated with armed groups suffer in armed conflicts.

The conventional way of understanding the roles of men and women in armed conflicts is to define males as active combatants and females as passive civilians. This, however, is a misleading simplification, as women and girls have throughout history contributed to war efforts in various ways. Recent examples include the internal conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone: it is estimated that women and girls have made up to one third of the fighting forces in each of these countries. Women’s active contribution in war efforts and even their direct participation in armed fighting do not automatically lead to appreciation towards their role after the conflict. As a result, women and girls often have a poor access to demobilization and reintegration programs which aim to help veterans to find their place in civilian life after the conflict. Explanations for this phenomenon are numerous: women’s role in guerilla fighting can be active but also highly unofficial, female veterans are

WORDS BY

TANJA KORKALAINEN 26 OF NOVEMBER 2010 TH

not considered as a similar risk to peace and stability as their male counterparts, and women are not sufficiently informed of the possibility of participating in the programs. It must also be said that female veterans often hesitate to participate in veterans’ support programs, as they are concerned of stigmatization and hope to leave their past behind. Whatever the reasons are, women’s scarce opportunities to benefit from demobilization and reintegration schemes constitute a problem, as they have special needs that these programs should address. Many of these needs stem from the sexual violence they have suffered from during the war.

Experiences of Female Combatants in Africa We will now take a closer look at some recent armed conflicts in Africa and how the phenomenon of sexual violence has hit women and girls who have in one way or another been associated with fighting forces.

Academic scholarship and reports compiled by organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have found several explanations why African women and girls have joined fighting forces. Many of them have

had no choice, as they have been abducted and forced to join. However, there are also women and girls who have made a conscious choice to participate due to different reasons: some of them have a partner who is already involved, some feel a strong calling to fight for religious or political reasons or to revenge the death of a loved one, and some simply need to assure their daily survival and to fulfil their basic needs. A particularly interesting reason is the need for protection: in the insecure conditions of armed conflicts, many women and girls believe that being a member in one armed group will protect them against violence committed by other groups.

Ironically enough, joining an armed group either voluntarily or forcibly seems to expose females to sexual violence rather than to protect them against it. Women and girls have often multiple and simultaneous roles in armed groups: they are expected to carry heavy loads of weapons and other equipment as well as to assume cooking and other housekeeping responsibilities, but many of them also take active part in the actual fighting alongside with men and occasionally even make their way to commanding positions. However, none of these roles will automatically erase the possibility that females are also expected to serve sexually the males of the same group. It should also be noted that many of the women have been abducted primarily for this purpose.

In a highly violent and coercive environment, that kind of “service” is often not a matter of females’ choice but a mere question of survival.

International human rights organizations have reported of such experiences from several conflicts, which have taken place in countries such as Uganda, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Congo DRC in the past two decades.

The resolution 1820 gives an impression of passive female victims facing sexual violence without any agency of their own. In her study on African girl combatants, Myriam Denov has offered illustrative examples of female agency against sexual violence in the tough circumstances of the Sierra Leone civil war of 1991-2000. Girls in fighting forces feared handguns and other small weapons but soon realized their potential for self-defence, after which they started acquiring weapons not only to fight the enemy but also to reinforce their personal security inside the group they were involved in. Some girls got themselves a reputation as fierce fighters in the battle field

and this aggression provided them with some protection against their male peers. One widely spread strategy was to seek for an influential male partner, whose authority in the group would eliminate attempts for violence against his companion. These kinds of relationships were often highly abusive and oppressive; yet many girls preferred them to being constantly harassed and abused by several men. Girls also created strong relationships of friendships and mutual solidarity, which helped them to bear the harsh and violent reality around them. Even if these strategies may have been effective, they should not be confused with female empowerment, which would genuinely contribute to gender equality and help to reduce violence against women in a sustainable manner.

