Journal of Global Affairs Fall 2011 by Journal GA

Editor In Chief Executive Editor and Creative Director

Maggie Carter Amanda Holpuch

Managing Editor

Emma Young

Associate Editors

David Berman Anita Carroll Gina Damasco Sarah Dunn Benjamin Kellerman Rhonda Khalifeh Maggie Pfeiffer Carly Strand Saiyada Sumar Henry Topper Colleen Veldt

The cover photo was taken by Dina Gold, who’s other photographs from India appear throughout the journal. Gold wrote this about the cover photograph: In January of 2011, I participated in a New York University study abroad course in India. The daily paradoxes I witnessed and the frenetic pace of the cities I visited—Delhi, Agra and Mumbai—overwhelmed me. My only respite from this feeling of powerlessness amidst the abject poverty was to do what I love: photograph. In this photograph, titled Woman Standing Atop the Taj Mahal, the subject peers out into the distance, representing the courage to hope and prompting the viewer to consider the world through the eyes of others.

Table of Contents Volume 7 Fall 2011

Chiapas at Peace Emily Pederson Across a Crowded Room Drew Boston Clouds of Black Smoke Over Korle Lagoon Rachel Hurley Purpose Sima Cunningham From Damascus with Dignity Rhonda Khalifeh Finding Paradox in Cuba Emma Young Women in Construction: A Cross Cultural Dialogue Shraddha Uday Borawake

t Small-Time Bookies Dina Gold

2 9 11 23 40 53 11

Sunset on the Bosporous Rhonda Khalifeh Morning Chores Ghanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gsrden Hillary Pollack We Are Here Lara Blackman

Cuba is Great Thomaz Marcondes

Letter from the Editor

p Part of the Rush of an Indian Market Dina Gold

Journal of Global Affairs | Volume 7 | Fall 2011

Chiapas at Peace Emily Pederson

As a 2011 NYU Gallatin Global Human Rights Fellow, Pederson spend the summer of 2011 in Chiapas, Mexico conducting a photojournalism project examining life after the indigenous rebellion.

The year 1994 began with a scandal in Mexico. Thousands of indigenous soldiers took over eight towns in Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost state and its region with the largest indigenous population, and declared war on the federal government. They called themselves the Zapatista Army for National Liberation, and their principal demands were human rights for their people; they claimed that peaceful avenues had failed. While the government responded with military force, the movement immediately prompted an international outcry, and indigenous rights become a front-page issue almost overnight. The Zapatistas were fighting, among other things, against poverty and prejudice. In Mexico, indigenous discrimination had been built into the system of government since the conquest in the 16th century. They were co-opted into slavery and through a system of racism and force, landowners used these people as they pleased. The legacies of colonialism, slavery and racism have resulted in long-lasting trauma and social inequality at the official level. It wasn’t until after the Mexican Revolution of 1910 that the government enacted land distribution reforms, a serious stride towards a more just and equal nation. Those reforms never reached Chiapas. Indigenous communities hoped for more, but were so oppressed by the Mexican government. As one CIA operative said in the 1970s, “The Mexican security forces are so effective in eradicating the extreme left that we don’t have to worry about it. If the government were less effective we would, of course, have to promote their repression.” The rebellion in 1994 turned the eyes of the whole world—and especially the human rights community—to Chiapas, but the question remains: how much has the status quo changed in the nearly 20 years since the rebellion? During the peace talks with the Zapatistas after the official cease-fire, the government promised to improve the lot of the indigenous, but did it follow through? While I was in the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas in the summer of 2011, looking for an answer to that question, I found that the people

p Outside the church in Zapata, Yajalón, Chiapas

Chiapas have very divided opinions about how much has improved. Some said the rebellion changed everything, but others said everything is the same. In some respects the progress has been phenomenal. Previously, Chiapas had been largely ignored by the federal government (its role had been to serve as a reserve of cheap natural resources, which were funneled to the north and center of the country), but it was soon showered with attention and support programs; abandonment was no longer an option. The uprising also revolutionized civil society in Chiapas. International and national human rights organizations and NGOs multiplied and grassroots organizing gained political significance. Some people I spoke with talked of feeling, for the first time, that it was safe to come together and demand control over their villages’ destinies. Today the indigenous know

p Candelaria Mendez Jimenez and her daughter Migdalia

MartĂnez in the sit-in in San Cristobal. The families lived in this makeshift structure in the Cathedral Plaza for more than a month before going back home to reclaim their land. The gunmen began threatening them again a week after they returned.

Journal of Global Affairs | Volume 7 | Fall 2011

know their rights and can demand them without being openly persecuted—or rather, without being persecuted as often. But there is an alternate reality to all of this. Looking at this issue from afar, it may seem that Chiapas has changed more than it really has—after all, the Zapatista rebellion has a secure place in the discourse of international human rights. However, up close, that perception begins to disintegrate. The first person I asked about the rebellion, a taxi driver named Miguel, told me that it had “failed” because the indigenous are “uneducated” and “haven’t found a way to lift themselves out of their poverty.” The movement faded away, he said, once Subcomandante Marcos (the voice of the Zapatista Army) disappeared and Bishop Samuel Ruiz (a prominent defender of indigenous people and of the movement) passed away. In other words, he believed that this indigenous movement could not survive without its prominent non-indigenous advocates. The old prejudice, then, is still around, and so are the Zapatistas, though their numbers have greatly diminished over the years. The persistence of discrimination in Chiapas manifests itself in much more sinister ways than taxi drivers’ offhand comments. Even after so many lives were lost for the cause in 1994, improving living conditions in indigenous villages is still not perceived as a priority by the local and federal governments. The thousands of indigenous communities in Chiapas still suffer from a lack of basic infrastructure for health, potable water, education and roads. The government has actually been constructing small health centers and schools in the villages in recent years, but the projects have nearly all failed due to lack of follow-through. Every indigenous person I asked told me that the “health center” in his or her town was just for show. As a result, people continue to die from preventable diseases and an overwhelming number of families have no access to education. Paramilitary attacks, which have long been a tactic used by the powerful to shut down social movements and dissenters, are still common in Chiapas. While they do not occur with the same frequency as before 1994 or during the several tumultuous years that followed, and also tend to be less violent, they continue. Impunity is still a major problem with respect to crimes committed against indigenous people, including paramilitary violence, which makes many Chiapans suspect that the perpetrators are colluding with local governments or the army. One man I met said he believed the paramilitaries would never stop. What is different, he said, is that now they threaten to kill instead of simply killing right away. For example, compare what happened in the village of Acteal in 1997, where 45 villagers belonging to a non-violent organization called Las Abejas were massacred in their church, to