Post-conflict Life after Sexual Violence The post-conflict situation of female combatants may vary greatly, but many of them have one problem in common, namely the difficulty to access demobilization and reintegration programs, which prioritize male veterans. Nonetheless, these programs could address their gender-specific needs, many of which are due to sexual violence experienced during the conflict. Some of the needs can be satisfied by means of healthcare and psychological expertise, as many women and girls require help for physical and emotional traumas. Support in family planning and maternal health is equally needed in many cases. It should also be taken into account that many female veterans suffer from alcohol and drug abuse, which is often a consequence of wartime traumas.

Former female combatants are not always welcome to their old home communities, as they carry the double stigma of being female fighters and at least potentially sexually tainted women. By taking part in armed fighting they have broken the normative peaceful gender role that women have in most cultures, and their past in armed groups often sets questions on their sexual morals. In Uganda and Sierra Leone it has been noted that female veterans fear for their chances of finding a spouse, as men are known to prefer women with civilian background, because they are believed to be sexually untouched.

Not being married is consequently an easy way to marginalization for women in many African societies. Women and girls with

history in armed groups have also difficulties to find employment. This is partly due to their often low level of education and lack of skills, but employers also hold strong prejudices against them. The situation of many women and girls is sometimes aggravated by the fact that they may carry alone responsibility for a child born as the result of sexual violence or abuse. Since there are necessarily no social networks to rely on and few opportunities in labour market, former female combatants run the risk of ending up to prostitution as the only available means of survival. In the light of these observations, it seems that healthcare alone is not enough to help female veterans with experiences of sexual violence, but a broader set of means is needed to empower them to take control over their civilian life and to prevent social marginalization. That could include for example professional training and income-generating initiatives.

In the Way of Conclusions If something should be learnt from these aspects of sexual violence forgotten by the UNSC resolution 1820, it is the recommendation for demobilization and reintegration programs to take female veterans with their specific needs into consideration and guarantee their access to support in an equal manner with men. Programs should be made both accessible and attractive for them by recognizing females’ multiple roles in the war and by offering relevant services such as holistic support to women and girls who are both former combatants and victims of sexual violence. This is something that relief and development agencies and the EU should stress while working in post-conflict countries to support demobilization and reintegration.

The resolution 1820 gives a great deal of attention to prevention of sexual violence and calls conflicting parties and international community to offer protection for women and girls in armed conflicts. Should the conflict-related sexual violence be eliminated efficiently, it is also advisable for major international players such as the EU as well as civil society to invest in conflict prevention in order to reduce the number of situations, which create favourable conditions for different forms of gender-based violence against both women and men.

TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN: SHATTERED DREAMS!

WORDS BY

MARIE ANNE ZAMMIT 25TH OF NOVEMBER 2010

Every November of each year, the world commemorates the anniversary of the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women designed by the United Nations Assembly in 1999. Yet, in real life women and girls around the world still suffer from and are subject to all forms of violence including rape, beatings by their partners and sexual exploitation. A matter of concern is the growing trend in European and international scene of trafficking women for prostitution.

Economic globalization has increased trafficking of women from poorer countries to wealthier countries. Women are trafficked legally or illegally, and in most cases they end up in forced work or prostitution. The United Nations estimates that around four million people are being trafficked each year globally, and criminal groups gain thus large profits.

Human trafficking is a form of organized crime, where the majority of traffickers are linked to Mafia or other international criminal groups. To combat this trafficking, the United

Nations has proposed the New Convention on transnational organized crime in December 2000, later known as the Protocol on the Trafficking of Human Beings.

The IOM (International Organization of Migration) has reported that 420,000 women have been trafficked from Ukraine in recent years.

One afternoon Karina, a young woman from Ukraine, was reading an advertisement for a job in Greece as a shop assistant. This adventurous prospect of working in an EU country appealed to her and so she applied for this position. All was arranged and Karina's hopes for a better life increased till she embarked on her new adventure.

It was not a dream what awaited her but a nightmare. On the day Karina was supposed to travel, she met other women who were all waiting the same organizers who were supposed to take them to Greece. Instead of Greece, Karina found herself in Bosnia along with other women, some younger and some of her age. The women were transported

from one car to another, crossing unknown territories until they arrived at a club. Soon after the women were drugged, sold and forced into prostitution and if they did not cooperate they would be sold again to more dangerous owners. They were not only being kept in filthy rooms with inadequate facilities, but were exposed to sexually transmitted diseases and afflicted with grave injuries.

Trafficking is strongly associated with prostitution. It is estimated that 79% of human trafficking is involved with sexual exploitation and that more than 80% of the victims are women. Most member states of EU are countries of origin, in transit and/ or destination for human trafficking. The demand for immigration has opened up new ventures for those who were ready to seize the opportunity to fill this gap and gain profit.

Furthermore, trafficking is a criminal act violating human rights and specifically third and fourth article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

To combat the problem of trafficking, on the 15th of November 2000 the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially women and children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, was adopted and opened for signature.

Article 2 of the Convention specifies the purpose of the article: a) To prevent and combat trafficking in persons, paying attention to women and children. b) To protect and assist the victims of such trafficking with full respect to Human Rights. c) To promote cooperation among State Parties in order to meet those objectives.

In Article 3 of the same convention trafficking is defined as 'the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation.

Exploitation shall include at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.'

(United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons especially women and children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime 2000) In addition, the Council of Europe's Convention on Action against Trafficking and Human Beings was adopted and opened for signature on the 16th of May 2005.

The specified purposes of the Convention are a) To prevent and combat trafficking in human beings, while guaranteeing gender equality; b) To protect the human rights of the victims of trafficking, to design a comprehensive framework for the protection and assistance of victims and witnesses, while guaranteeing gender equality, as well as to ensure effective

investigation and prosecution. c) To promote international cooperation on action against trafficking in human beings.

(Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings.)

Women and young girls are taken and sold out of their countries and kept in slavery.

Millions of women and girls are trafficked every year for the aims of sexual exploitation.

In this area, there seems to be incentives from both the organizers and the people who would want to leave their countries.

The industry of human trafficking is fast becoming larger than the drug industry, as it has great demand in all parts of the globe.

The social, political and economic factors in one s’ country do play an important part in pushing people out of their countries. Central and even Southern Europe appear as lands of opportunities, when compared with countries in Eastern Europe.

Women may be looking for other work opportunities abroad, after having been deprived from work, especially under Communist regime. Along with these factors, economic disparity, discrimination and lack of education also encourage people to seek employment outside their own countries and to look for a better economic social future. This is where traffickers and criminal organizations come in the scene to lure people, by taking advantage of people's situation and by promising another world, although they only lead them to slavery.

The promise of a new life in another country and of new employment suddenly turns into a forced entry into drug addiction, prostitution, pornography, forced marriages and other sexual services. If caught by law, traffickers face harsh penalties, and to make up for this risk they make sure that they are paid with large sums of money.

Slavery has considerable and even traumatic effects on the individual. In most of the cases vulnerable persons are separated from their families, become subject to psychological, physical and sexual abuse, are forced into prostitution and are thus exposed to sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV. The European Union is making considerable efforts to combat the trafficking of human

beings and is helping the prospective countries to improve their living standards, to update their economic situation and to encourage more women to work.

Democracy and human rights are amongst the important principles in EU's relations with other countries. It is therefore crucial, when dealing with the problem of human trafficking, to create dialogue with the concerned non-EU countries.

The dialogue is created by paying special attention to women who are subject to discrimination or who are facing violence or sexual exploitation. This is achieved by the development of structures to support the implementation of gender-focused programs for helping and protecting the victims. We should also ensure that women participate in the labour market, achieve gender equality and provide family friendly arrangements.