Chiapas at Peace | Emily Pederson

what happened to in Las Colchintas in July of 2011, where five families belonging to a socialist organization were displaced after a paramilitary gang threatened to murder them if they did not abandon their lands. In both cases, the perpetrators of the crimes ultimately went free. If one considers how much racism still existed in the U.S. 20 years after the end of segregation—how much still exists even today—one might begin to get a sense of where Chiapas stands at present. The future is very hopeful, but the process of unwinding 500 years of indigenous discrimination is a slow one. This is by no means a success story yet. The international community is no longer watching, no longer pressuring the Mexican government. All eyes are on the drug war. There is a chance Chiapas will regress into the intense repression of the past if the rest of the world forgets. Peace in Chiapas is more than meets the eye. The apparent calm deceives. The conflict is merely latent, but its roots remain firmly planted in the ground.

Pederson wrote the following journal entries between August 8 and August 16, 2011 during the two months she spent in Chiapas. August 6, 2011 I met a boy who was 8 when the uprising happened. He says a guy kept buying loads of backpacks from his father’s store, 30 one month, 50 the next month. The night before the uprising, he and his father were walking in town, and they saw people with guns filing into the city. They were wearing the backpacks. He says at Rancho Nuevo, two thousand Zapatistas attacked a thousand army soldiers. There were piles and piles of bodies at the caves there where all the tourists go today. He says there were spies around San Cristóbal, and if they saw you were with the Zapatistas, you got killed. A lot of families were murdered that way. He says some army soldiers were indigenous and can you imagine, they were sent to indigenous towns to kill people. How are they going to go and kill their own people? But those were the orders. He says a lot of people switched sides and went to the EZLN. A lot of EZLN soldiers switched sides and went to the army, too. People left the movement because their families were at risk. He says once he was out with his parents, and they started to hear gunshots. Everyone started running, he and his father in

Journal of Global Affairs | Volume 7 | Fall 2011

one direction, his mother and brother in the other. He saw a little girl’s mother get shot by a stray bullet. No one stopped to help the little girl… He shook his head. It wasn’t like what I’d read, he said 10,000 people, 15,000 people probably died in those months. But it did change a lot. Before the uprising, if an indigenous person was walking on the sidewalk and they crossed paths with a mestizo, they had to get down and let them pass. Mestizos would push and shove them on the street. They were indigenous. They didn’t count. August 12, 2011 There are five displaced Ch’ol indigenous families from another province living in the main square of San Cristóbal right now. Most of the people are just little kids. They’ve covered their campsite with signs demanding an end to paramilitary violence, signs denouncing the gang of gunmen who violently forced them off their land, denouncing the corrupt government that hasn’t lifted a finger to catch the criminals. Everything they had was stolen, and they can’t go home unless they want to risk being murdered. No one’s taking any notice. August 10, 2011 The government still abandons the small indigenous communities in Yajalón. And most everywhere in Chiapas, but that was the place I saw for myself. The lack of medicine and doctors is too awful. Sure, the government has built health centers, but they’re just empty symbols with no doctors and no medicine in them. They’re just make-believe that the governor uses to say, look, vote for me, I fixed the healthcare problem. But people die in childbirth… People die on the way to the hospital because it’s hours away… People used to have to walk to get there before more roads were finally built, just 10 years ago... Maybe there’s less racism now, but with basic services it’s the same. They’re forgotten. They’re ignored. All the government’s money goes to the north and center of the country. Arely Perez strikes a pose outside the sit-in in San Cristóbal de las Casas. A paramilitary group displaced Arely and her family from their land in Las Colchintas, Chiapas on July 4th, 2011. The families set up camp in San Cristóbal’s main square to protest, hoping that the government or a human rights group would come to their aid, but the criminals were never arrested.

Journal of Global Affairs

Chiapas at Peace | Emily Pederson

August 16, 2011 Taking pictures here is something else. With the Chamulas, a lot of them flinch and cover their faces when they see the camera. If you ask, they usually say no. It’s a thing about the photograph stealing a part of your spirit. Sometimes I feel like it’s a tragedy to be a photographer here. But the other day I pointed my camera at three Chamula girls who were sitting in front of a store together, and the most beautiful thing happened. They all started laughing and the girl in the middle tried to hide from the camera, but her two friends wouldn’t let her, for some reason they didn’t mind or trusted me or wanted to tease their friend, they grabbed her arms and held her so she couldn’t hide her face, and she was screaming with laughter and screaming because of the camera and she kept diving down when she saw I was still taking pictures but her friends kept pulling her back up, and they were all just in hysterics, just dying for five whole minutes. August 22, 2011