Development and respect of the conventions of human rights cannot be obtained in the countries concerned unless a form of law enforcement for combating criminal organizations is fully implemented. This is also achieved by providing social and economic equality for individuals.

States have an obligation to exercise due diligence in the arena of human trafficking and they have the duty of identifying traffickers and those who are involved in controlling and exploiting trafficked persons.

An important measure in stopping human trafficking is the role of law enforcement.

This can be emphasised by focusing on each and every country concerned and at the same time making sure that these measures do not have adverse impact on the rights and dignity of those who have been victims of trafficking.

Women‘s organizations are urging the European Union to focus on prevention of trafficking by addressing the demand for prostitution which provides the need for trafficking women.

Last October, the European Parliament backed by a majority of MEPS called on the Commission to establish a European year for combating violence against women within the next five years. This will hopefully lead to more awareness, result in new strategies and finally put an end to all sexual exploitation.

TRAFFICKING WOMEN… TODAY’S GROWING BUSINESS WORDS BY

SKA KELLER

1ST OF FEBRUARY 2004

Trading is pretty normal in our world. From the cauliflower to the computer – trading is important for us. But there are also other ways of trading than those which provide the daily food: the trafficking of people.

countries at the same time. Their profile can be described as low developed and often they are post-conflict regions. The unemployment rate is high and the living standard low.

This occupation is not new at all – but through the increasing global dimensions, trafficking human beings is now the fastest growing area of organized crime. More than 700,000 people are trafficked every year.

The UN has found a rather long definition for “trafficking in human beings” which was adopted by the UN General Assembly: “Trafficking in human beings is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.” UN protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children

COUNTRIES OF DESTINATION

COUNTRIES OF ORIGIN Statistics say that a high percentage of victims of trafficking are coming from Southeast Asian countries and former soviet states. Also the Balkan countries are countries of origin but destination

The destination countries can be divided into two categories: those countries who belong to the developed countries and seem to offer richness, security and wealth and those countries who in the first place don’t seem to be profitable for traffickers but are of advantage for them because of the low standard of justice and law.

THE VICTIMS Although men are victims of trafficking as well, women and children form the big majority. This is because women mostly have a low social standing and therefore are even more affected by unemployment than men, which already led to the “feminisation of poorness”. Others are the only breadwinners of their family and without them the social life wouldn’t exist – but still their position is below that of men and there is no way for them to take part in the political life.

Especially the young women are desperate and seek a better life in the rich countries, which they mostly only heard of in mass media and have no clear idea about it.

Most victims of trafficking have never been abroad before. They are not able to reach safely may it be legal or illegal their destination country because they have no money for visa or smugglers and no contacts in the countries of destination.

THE TRAFFICKERS Are mostly male according to the reports of testimonies but also some women take part in this “business”. They approach their victims with promises about a well-paid job in a western country, a save travel and that they only have to pay their fee after they earn money. A lot of victims consent to this offer although in some cases women and girls are threatened, forced or even kidnapped. And it is hard to speak of a “consent” if the real consequences of that are not known – none consents to exploitation.

EXPLOITATION IN DESTINATION COUNTRIES The traffickers smuggle their victims abroad to transit and destination countries. There, the women and children have to work as prostitutes or under unbelievable conditions in households or other services. They face total exploitation: working all day, no medical help, no security, and no salary. The money they “earn” is often taken directly by the traffickers for the costs of the travel and accommodation. Sometimes they receive a little but it’s never enough to pay the debts.

This way, the women and children stay dependent from the traffickers. Additionally they use the fear of the women who know that they are illegally in the country and could be found by police or that something might happen to their families. The victims are not treated better than goods. The women and girls working in prostitution, are sold or kidnapped by the pimps. A report

by Barbara Limanowska, a special advisor on trafficking in south-eastern Europe, names US$ 50-250 as the price for a woman on a Romanian “market”.

NO CHANCE TO GET OUT? The possibilities for women and especially for children are few. Most women are not aware of their situation: They do not know

that they are trafficked and that they can get assistance. They only know that they entered the country illegally and that they’re working illegally in an illegal “business”. In case of police raids victims often repeat the stories their pimps told them to say because of the fear of being sent back or being detained. The police itself often have no knowledge and expertise in how to recognize trafficked women – mostly they are treated as illegal immigrants and are arrested instead of receiving the help they need. Those who take the step to go to police and ask for help will get little assistance: in most countries there is no opportunity for them to stay in the country where they are but have to go back.

The help they get ends at the border and usually it consists of only an offer to get back to their home country. Like this they are sent back to the social environment that they wanted to escape from and are very likely to be re-trafficked. Apart from that they have to fear the revenge of the traffickers especially if they testimony against them.

TRAFFICKERS ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE TO BLAME! Trafficking in women wouldn’t be as profitable as it is if there wouldn’t be a demand for services of prostitutes. Men often claim that they have a right for getting this service – but what rights do the prostitutes have? Prominent men are abusing prostitutes and nobody cares about it.

PROSTITUTION IS NOT CREATING A BAD REPUTATION FOR THE MEN BUT FOR THE WOMEN! An interesting phenomenon is that in post-conflict countries where a lot of peacekeeping soldiers are around the number of prostitutes increases essentially – caught soldiers mostly face no punishment

on that. Also corruption plays a big role in trafficking. It’s not an exception that policemen and traffickers are good “business partners” and after a police raid the police brings the women back to their pimps and into slavery.

MEASURES AGAINST TRAFFICKING – WHAT CAN BE DONE? Trafficking is more and more recognized as one of the big fields of organised crime that one needs to combat. International organisations, states and NGOs took measures, implemented campaigns and wrote conventions; often with less success.

This is what experts demand.

• create a new position for women: in a men’s world as it still is today, the rights of women are still not seen equal with the rights of men. The change of minds is a crucial precondition for combating trafficking • empowerment of women and girls • outlaw the utilization of services of forced prostitutes • prevention campaigns • guidelines for police how to recognize victims of trafficking and how to assist them • a long-term assistance that doesn’t end at the border line and includes vocational training, proper housing and jobs • support of local groups acting against trafficking: researches show that no state campaign is as efficient as the work of local groups. Those should be strengthened through both financial support and official acceptance • proper punishment against traffickers • possibility to submit an application for asylum in the country of destination

WOMEN AND MIGRATION WORDS BY

SKA KELLER

13TH OF NOVEMBER 2003

Millions of people (20 Million in 2001) are fleeing every year from their country to another; from a region in the North to a region in the south; from one misery into another one. A particular group among the refugees is the women. In fact, they are quite a big group, since 75-80% of the refugees worldwide are female. They often have a special motivation to leave their home. At first, they suffer from the same circumstances as men do, but in a different way. War is cruel for both sexes, but women are more likely to become a civil victim although not being directly involved in the battles. It’s them who are left alone, who have to take care of children and earnings and it’s their houses and fields that are destroyed by winning or losing troops. And it’s them who are raped.

In fact, sexual violence is one of the main reasons for women leaving their country. And it’s one that men never have experienced.

Violence in the family, mass violation, circumcising or forced prostitution are only some examples. Protecting measures from the authorities can rarely be count on.

Often enough, the governments and their representatives are those who commit the crime.

The troubles continue when the woman, because of such experiences, tries to apply for asylum in one of the EU countries. If she finally does; as most asylum seekers are male.

But once she signs this application she will have to face few understanding: While men

who are printing and distributing leaflets, holding political speeches etc. are easily accepted as political refugees, a women hiding escaped prisoners or bringing messages from one political group to another are not. Their activities are seen as part of the private life.