We asked Sabás about what the status is with the Zapatistas right now. Apparently the government sends anti-Zapatista agents into communities where the movement is strong to divide them and turn them against each other. To get control over it. The low intensity war is still going on, but the tactics are usually nonviolent, like this one. But it seems like they could escalate to violence indirectly, doesn’t it? Worse, he said that a hundred Zapatistas were arrested in San Sebastian Bachajon in March, and a lot of them are still in prison. A couple of days before that Sabás said to me, in Chiapas there’s a big show of change. The international airport, and some other things. But things are the same as always, under the surface, he said. It’s business as usual.

t The Girl Who Didn’t Want to be Photographed La Hormiga, San Cristóbal de las Casas

Across a Crowded Room Andrew Boston

There never was Apartheid between truth and lies, just a thin sliver of the modern, the party of the present time. Two oceans meet across a crowded room. Two vectors of a history written in salt columns, like watching a magician practice sawing a woman in half. On a desert evening, I stretched my legs like an exile in a coastal town. We look for watery places to nail ourselves down. We wait for the gnashing of waves on a postcard of the Bosphorus to reach us where we stand on our hands. One longs for the eventual cataclysm of a room. These moments of tumble are punctuated by transmissions from the stubborn waiting to be gathered into the world. You are always writing two poems: One that replicates an offering of images in a pagan equinox Another that invites the solitudes of continents into your moments of repose. And here they come, filing in two by two. Istanbul, Turkey Rhonda Khalief

Journal of Global Affairs | Volume 7 | Fall 2011

Clouds of Black Smoke Over Korle Lagoon Rachel Hurley

Hurley conducted the research for this paper in Ghana during the Spring 2011 semester. The photographs in this piece were taken by Hillary Pollack, who is currently studying at NYU Ghana.

Small black smoke clouds constantly hang over the slum of Old Fadama in Accra, Ghana. They can always be seen when shopping at Agobogbloshie market or from the road along the coast. If you were to follow these puffs of dirty smoke to their source you would likely find a burning pile of electronics on top of a heap of garbage slowly spewing into the Korle Lagoon. These electronics are being burned by boys and young men from the Old Fadama slum, known by many in Accra as “Sodom and Gomorrah.” The men burn old electronic equipment to extract copper and other valuable metals for resale, creating these ominous clouds. The smoke clouds are more than eyesores; they indicate the health and environmental hazards associated with the lucrative trade of scrap dealing and informal smelting. As the electronics burn they release toxins and carcinogens into the air, affecting the health of the scrap dealers and the surrounding communities and depleting the global ozone layer. A deeper look into this issue reveals a more disturbing fact: the majority of these electronics (old computers, televisions, cell phones and game systems) come from developed countries, primarily the United States, under the guise of “recycling” or “reuse”. Despite international efforts to regulate and ban the exportation of hazardous waste from developed nations to the developing world, the United States continues to export tons of e-waste every year. The international position on electronic waste exportation and the proven effectiveness of environmentally sustainable alternatives suggest that the United States and Ghana must adjust their e-waste policies in an effort to end the practice altogether. Many Ghanaians will admit that scrap dealing is one of the most lucrative forms of employment in the Old Fadama slums. According to Audubon Magazine, “a [computer] circuit board contain[s] more gold by volume than does gold ore.”1 A ton of cell-phones contains not only “more than 12 ounces of gold” but also about “8 pounds of silver and

Clouds of Black Smoke Over Korle Lagoon | Rachel Hurley

286 pounds of copper,” meaning each phone has about 60 cents worth of precious metal alone.2 Harvesting precious metals in e-waste dumps is only a matter of digging through piles of trash or unloading a truck, starting a fire and extracting the copper, gold and silver. Ultimately, the young men and boys of Old Fadama and the Korle Lagoon dump will sell the metal to a middleman, resulting in an income much higher than that of other professions common in the slum, such as food sales, cloth sales and manual labor. Though e-waste burning presents financial benefits to the smelters, it also leads to many adverse health affects. In an interview with National Geographic, Israel Mensah, a scrap dealer, remarked about the process of harvesting valuable metals from a pile of burning electronics, “The gas goes to your nose and you feel something in your head. Then you get sick in your head and in your chest.”3 It is little wonder Mr. Mensah described this feeling of lightheadedness and sickness; many of the chemicals released in the burning process are highly toxic. It is estimated that many electronics are comprised of over 1000 different materials,4 many of which have been deemed hazardous: “A single computer can contain more than 50 highly toxic metals and compounds,”5 which means that “500 million computers [contain] nearly 2.87 billion kilograms of plastics, 716.7 kilograms of lead and 286,700 kilograms of mercury.”6 E-waste burning releases elements and compounds such as lead, cadmium, mercury and flame retardants into the air, all of which are detrimental to public health and the environment. Lead, which is regularly found in the cathode ray tubes (CRTs) that make up the screens of old computers and televisions, is highly toxic. There are also many carcinogens found in electronics, including cadmium and brominated flame-retardants. These chemicals and heavy metals release dangerous dioxins, toxic by-products of industrial processes and combustion, during the copper, gold and silver extraction process. Because of the dangers associated with these heavy metals and compounds, those who handle them in other industries (such as in chemical laboratories, medical research and electronic manufacturing) wear protective gear to avoid contamination. However, the men and boys who burn the electronics at the Korle Lagoon dump do not adhere to any specified safety regulations and use no protective gear, thus their regular exposure to these toxic chemicals and heavy metals puts them at great risk.7 Finally, e-waste has other detrimental environmental effects. Just as lead, mercury, flame-retardants and cadmium can greatly affect the health of human beings, so too can they damage animal and plant life. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency,

Journal of Global Affairs

Clouds of Black Smoke Over Korle Lagoon | Rachel Hurley

the presence of these substances in the water supply or soil can affect neurological systems in vertebrate animals, lower reproductive rates in plants and decrease environmental biodiversity.8 Additionally, the burning of e-waste (especially containing associated plastics) produces greenhouse gases. These gases, primarily carbon dioxide, deplete the ozone layer, a phenomenon linked to global climate change. By burning e-waste for metal extraction, the scrap dealers not only harm their communities but also the local and global environment. The overarching reason for the prominence of e-waste metal extraction is the rate of obsolescence of electronics. As technology advances, the rate at which older electronics and technologies become obsolete increases. If one purchased a personal computer in 1997, the estimated life span of that machine was approximately six years; less than ten years later, in 2005, the life span of an average computer had been shortened to a mere two years.9 Although e-waste quantities are very difficult to measure, the United Nations Environmental Programme estimates that “approximately 20 to 50 million metric [tons] of e-waste are generated worldwide each year.”10 In the age of iPods, laptops, smartphones and e-readers, the rate of obsolesce, and thus the rate of e-waste, is likely to increase. In fact, e-waste is now considered to be “one of fastest growing waste streams” on the planet.11 However, it is not Ghanaians who are throwing away entire dumps worth of computers, TVs and cell phones; the e-waste filling and contaminating the Korle Lagoon comes predominantly from the United States and Europe. The United States is one of the largest electronics consumers in the world, and as such, it is also one of the largest producers of e-waste.12 In the United States alone, somewhere between 14 and 20 million computers,13 130 million cell phones and 25 million televisions are thrown away each year.14 However, most of these dumped electronics do not end up in American landfills, but rather in countries like China, India, Bangladesh and Ghana. This is not a result of a limited U.S. landfill space. Electronic waste produced by the United States is rarely dumped in the United States is because of the very health and environmental concerns that make smelting scrap metal dangerous. When the rate of electronics production increased, U.S. state governments insisted that their land, water supply and population be protected from leaching toxic and hazardous chemicals. Local governments therefore began restricting e-waste dumping. Currently, twenty states as well as New York City have laws that regulate electronic waste.15 Some insist on an electronics tax at the time of purchase, others require manufactures to be responsible for the costs of safe recycling or processing of e-waste and some mandate

Early Morning Chores 12

Journal of Global Affairs | Volume 7 | Fall 2011

recycling programs. Several states, including Massachusetts, ban particularly problematic e-waste like CRT’s from being placed in landfills at all.16 These regulations make the disposal of e-waste in the United States very difficult, but some “recyclers” have found an opportunity in the international e-waste trade. Recycling companies collect old electronics from consumers and, instead of recycling the electronics safely and under regulation in the United States, sell the electronics to an importer in a developing nation like Ghana. In some cases, the movement of one computer from the consumer to a developing nation can earn a U.S. recycling company $35.17 Thus, being a middleman exporter of e-waste has become incredibly profitable. The problem is that although the companies are purchasing the electronics under the pretext of reuse, most of the electronics that people donate are actually obsolete; in fact, many of them simply do not work. According to a United Nations laureate on the environment in Ghana, the majority of the electronics imported into Ghana are “junk [sic].”18 This means that when a shipment of old computers and cell phones arrives at the Tema port and are sorted through, most of them end up being dumped in the Korle Lagoon. The dumping of hazardous waste has been an international problem since the 1980s and the international community has taken action to halt it. In 1989, the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal was opened for signature and ratification. The treaty was signed by 175 parties in an effort to reduce the transfer of hazardous waste between nations, particularly from developed nations to developing nations. This convention strove to define hazardous waste, acknowledge the environmental impacts of dumping hazardous waste and create an agreement “that the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes and other wastes should be permitted only when the transport and the ultimate disposal of such wastes is environmentally sound.”19 However, environmentalists and developing nations did not believe this solution to be enough and called for stricter regulations. In 1995, the Basel Ban Amendment was added to the convention, which specifically prohibits the export of hazardous waste from all countries in the European Union and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to all other countries involved in the treaty. This included exportation for disposal and recycling. These regulations demonstrate the international community’s awareness of the dangers of e-waste and other hazardous materials and also show its commitment to finding more environmentally sustainable approaches to disposal of hazardous

Clouds of Black Smoke Over Korle Lagoon | Rachel Hurley

materials. However, the United States cannot be considered a part of this particular international community because it is one of three countries (the other two being Haiti and Afghanistan) that signed but did not ratify the original Basel Convention. Nor did the United States sign or ratify the Basel Ban Amendment. Thus the United States is under no legal obligation to discontinue its exportation of e-waste.20 Other countries that also consume large amounts of electronics, especially those in Europe, have found environmentally sustainable and even economically viable methods of e-waste dispose. Switzerland, a signatory and ratifier of both the Basel Convention and the subsequent Basel Ban, has found a way to put their e-waste to good use. Switzerland implemented its federally regulated e-waste recycling program in 1991, becoming the first country to do so in the world.21 When Swiss consumers purchase electronics they pay a recycling fee, and when the products are no longer useable, they place them in specified recycling bins. These recycled electronics are then converted into energy; in Switzerland, “[ninety-eight percent] of electronic waste is [used] to produce energy.”22 The landlocked country with few mineral and natural resources has supplemented its energy supply with clean, environmentally sustainable energy and simultaneously solved a waste problem, demonstrating that there are viable alternatives to e-waste dumping. America’s failure to ratify the Basel Convention and Basel Ban, the lack of internal regulation and alternative solutions and the continuous exportation of e-waste to developing countries shows the nation’s lack of commitment to environmental protection. Further, by failing to dispose of its own electronic e-waste, the United States is taking part in what some call a “transnational white-collar crime.”23 Jim Puckett, the head of the Basel Action Network (BAN) supports this in saying, “we in the developed world get the benefits from these devises, but when our equipment becomes unusable we externalize the real environmental costs and liabilities to the developing world.”24 As Americans continue to use and dump electronics at an alarming rate, scrap dealers in Africa are risking their own health and the health of those around them to provide for their families. Few Americans have to worry about whether or not they are breathing in lead, mercury and carcinogens because of their own electronic waste consumption, yet Ghanaians living in and around Accra are unknowingly being subjected to harmful dioxins everyday as America’s waste burns. As the pile of e-waste in the Korle Lagoon grows, the negative externalities of American consumption will impact the people of Ghana more and more. It is necessary for all of the stakeholders in this process to take action immediately.

Journal of Global Affairs

Though much damage has already been done in Accra, both to the environment and to public health, Ghana and the international community must develop ways to minimize the future impact of the e-waste present in Accra and prevent further unregulated dumping and smelting. The waste in the lagoon has the potential to be used for energy in Ghana just as in Switzerland, which could possibly be realized with a small plant that processes the e-waste for precious metals and converts the rest into energy. This would be economically beneficial for Ghana and could potentially employ informal scrap dealers to gather the waste and process it. Regulations are also necessary. Though Ghana has shown some international might by condemning the importation of hazardous waste from Nigeria, the country is hesitant about banning the importation of electronics entirely because of the belief that this will cause the price of electronics within Ghana to â&#x20AC;&#x153;soar.â&#x20AC;?25 If Ghana refuses to ban the import entirely, they must at the very least insist that all electronics sent to

Ghana be reusable. Another way to eliminate this problem in the future is to require electronics manufacturers to discontinue the production of computers and cell phones with toxic chemicals. Though this may increase the initial purchase price, it would certainly decrease the hazards to the environment and health of many individuals. Lastly, the United States must commit to responsible e-waste disposal by ratifying the Basel Convention and regulating the collection of electronics for recycling. Though the problem of e-waste dumping in Accra is very complex, there are many potential solutions. The promotion of individual awareness, national accountability and innovative ways to address the growing heaps of electronic waste are essential to ending this practice and clearing the plumes of black smoke hanging over Accraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most impoverished neighborhoods. Considering the health and environmental consequences associated with informal smelting and

Journal of Global Affairs | Volume 7 | Fall 2011

Purpose SIma Cunningham Here we are paralyzed in change. Every breath you take is a moment more of pain you’ve brought upon the world. Stolen from your soul That must begin and so must end in order to be whole. If not for us tell me then, for whom— Were we conceived upon this Earth in a celestial womb? For as I look upon your face and see the ways it fits in place, A constellation set in space could not exceed the perfectness of what I see before me. Oh say, if not for glory, what all of this is for if nothing will go on. Here we are, still breathing in air. Though dust will soon become me, I’ve found a way to care. You’re here too and shall be for some time— enough for generations come or not if for our crimes of tunnel-vision, capitalism, age of reason, nepotism consumerism, fossil fuels, anthropocentrism of fools. We waste away our lives given to us by light and for all our plight we’ve nothing left to show.

We are Here Lara Blackman

Still we’re here staring down our graves, unsure of whether to leap in or run the other way. The laws are set but still should we trust that Earth was made mortal just like us? For, if it’s so, we must show some pity for her suffering and do our best to change the rest of the whole course of history. It’s easier to see the truth of entropy can give us empathy. And we’ll go on in peace.

Journal of Global Affairs | Volume 7 | Fall 2011

From Damascus with Dignity Rhonda Khalief

Occasionally I catch a whiff of a stranger’s jasmine scented perfume on the commuter train or while weaving my way through a crowded street, and it brings me back to my humble district of Damascus, Midan, Syria. I am able to recall with a fierce vividness the jasmine vines that push their way through the crumbling facades, just as I am able to recall the texture of the walls of my grandmother’s building as I trace my fingers along them, making my way to her door. That simple scent can send me into a whirlwind of memories. I cling to these memories dearly, for they serve as artifacts, establishing a previous experience as a truth. It has only been a couple of months since I returned from Damascus to my suburban home in New York, yet I already feel these artifacts slipping away as the layers of my mind become increasingly hard to excavate. The inability to bridge my current life to my life in Syria has given my memories a fuzzy quality. I try to conjure up the intensity and passion that I felt while in Damascus, but Al-Jazeera reports cannot compare to the experience of watching a revolution unfold. There is a tangible presence to oppression. It is felt in the air, a sort of thickness similar to that of a humid summer day. It is a discomfort visible on the faces of strangers on the street, a common tension binding the lay people together. Along with the suffocating presence of oppression came a boiling frustration. I was asked time and time again upon my return whether I was afraid to have been in Syria during such a brutal period. The truth is, fear becomes an irrelevant emotion in the face of oppression, swept aside to allow frustration and anger to take over. While oppression is far from foreign to the people of Damascus, civil disobedience and the possibility of change had until recently remained unchartered territory. For decades, Syrians have been subjected to a regime built on terror, fake smiles and empty promises. I have visited Damascus numerous times and each trip has been marked by a different form of political and social injustice ranging from internet restrictions to having a relative thrown into jail. Despite the never-ending complaints and struggles discussed behind closed doors, rarely did anyone dare to speak out against the regime. The threat of the dreaded mukhabarat1 lurking at every corner was far too great. However, on this trip I witnessed the breaking point, the point where the people’s desire for justice became greater than the instinct to stand by silently in fear.

It seems that everyone from international leaders to political analysts are obsessed with pinning down this very “breaking point,” the point that triggered the phenomenon now known as the “Arab Spring.” While this uprising can be attributed to devastating economic conditions, oppressive regimes and the lack of basic human rights, the roots of the movement sink straight to the core of human nature. Traced to a single cause, I believe it is the very denial of self-dignity that pushed Arab activists, young and old, to finally join together to send a message loud and clear: “khalas – enough is enough.” When a group of children from Deraa were captured and tortured for writing a popular Tunisian revolutionary slogan in a public space, the people of the small town were effectively denied their selfdignity. When the people took to protesting in a peaceful and nonviolent matter against this injustice, the Assad regime met them with tear gas and armed forces, causing hundreds of deaths. Consequently, the Assad

Journal of Global Affairs

Journal of Global Affairs | Volume 7 | Fall 2011

regime created an aura of despair so strong that Deraaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s people no longer felt they had anything to lose. Heads inflated with rage and feet restless for freedom, they spilled out into the unprotected streets and sparked a fire that spread rapidly throughout Syria in the following weeks. I arrived in Damascus just as the fire of the revolution was starting to spread. I spent the summer listening in on secret meetings, peaking behind draperies to watch innocent men beaten with electric rods and laughing at the governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s absurd propaganda. I listened to the sound of tear gas bombs igniting over lunchtime meals and obliged when I was forced to show personal identification at randomly placed checkpoints. I saw what they saw, heard what they heard and felt what they felt. I agonized with their troubles, cursed the government and worried when a family member was placed behind bars. I engaged in h heated debates with supporters of the Assad regime and became increasingly sad about the division growing within Damascus. For two months I was a full-fledged Syrian. Yet only now, months after my brief dance with the Arab Spring, can I reflect upon the severity of the conditions I experienced. I discovered the resilience of humanity and its capability to persevere despite the harshest of conditions. To date, over 3,500 Syrian civilians have been murdered in the crusade for freedom and justice, and hundreds more have been imprisoned and tortured. Despite this, and in a way, because of this, Syrian activists continue to fight for their right to dignity.

Secret police

Journal of Global Affairs

Finding Paradox in Cuba Emma Young

Young and Marcondes travelled to Cuba in August of 2011 with a grant from the Horn Family Foundation for Environmental Research. Their documentary on urban agriculture in Cuba is currently in post-production.

Havana is a city of great contradictions: it is at once very blighted and very beautiful. Walking through the city’s main center of tourism, downtown Old Havana, we saw crumbling residential buildings juxtaposed with recently renovated colonial architecture, a pillar of the growing tourism industry that opened up after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Cubans enjoy some of the world’s highest levels of education, flourishing arts with great official support and superb athletic and medical training, yet PhDs who speak four languages drive cabs or bartend for extremely low, governmentcontrolled wages. Students receive this top-level education at no expense, yet they have extremely limited access to North American books, literature, media and technology. Cubans are extremely politicized yet lack a voice in their own government. They have access to the highest quality healthcare of nearly anywhere in the world, yet only recently have families again been able to comfortably afford to raise more than one child. Cuba is an extremely fertile island, yet its people still rely on government imports of foreign grains and meat for basic sustenance. A majority of these imports come from the United States and must be purchased with cash rather than credit—like most countries in the world—thanks to the ongoing economic embargo. This has all, however, been changing. Recently, the Cuban government authorized private ownership and sale of homes and cars and talk of a high-speed internet connection from Venezuela has been circulating for some time. Private restaurants operated out of homes have been a mainstay for nearly a decade. We went to Havana to conduct research for and film a documentary about urban agriculture, an increasingly vital and prominent process throughout the island. The practice took root during what is referred to as the “Special Period,”

Journal of Global Affairs

Journal of Global Affairs | Volume 7 | Fall 2011

when the island faced massive food shortages after Soviet imports halted almost overnight. Along the way, we met cooperativists, economists, gardeners, farmers, teachers and cooks who taught us about Cubaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economic, environmental and culinary histories, and the revitalization of food culture and environmentalism that is currently taking place. Our diet was very seasonal and consisted of fried pork, beans, rice and a lot of avocado, with some peppers, cucumbers and many summertime fruits every day for almost a month. The ladies at our favorite corner kitchen that sells cajitas, little boxed meals to go, taught us about comida criolla and the communityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s support for urban agriculture and locallyproduced foods. We visited government-supported herbal medicinal gardens. We spoke with entomopathologists who study the science of using insects and other plants as natural pesticides. Without imports of petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides, most Cubans began to grow food organically by default, drawing upon the education and knowledge of the eldest generation, who have retaught the country how to farm.

Journal of Global Affairs

Women in Construction: A Cross Cultural Dialogue Shraddha Uday Borawake

Women in Construction: A Cross Cultural Dialogue explores the multicultural notion of female identity facilitated through a multi-media conversation using images of and interviews with construction workers in Pune, Maharashtra, India, and New York City, New York, U.S.A. The project engages in a dialogical exploration of the hardships that women construction workers across continents face, as well as women all over the world more generally, particularly the contest between a woman’s responsibilities to her family and her desire to advance her career and be considered equal to men. I first began exploring the lives of women construction workers in India with the intention of making a photo essay that illuminated the state of unorganized exploited labor in a developing country. After spending two months absorbed in the construction field, I became friends with most of these women. Later, upon viewing my images, I felt a paradox in my method. What was I going to achieve by criticizing the act of exploitation illuminated by my photographs? Would my disconnected audience be able to bring about any change by seeing this? The construction workers had graciously allowed me to infiltrate their private lives with my camera. They gave me the power to frame them within the classifying confines of the four corners of the photographic rectangle. How can one individual report the comprehensive truth bereft of her or his cultural, intellectual and gender biases? I began to consider the role of photography and its implications on fair representation, involvement of the subject and inclusion of their voice. Therefore, I took these images of Indian women to women construction workers in New York, who did not need context or classification of facts to understand the viewpoint of a woman working on a construction site. I then showed pictures of the women construction workers in New York to those in India. The participants had many reactions to their contemporaries who experienced vastly disparate realities. On the occasion of recording these reactions, they asked each other many questions about their lives. With these photos and interviews, I have constructed a conversation between these two groups of women using multimedia videos. Included in this article are some excerpts of this dialog.

Journal of Global Affairs

Journal of Global Affairs | Volume 7 | Fall 2011

The Trade Question: Please describe your job.

Indian woman: “I do all the work: sweeping, carrying bricks and mortar on our heads. And we take this material to the mason and he will build the house.” American woman: “I’m a carpenter. I do heavy-duty framing, woodworking, core boards, ceilings, we are locksmiths and we build houses.”

Question: Why did you become a construction worker? Indian woman: “I came to the city to earn money. In [the village of] Kalimati, I used to work in the fields, but you cannot make much doing that. That’s why we came here, to earn and save money.” American woman: “I saw an ad, a NEW [Nontraditional Employment for Women] ad, and what it did was it advertised nontraditional jobs for women. And I saw a woman—I believe it was like on a high-rise building doing construction work—working very hard. She had a harness on. She just looked very tough and I said, ‘You know what? I can do that job. I know I’d be very good at that.’” Most of the construction labor force in Pune is unorganized and consists of indigenous tribal and rural Indians who have migrated from their villages in Chhattisgarh (52%), Bihar (15%) and Madhya Pradesh (13%). The rest come from states such as Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Assam, Rajasthan, Orrisa and Karnataka, according to a survey done by Mobile Creches in 2007-2008.1 The most common reason for this migration is the lack of infrastructural and government support within the rural agrarian sector. Subsequently, many of these migrants are ‘ecological refugees’ displaced from their land by industrial expansion. They find homes in slums or camps that are set up around the construction site.

Discrimination Female construction workers in America have the right to perform the same skilled labor as men. However, women are still socially excluded in this male-dominated work environment. Many of the women

Journal of Global Affairs | Volume 7 | Fall 2011

I interviewed complained about the lack of respect men display towards women. “Its not really funny,” says Donessia, a New York construction worker whom I interviewed, “I’m just saying that I get very upset when I see a lot of things that happen on the construction sites, and some of the ways women are taken advantage of and how we are treated. And maybe I shouldn’t be so upset because there are women in other countries…they have it worse. What am I complaining about?” Even today, organizations like Nontraditional Employment for Women and various women’s unions are working to improve this situation. Still, the rights afforded female construction workers in the United States are much greater than those afforded Indian female construction workers. Indian women construction workers are denied the

Women in Construction | Shraddha Uday Borawake

receive training for and perform skilled labor on construction sites. Occasionally, when the women assist their husbands if they are masons, they are called semi-skilled laborers. Otherwise, women break stone, mix cement, transport brick and clean up. This is called unskilled labor. Upon hearing the work that women are allowed to perform in the United States, the Indian women I met were amazed and one woman remarked, “Good for her. In my community, I am not allowed to do this. I never learned.” When I asked my friend Dharmabai Chavan, “Would you learn these skills?” she replied, “Of course I can learn these skills and perform these jobs. But the men don’t let us do that. So then I say okay. What’s the big deal? If someone says don’t go there, then don’t. What is there in that?”

“I wouldn’t want to live in India,” says Donessia. “I’m sorry. They

Journal of Global Affairs

Motherhood The Indian migrant workers, not only exploited economically but also culturally displaced, bring their entire families to the city, including children and elders. From the crack of dawn to the last minute before sleep, the women are cooking food, bringing water, looking after children and husbands and working hard to contribute to the household’s income. In addition to all of this, many women manage to indulge in handicrafts indigenous to their rural homes. They multitask just like women from all over the world, as they sustain their career, family and culture. At the sites I visited, the workers were mostly mothers with small children or were even pregnant and still working. My friend, Dharmabai Chavan, was nine months pregnant, about to deliver, when I saw her working on the site. I said to her, “Are you crazy? Go home!” She laughed and replied, “I feel bored at home and my feet swell up if I sit around and do nothing. I’ll go home when I am in labor.” She has five children.

Upon hearing this, the American women I interviewed were

Journal of Global Affairs | Volume 7 | Fall 2011

amazed at the strength and tenacity of these Indian women, and asked, “Don’t you fear for the safety of your children?” The Indian women hold that accidents can be avoided if one is careful. Even though there have been incidents of children getting hurt and losing their lives at the sites, most people are unaware, and those who have heard are more cautious. The whole truth is never revealed in interviews; people are wary of the ‘reporter’ with the camera and microphone. The reality is that the Indian women rarely have a choice to work. They focus on their most pressing needs—feeding their families and creating opportunities for their children. As for the American women, although they have made great strides towards attaining equality, their fight continues. Though these two groups of women are worlds apart and their realities are starkly different, they both face forms of oppression and discrimination that exist in both societies to this day. This dialogue has brought to light cross-cultural similarities and sparked a conversation between two groups of women bound by commonalities neither of them expected.

Staff Bios David Elliot Berman Chappaqua, NY Gallatin School of Individualized Study, January 2012 Politics and Globalization Anita Rojas Carroll Carmel, NY Gallatin School of Individualized Study, May 2014 Language, Law and the Creative Urge: The Quest for Identity in Latin America Maggie Carter Dallas, TX Gallatin School of Individualized Study, May 2013 Anthropology of Latin America Gina Damasco Ridgewood, NJ Gallatin School of Individualized Study, May 2015 Masters of Arts in Global Human Rights Law, Policy and International Justice Sarah Dunn Orange County, CA Gallatin School of Individualized Study, May 2014 Global Materialism and Cultural Development Amanda Holpuch Sacramento, CA Gallatin School of Individualized Study, January 2012 Reconstruction of American Journalism Ben Kellerman Palo Alto, CA Gallatin School of Individualized Study, May 2013 International Relations and Environmental Studies Rhonda Khalifeh Chappaqua, NY Gallatin School of Individualized Study, May 2013 The Study of Justice as a Pluralistic Ideal Maggie Pfeiffer Ewing, NJ Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, Fall 2012 Media, Culture and Communications

p Bangle Bracelets Dina Gold

Sai Sumar Toronto, Canada Gallatin School of Individualized Study, May 2015 Human Rights and Fine Art Henry Topper Miami, FL Gallatin School of Individualized Study, May 2015 Philosophy, Politics, & Economics Collen Veldt Jenison, MI Gallatin School of Individualized Study, May 2012 Politics of Religion and Public Policy

Emma Young Jupiter, FL Gallatin School of Individualized Study, May 2012 Anthropology of Food and Creative Nonfiction

Contributor Bios Lara Blackman Randolph, NJ Gallatin School of Individualized Study, May 2015 Photojournalism Shraddha Uday Borawake Pune, Maharashtra India Gallatin School of Individualized Study, January 2012 Interdisciplinary Photographic Studies Andrew Boston Rockville, MD College of Arts and Sciences, May 2012 Social Entrepreneurship Sima Cunningham Chicago, IL Gallatin School of Individualized Study, May 2012 Music and the Arts as Tools for Cross-Cultural Communication Dina Gold New York, NY Gallatin School of Individualized Study, 2015 Master of Arts in Creativity www.dinagold.com. Rachel Hurley Danville, IL Gallatin School of Individualized Study, May 2013 Social Entrepreneurship

p The Friday Mosque Dina Gold

The floor of Old Delhi’s Jama Masjid, the main mosque of the city, is finished in red sandstone with markings that indicate positions during prayers.

Thomaz Marcondes São Paulo, Brazil Gallatin School of Individualized Study, May 2011 Film and Economic Development of Latin America, Emily Pederson Newport, RI Gallatin School of Individualized Study, May 2012 Photography and Human Rights Hillary Pollak Cambridge, MA Gallatin School of Individualized Study, May 2013 Food and Health Justice with a Focus on Women’s Issues

End Notes

Chiapas at Peace 1 Philip Agee, Inside the Company: CIA Diary (New York: Stonehill, 1975). Women in Construction: A Cross Cultural Dialogue 1 “Distress Migration—Identity and Entitlements: A Study on Migrant Construction Workers and the Health Status of their Children in the National Capital Region 2007-2008,” Mobile Creches (2008). Clouds of Smoke over Korle Lagoon 1 Ellen Ruppel Shell, “Trashed,” Audubon 110, no. 3 (2008): pg. 90-97. http://www. audubonmagazine.org/features0805/technology.html 2 Shell, 90-97. 3 Chris Carroll, “High-Tech Trash,” National Geographic, 213 no. 1 (2008). http:// ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/01/high-tech-trash/carroll-text 4 Martin Oteng-Ababio, “E-waste: An Emerging Challenge to Solid Waste Management in Ghana,” International Development Planning Review 32, no. 2 (2010). doi:l0.3828/idpr.2010.02 5 Jennifer-Ann Hoeveler, “International Approaches to Dealing with Electronic Waste,” New Zealand Journal of Environmental Law, no. 13 (2009). https://arch.library. nyu.edu/?base=databases&action=proxy&database=NYU00519&url=http%3A%2F% 2Fvnweb.hwwilsonweb.com%2Fhww%2Fjumpstart.jhtml%3Frecid%3D0bc05f7a67b 1790ef06938c5cc103c1ced9dd8070a8bfc5c64dfba3beec790e631cda5d85a9fb73b%26f mt%3DH 6 Oteng-Ababio. 7 Hoeveler. 8 “Health and Environment: Lead,” US EPA, accessed May 4, 2011. http://www.epa. gov/oaqps001/lead/health.html 9 Oteng-Ababio. 10 Hoeveler. 11 Hoeveler. 12 Larry Greenemeier, “U.S. Lags Behind World with Its Patchwork Approach to Curbing E-Waste,” Scientific American, (2009). http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=electronic-waste-control 13 Hoeveler. 14 Shell. 15 “Current Electronics Recycling Laws in Effect,” National Electronics Recycling Infrastructure Clearinghouse, accessed May 4, 2011. http://www.ecyclingresource.org/ ContentPage.aspx?Pageid=28&ParentID=0 16 “Current Electronics Recycling Laws in Effect.” 17 Carole Gibbs, Edmund F. McGarrell and Mark Axelrod, “Transnational White-collar Crime and Risk: Lessons from the Global Trade in Electronic Waste,” Criminology

p The Sunset On Marine Drive Dina Gold

& Public Policy 9, no. 3. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-9133.2010.00649.x 18 Oteng-Ababio. 19 “Text of the Convention,” Basel Convention, accessed May 4, 2011. http://www.basel. int/text/documents.html 20 “About the Convention,” Basel Convention, accessed May 4, 2011. http://www.basel. int/convention/about.html 21 Shell. 22 Shell. 23 Gibbs. 24 Carroll. 25 Oteng-Ababio.

NOTE The articles that appear in the NYU Gallatin Journal of Global Affairs (JGA) represent the views of a wide-ranging group of students and scholars. They in no way reflect the views of NYU, the Gallatin School of Individualized Study or the JGA. While all reasonable precautions have been taken by the authors and editors to ensure the quality of work, the JGA makes no representations or warranties as to the accuracy or completeness of material within. While we may not agree with all of the observations and diagnoses of our writers, we support their pursuit of serious university-level academic research and the fruits it yields. We hope that the thoughts and arguments found in this journal serve as a stimulus for further debate and discussion.