This is a part of the traditional understanding of gender roles in society: men work in public, women in private. The same goes for sexual violence: it’s mostly seen as a matter of private affairs and not as a type of persecution. If a woman gets tortured and imprisoned because a relative or friend of her is politically active, she will hardly be recognized as refugee because the attack wasn’t directed to herself, they say. And if they seek for asylum because in their country of origin they would be forced to marry or would be circumcised, the judge might think that this is part of a cultural life and therefore not a good enough reason to leave the country. Various examples could be named but we can say it in short: it’s still a men’s world where the well-being of women are not of any interest. It’s men who did the Geneva Convention and it’s now mostly men who decide about recognition or deportation.

It’s the men who are abusing women what is seen as normal and natural. Guess, why prostitution increases where soldiers of some “International Forces” are staying and nobody cares. Remember the refugee camps in Rwanda where there were not only few cases where women were raped by European soldiers; remember the human trafficking after the Balkan war that was in a way supported by UN representatives.

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

Gender specific reasons to flee must be added to the Geneva Convention. Every country has to add those reasons to their national rules for immigration as well. But the most important thing is : society must change. Equality should be in everybody’s mind, not only on the paper.

Judges as well as politicians and the rest of us must learn that traditional role issues are not valid.

WE DEMAND : • recognition of sexual violence as form of persecution • protection of women in refugee camps against sexual violence and discrimination • addition of “gender discrimination” to the Geneva Convention as one of the recognized reasons to flee • obligation to prove the (in)ability of governments to protect women against sexual violence must be up to the governments, not to the women • state and state communities must fight against any forms of sexual violence and discrimination such as - violation during civil war/investigations etc.

- sexual violence within families - forced prostitution - discrimination by law • persons responsible of for an international organisation and are found misusing their position to abuse women must be prosecuted

HOW THINGS ARE NOW? NOT MUCH HAS HAPPENED IN THE PAST 10 YEARS WITH REGARD TO THE RIGHT OF WOMEN TO ASYLUM AND WITH REGARD TO TRAFFICKING IN PEOPLE. ALTHOUGH SOME EU STATES ACKNOWLEDGE GENDER-RELATED VIOLENCE AS A REASON TO FLEE, PROVING IT IS USUALLY NOT EASY. PLUS, A FAIRLY NEW PHENOMENA IS AFFECTING WOMEN: CLIMATE MIGRATION. CLIMATE MIGRATION TYPICALLY IS A LOCAL AND REGIONAL MIGRATION AND AFFECTS WOMEN DISPROPORTIONALLY. THERE IS NOW MORE AWARENESS ABOUT GENDER VIOLENCE IN REFUGEE CAMPS, BUT AT THE SAME TIME THE GROWING NUMBER AND SIZE OF REFUGEE CAMPS DOESN’T MAKE PREVENTION ANY EASIER. TRAFFICKING IS STILL A HUGE PROBLEM THAT CONTINUES TO DESTROY LIVES. IN SOME EU MEMBER STATES, EFFORTS HAVE BEEN MADE TO PROTECT VICTIMS IF THEY GIVE EVIDENCE AGAINST THE TRAFFICKERS, BUT OFTEN THIS PROTECTION ENDS AT THE END OF THE TRIAL. OVERALL, THE POSITION OF WOMEN WORLDWIDE HAS NOT CHANGED MUCH. EVEN THOUGH THERE ARE MANY INITIATIVES BY WOMEN ALL OVER THE WORLD AND COUNTRIES AS WELL AS ORGANIZATIONS RECOGNIZE MORE AND MORE THE DRIVING FORCE OF WOMEN IN PEACE PROCESSES, DEVELOPMENT AND WELL-BEING OF SOCIETIES, RESOURCES AND POWER ARE STILL WITH MEN. BEFORE THIS CHANGES, WE CANNOT TALK OF EQUALITY. SKA KELLER, WWW.SKAKELLER.DE

WITH THE SUPPORT OF : THE EUROPEAN YOUTH FOUNDATION OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE