Transparency

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Photoreportage: Les cent jours

Sommaire Transparency

Varia

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Interview : Coralie Raffenne

24 The Plight of Guest Workers in Lebanon

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Beyond Transparency in Ensuring Environmental Justice

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Internet Transparency

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La Transparence vue par les citoyens chinois

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[Infographics] Worst Governance Today

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Guillaume Levrier

Hu Ching

Cedric Bellet

Shi Wenjia

Guillaume Levrier

Tunisia’s Political Awakening Maria Nagawa

Monitoring Large-Scale Land Acquisitions in Africa Sven Witthoeft

Tamara Moussa

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The Distinctive Features of Palestinian Nationalism

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Female Genital Mutilation in Somalia

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De la démocratie en Amérique ... à une réalité complexe

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Patterns in Irregular Warfare

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Les Révolutions Oranges

Catherine McNally

Emily Thompson

Etienne Lepers

Faisal Abdullah

Paul Laurent

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The Paris Globalist | Vol. 6 Issue 1

Edito With the spread of democracy and the advent of digital recordkeeping, transparency has become a hot concept in international politics. It suggests that people now have an easier time learning about the ways they’re being governed.

In a perfectly transparent world, there wouldn’t be any legal or technical barriers to accessing that kind of information.

Not only does transparency refer to openness, it’s also the subject of an open debate. According to one perspective, greater disclosure helps with exposing corruption and it keeps public officials accountable. But it’s equally the case that personal privacy has eroded along with state secrecy. Governments are under increased scrutiny, at the same time as they’re finding it easier to monitor citizens through their virtual activities.

We at The Paris Globalist chose transparency as this issue’s theme well before it dominated the headlines. The controversy around whistleblower Edward Snowden has brought new attention to the issue of whether governments have a right to collect sensitive data, as well as a duty to inform people of its own behavior.

This issue of The Paris Globalist contains various articles relating to transparency—and some that don’t—in different national contexts. A recurring point is that governments ought to consider alternative forms of data, in addition to making data available.

Our writers have connected this idea to a blend of topics spanning the world, from African land sales to Chinese air quality.

President

Guillaume Levrier

Editor-in-Chief Ben Schenkel

Contributors

Emily Thompson Hu Ching Sven Witthoeft Tamara Moussa Catherine McNally Cedric Bellet Etienne Lepers Faisal Abdullah Maria Nagawa Paul Laurent Guillaume Levrier Shi Wenjia

Photo credit: Guillaume Levrier

Finally, by showcasing these articles, The Paris Globalist intends to encourage transparency within the Sciences Po community. Typically our research doesn’t get communicated to a wider public, in ordinary rather than academic language. This student magazine exists to challenge this tendency and, ideally, to spark conversations about the global trends we study in isolation.

We see The Paris Globalist as a platform for addressing each other, through the problems we each hope to address in society. You might feel compelled to share your interests or perspectives in the next issue. Meanwhile we thank you for reading the work of your classmates and perhaps deciding to engage with it, even after you close this magazine.

The Paris Globalist | Vol. 8 Issue 1

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DOSSIER:TRANSPARENCY DEMOCRACY DOSSIER:

Retailing Sovereignty : The New Stakes of Transparency Coralie Raffenne Interview

Why has the destruction of the living become a characteristic of the postcolonial Rule of Law State ? Has it become a paradigm from which we cannot escape ?

The destruction of life is not a paradigm connected to the rule of law but the expression of its perverted instrumentalisation. The rule of law was implemented in colonial empires, while in the colonies, the exploitation of human life was the source of economic domination. This colonial double standard was maintained in the postcolonial era as no deep questioning in the actual structuring of modern democracies has been entailed by the decolonisation process: the former colonial states of exceptions were prolonged, allowing a continued exploitation of bare life in the form of natural resources. This corrupted expression of the rule of law can only be eradicated through a challenge to its structures in postcolonial democracies. The ruling elites are of course very reluctant to address this task because of the possible undermining of their own status and power that would result from bringing to light the interweaving between democratic institutions and their corrupted doubles.

as a corrupted utopia, a veil concealing the reality of power relations.

Hence, tax heavens are often perceived as anomalous and marginal in the global capitalist system. In reality, they are an essential element in the current functioning of casino capitalism, but also of the wealthy western democracies’ institutions. It is pointless trying to deal with these shadow areas as if they were outside of the functioning of our own power structures. What the problem of tax heavens calls for is a deep questioning and reforms of western democracies, based on some of the Enlightenment’s foundational utopias such as the rule of law. The enduring importance of Politics, even in the face of the prevailing logics of economics, must be stressed; the narratives of globalization have paralyzed and colonized political action and now political utopias. It is high time to break with this tendency. The obstacle to political action is not its content and objectives, but rather its national dimension. Strengthening the political dimension of the European Union is the first step towards overcoming the currently encountered limits of Politics.

The myth of the Rule of Law stands on the domination of the law and the obligation for everyone to submit to it. However, you observe that de facto Rule of Law includes in its heart shadowy areas. Those areas are revealed by globalization. Do we need to erase them ? And if we do, won’t we be lagging behind the main trend ?

The modern state is based on the mythology of the rule of law. The rule of law is also a foundational utopia for modern democracies. I am not attacking the You show that, against « transparrule of law as a utopia which is absolutely ency » ideologies, the labour of most necessary to any political project. I chal- international law experts is to produce lenge this mythology of the rule of law areas protected by shadow, 6

The Paris Globalist | Vol. 8 Issue 1

Photo credit: Guillaume Levrier

DOSSIER: TRANSPARENCY

TRANSPARENCY

La Souveraineté Marchandisée: les nouveaux enjeux de la transparence Interview de Coralie Raffenne

Pourquoi la destruction du vivant est-elle un aspect inhérent au fonctionnement de l’État de droit postcolonial ? Est-ce devenu un paradigme dont on ne peut plus s’échapper ?

La destruction du vivant ne constitue pas un paradigme ou la vérité de l’État de droit mais l’expression de son dévoiement. La construction de l’État de droit colonial s’est faite parallèlement au maintien d’une exploitation des forces vives de ses colonies, maintenues hors du champ des principes et droits démocratiques ; ce système s’est perpétué après la décolonisation et cette exploitation s’est alors recentrée non plus sur le vivant humain mais sur les ressources naturelles. La décolonisation n’a donc pas impliqué de rupture dans la structuration profonde d’un État de droit s’appuyant sur ses sphères d’exception pour assurer sa domination face aux pouvoirs concurrents. Pour rompre avec ce schéma, il faut s’attaquer à cette imbrication historique entre les institutions démocratiques et l’exception délocalisée, illustrée par exemple, par la France-Afrique. Ceci implique nécessairement une certaine résistance de la part des élites dirigeantes.

Le mythe de l’État de droit repose sur l’omniprésence de la règle et l’assujettissement de tous à la respecter. Pourtant vous observez que de facto tous les États de droit ont des zones d’ombre, d’opacité.

Ces zones sont révélées par les interdépendances de la mondialisation.

Faut-il essayer de les réduire ? Ne risque-t-on pas d’être alors séparé du mouvement général ?

L’État de droit est un élément essentiel de la mythologie de l’État moderne.

Je m’attaque à cette mythologie en tant qu’élément de légitimation et de dissim-

ulation du fonctionnement du pouvoir.

L’État de droit constitue aussi une utopie fondamentale du projet des Lumières.

En tant qu’utopie, c’est un moteur essentiel de la construction politique qui me semble toujours d’actualité. Les paradis fiscaux sont souvent présentés comme des anomalies du système alors qu’ils en constituent une partie intégrante, que ce soit au niveau des rouages du capitalisme financier ou du fonctionnement des institutions démocratiques. Il ne suffit pas de s’attaquer aux zones d’ombre comme phénomènes isolés mais de repenser beaucoup plus profondément nos propres démocraties. Cette réflexion politique ne doit être ni paralysée, ni colonisée par une vision économique simplificatrice selon laquelle la mondialisation économique dicterait une mise en conformité des priorités. Ce qui bloque ce projet politique, ce n’est pas sa teneur mais son cadre national. Aujourd’hui plus que jamais il est temps de donner une dimension réellement internationale à la sphère publique et l’UE doit constituer la première pierre de cet édifice.

Vous montrez, contre les idéologies de la « transparence », que le travail et les productions des grands experts du droit international sont des machines à produire de l’opacité.

L’idée de fonder « la transparence » sur la seule « rationalité » de type marché n’était-elle pas déjà source d’opacité ? Surtout après les critiques des limites des rationalismes après la 2° guerre mondiale ?

Le concept de transparence est fortement lié à l’idéologie de marché.

L’efficience des marchés dépend de leur transparence. Le manque d’information entraîne des coûts de transactions et des externalités empêchant l’agent économique de faire un choix optimal.

Les pratiques des marchands de droit, The Paris Globalist | Vol. 8 Issue 1

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DOSSIER: TRANSPARENCY where laws don’t apply. If the « transparency » relies on the sole market rationality, isn’t it in itself a source of opacity ? Especially after the limit of rationalism highlighted after the second world war ?

Transparency is connected to market ideology. To be efficient, markets need to be transparent. Economic agents need to have all the relevant information in order to make rational decisions. Lack of transparency leads to transaction costs and externalities. The bread and butter activity of big accountancy and law firms is indeed very much focused on producing opacity and devices enabling to conceal assets or liabilities. In the Enron case, this was simply done through outright falsification with disastrous consequences. Transparency is of course a very useful principle in the fight against corruption in politics or the abuses of tax avoidance, and in the cooperation between tax administrations. However, democratic control cannot be limited to the requirement of transparency, through media scrutiny or accounting requirements. It requires political courage to implement a system of dissuasive legal sanctions to be administered by an independent judiciary.

The individual seems to have become the mesure of everything, and in particular of this omnipresent notion of « governance ». Shouldn’t we do the exact opposite, as the challenge we’ll have to cope with can’t be anything but global ?

Governance is not about the implementation of a political project but about controlling individual behaviour which constitutes the main concern of power in contemporary liberal democracies. The individual is a subject of rights, but also a rational economic agent and the focus of disciplinary and managerial control. In the general context of neoliberal governmentality, it is no surprise that the main focus remains the individual, although this might not actually entail more individual freedom or happiness. Dealing with environmental issues, in my view, necessitates to break free from this power-knowledge framework because what is required is a coordinated, collective and civic program of action with strong democratic legitimacy based on the common good.

You quote Hannah Arendt, who insisted since 1958 on the necessity to establish a clear distinction between the public and private spheres, and was promoting the idea of « common good ». You do think yourself that the moralisation of politics and international relations need this distinction and the re-establishment of the role of the 8

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State. How can we make this happen ? Is it still possible ?

Current social and environmental stakes are huge and social movements are ever better organised and vociferous. How long can they be ignored? Scandinavian democracies have established within their institutions an effective regulation of conflict of interest. It is a simple principle which can be pragmatically implemented, for instance through the regulation of lobbying. ­Moreover, the principle of separation of interests could be enshrined as a constitutional principle as central to democratic institution as the separation of powers.

Rehabilitating the state is both a condition and a consequence of a clear separation between the public sphere and the private sphere, necessary to the definition of the common good.

As it has been demonstrated by Godefroy and Lascoumes, fighting the excesses of Casino capitalism seems impossible within the current institutional context. Radical changes have to be undertaken, not only on ideological grounds, but also because they are absolutely necessary.

And what can we expect from all the states in the world that don’t respect Rule of Law ?

Many dictators and corrupt rulers are supported by western democracies. The notion of realpolitik is sometimes used to justify the confusion between private and public interests. It is roughly the same problem for tax havens: they are the negative doubles of Western rule of law states. If the fight against corruption and the commodification of sovereignty becomes a priority within rule of law countries, it will necessary spill over “outsourced” corruption.

International law institutions are contested but constitute an existing framework within which the principle of separation of interests should be implemented.

DOSSIER: TRANSPARENCY comme les désignent Yves Dezalay, illustrent les limites de ce concept abstrait de transparence. Le scandale d’Enron montre comme il est simple de s’affranchir d’un contrôle basé uniquement sur la transparence et le marché, en falsifiant quelques documents comptables.

Bien entendu, cela n’exclut pas la nécessité d’imposer la publication de comptes plus lisibles, l’échange d’information fiscale, ou la communication des intérêts économiques particuliers des décideurs politiques. Mais on ne peut pas réduire le contrôle démocratique basé sur le droit à une question de transparence. Cela ne suffira pas à éradiquer les problèmes de corruption, qu’elle soit publique ou privée. Un système de sanctions juridiques musclé devra s’y associer, ce qui implique du courage politique et l’indépendance effective du pouvoir judiciaire.

L’individu semble être devenu la mesure de toute chose, et en particulier de cette notion désormais omniprésente de gouvernance. N’est-ce pas pourtant l’inverse de ce que nous devrions faire, à l’heure où plus que jamais les défis, notamment écologiques, ne peuvent qu’être globaux ?

L’objet de la gouvernance est le contrôle des comportements individuels, préoccupation dominante du pouvoir dans les démocraties libérales contemporaines ; l’individu est à la fois le sujet de droits par excellence, l’agent économique de référence mais aussi l’unité principale du contrôle dans l’ordre disciplinaire ou managérial. Dans le contexte d’une gouvernementalité néolibérale qui se base sur le modèle du marché et de la concurrence entre individu comme le paradigme de toute organisation humaine, il est logique que l’individu soit au centre. Cependant, cela n’est pas nécessairement fait pour contribuer à sa liberté ou à son épanouissement. L’appréhension des enjeux écologiques suppose de rompre profondément avec ce régime de vérité, parce qu’il s’agit de mettre en place une action collective, civique, coordonnée et dont la légitimité démocratique doit être fondée non pas sur le l’intérêt privé mais sur le bien commun.

La Souveraineté Marchandisée par Coralie Raffenne Éditions Armand Colin - 22€

Vous donnez la parole à Hannah Arendt, qui insistait dès 1958 sur la nécessité de bien distinguer sphère publique et sphère privée et qui mettait en avant la notion de « bien commun ». Vous pensez vous-même que la moralisation de la politique et des relations internationales passent par cette distinction et par la réhabilitation du rôle de l’État. Comment allons-nous nous y prendre pour produire un changement aussi radical ? Est-ce encore possible ?

Les enjeux environnementaux et sociaux sont colossaux. Les pressions venues de la société civile ne peuvent que s’amplifier.

Pourra-t-on toujours les ignorer ? Par ailleurs, les démocraties du nord de l’Europe ont su mettre au cœur de leur fonctionnement institutionnel ce principe de séparation des intérêts qu’il faudrait ériger en principe constitutionnel. L’idée est simple mais fondamentale avec des applications tout à fait pragmatiques. Par exemple, la régulation du lobbying me semble une mesure concrète tout à fait pertinente dans ce cadre. La réhabilitation de l’État est à la fois la condition et l’effet de cette séparation entre sphère publique et sphère privée, nécessaire à la définition du bien commun.

Comme le souligne l’ouvrage de Godefroy et Lascoumes, Le Capitalisme Clandestin, la lutte entreprise contre les dérives du capitalisme financier paraît vaine. Elle l’est en effet dans le cadre institutionnel actuel. C’est pourquoi elle appelle les changements radicaux évoqués, non seulement par idéal, mais aussi par nécessité.

Et que peut-il se passer pour tous les États du monde qui ne sont pas des États de droit ?

Bien des dictatures et États corrompus des pays du sud bénéficient du soutien bienveillant des État dits de droit. Cela se justifie parfois par une référence à la realpolitik qui a mon sens peut aussi découler de la confusion des intérêts. Pour les paradis fiscaux, c’est la même chose : ils n’existent que dans les liens entretenus avec les États de droit dont ils constituent les doubles négatifs. Lutter contre la corruption et la marchandisation de la souveraineté dans les États dits de droit aura nécessairement un impact sur la corruption « délocalisée ». Nous disposons par ailleurs d’un système de droit international, certes très imparfait, mais qui a le mérite d’exister. Le principe de séparation des intérêts doit être mis en œuvre au sein de ses institutions. Les structures institutionnelles existent ; il s’agit donc de recentrer leur mission et de les soumettre aux mêmes exigences démocratiques que les structures locales et nationales.

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DOSSIER: DOSSIER: TRANSPARENCY DEMOCRACY

Beyond Transparency

Ensuring Environmental Justice in East Asia

by Hu Ching Transparency in politics, commonly synonymous with openness of information, is often credited with improving governmental accountability. Open knowledge is paramount for checks and balances; an informed citizenry protected by the freedoms of democracy—aided by an independent press—is arguably the strongest arsenal against corruption or official misbehavior.

Governmental transparency can arguably better serve other aspects of societal welfare as well. In Beijing, where air pollution has recently made headlines, an angry populace—from persistent activists to concerned parents who have recently joined the fray—is increasingly vocal in pushing for greater transparency of environmental data. The Chinese government has, for years, denied the severity of pollution in its capital.

Official parlance has from time to time identified smog as fog.

Yet as hospitals get increasingly congested with young children and elderly folk seeking medical attention for pollution-induced respiratory problems, the authorities have come under heavy pressure to introduce new pollution readings at the beginning of this year.

by particulate matter suspended in the lower atmosphere. Two common manmade sources of these minute particles are the coal-burning factories that power China’s economy, and the millions of cars that clog Beijing’s roads. The World Health Organization recommends a safe level of 20 micrograms of PM10 (particulate matter smaller than 10 microns in diameter) per cubic metre of sampled air. The average PM10 reading in the Chinese capital last year—at 120 micrograms—was six times higher, according to the Xinhua news agency.

Increased transparency in the dissemination of official pollution measurements will be welcome in a city which had to ban half of its cars from the roads, in a last-ditch effort to clean its air in time for the 2008 Summer Olympics. The release of more official pollution readings will mean that state authorities can no longer continue to deny the problem.

Residents, generally speaking, hope that the release of information will paves the way for stricter legislative measures to improve air quality.

Lower-income residents are exposed to greater pollution in residential, working, and even shopping environments.

Further pressure has come from the US embassy’s publication of hourly air quality readings on Twitter.

It records them independently using a measuring device on its rooftop.

The embassy’s account has often differed from official data released by Chinese authorities.

The daily smog experienced by Beijing residents is caused largely 10

mist Intelligence Unit’s 2011 Asian Green City Index, Singapore was ranked top.

Singapore’s average PM10 reading for 2008 was 57 micrograms/ cubic metre, which does not strictly meet the WHO’s recommended safe level. But it is considerably lower than that of Beijing.

Given that Singaporeans inhale relatively clean air (arguably the cleanest in Asia, and comparable to European capitals like Vienna and Berlin), they should be a contented lot. Yet it is not widely publicized that people in Singapore don’t all enjoy the same air quality. Beneath the overarching picture of a clean environment underlies great inequality.

This cannot be addressed unless we think harder and deeper about what transparency really entails.

While conducting research in Singapore for my undergraduate dissertation, I found out that adopting different methods of collecting air quality measurements may lead to some astonishing results, with serious policy implications.

After analyzing 3,421 minutes of personally collected air quality data, I concluded that particulate matter, as indicated by particulate number concentration (PNC), varies significantly and consistently across space.

This can happen even between two localities within a close proximity.

In addition, socioeconomic status affects individual exposure to PNC levels. This means that less well-off Singaporeans are exposed to greater levels of pollution than their wealthier counterparts.

Over two thousand miles south of Beijing lies Singapore, another Asian city similarly known for its economic prowess. Unlike Beijing, however, Singapore is worlds apart in terms of environmental quality.

While elite Beijingers might leave their hometown for greener (and cleaner) pastures in Canada or Australia, Singapore attracts wellFor example, residents of a typiqualified expatriates from across the cal public housing estate (in which world with its renowned high-quality 75% of Singaporeans reside) are physical environment. In the Econo- exposed to up to 2.8 times more

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ambient PNC levels than those in a typical private housing estate (typically homes to the better-off).

Public transport users, I found, were exposed to at least 2.9 times higher mean PNC levels than private vehicle motorists. In a country where only the wealthiest can afford private vehicles, we see a recurring pattern of environmental inequality along socioeconomic lines. Lowerincome residents are similarly exposed to greater pollution in residential, working, and even shopping environments.

My study further showed that only weak negative correlations exist between sampled PNC levels and government-published air quality readings. (They are only available in particulate mass—but not number—concentration.) This implies that governmental readings do not adequately inform the public on PNC disparities in environmental quality between the rich and the poor.

These findings not only have serious implications on the issue of environmental justice, but also call us to reconsider our expectations of governmental transparency. In Beijing, demands for transparency call for the release of accurate particulate concentration readings. Yet field data from Singapore show that this is hardly enough.

Government agencies choose the locations of monitoring stations, the number of these monitoring stations, and the metric used to measure air quality. Since, as my study showed, air quality varies considerably across space,

governments can—by placing monitoring stations away from roads and industries, and nearer to nature reserves and beaches—systematically improve the readings without improving actual air quality. Similarly, by adopting the commonly used metric of particulate mass concentration for measurement, and by extrapolating data collected at single sources to represent city-wide air quality, agencies can mask underlying environmental inequalities cast across the physical and socioeconomic landscapes of cities.

I am not arguing that the transparent dissemination of air quality information is not significant. In Beijing, this already represents an important step toward cleaner air. But this is merely the tip of the political transparency iceberg. The methods which government currently use to measure air quality are not cast in stone, as unmalleable laws of nature. Monitoring stations need not be placed or limited to where they currently are. Particulate matter pollution does not have to be measured using mass concentration. Measurement is an intrinsically socially constructed concept; hence its execution may be manipulated by political power.

In demanding greater transparency, we ought to think about what we don’t know and what we need to know. This means questioning the widely accepted conventions, assumptions, and norms that state agencies use to carry out even the mundane measurements of air quality.

China’s government is coming under pressure to measure and share data on air pollution, which is especially serious near coal-burning factories.

Photo credit: Guillaume Levrier

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DOSSIER: TRANSPARENCY

Protests at One’s Keyboard

Giving A Status Update on Internet-Based Activism

by Cedric Bellet In the course of just 15 years, the Internet has become a critical component of modern life. Building on top of an open infrastructure, it has given ordinary people the ability to communicate data, information or knowledge—with huge observable consequences on economic, social, and political life.

The social web allowed ordinary people to share, discuss, rant, and complain. Rapidly, it drew attention as a catalyst for political action.

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between crowd activism and GCS activism, and make a link between the two.

Hooking Up the Public Sphere

The Internet has changed the way activism is carried out—presumably forever. Coordination has become an easier task, and it would be unwise In 1996, 11 percent of the devel- of any social movements or NGOs to oped world and two percent of the ignore the Internet’s potential. world population had access to the Internet. Today, 35 percent of the As an infrastructure, the Internet is world population does. That’s 2.2 bil- open, fast, cheap, and almost global. It lion people, out of whom one billion enables communication with any part are active Facebook users. This is a of the world at an extremely low cost stunning and unprecedented transfor- and a low technical barrier to entry. mation in history.

Then again, this infrastructure would be worthless without the creation, From the perspective of global mostly by private companies, of a set civil society (GCS) theory, the Inter- of tools used daily by ordinary people. net has the potential to help to build Among these are of course Google a virtual public sphere (Öffentlichkeit, (1998), Facebook (2004), Twitter as described by Harbermas). Looking (2006), and countless other websites at the figures, one struggles to resist such as weblogs or wikis. this enthusiasm. The Internet gathers a “crowd” of networked citizens, even Before the advent of social media allowing them to take direct political and Web 2.0, people accessed inforaction. Mainstream examples include mation created by others—but could the social media-led protests around not push information back to websites. the world, such as Moldova’s in 2009 In practice, this older form of the Interand during the Arab Spring. From this net gave NGOs and other traditional perspective, the Internet is a powerful actors of GCS a greater audience tool for drawing together a “crowd” and than what could be achieved through therefore enabling GCS activism. traditional media, like television or the printed press. GCS activism benefitted However, the rise of this crowd from the openness of the infrastrucalso challenges the traditional view. ture, in the sense that, with a server The main argument is that GCS activ- and some computer language knowlism, in the past, was carried out by a edge, they too could become media. small number of actors who owned the normative discourse. Mass collaboraThe Internet’s user base grew in tion has thrown the legitimacy of this a very short time, covering 75 percent discourse into question. of the developed world and 35 percent of the planet’s population in less than First this article will discuss the a generation. Even a decade ago, Internet’s effects on GCS activism, the Internet was nothing compared showing how it has empowered recent to today’s set of tools. The advent protests around the world—and also of social media around 2006 was a challenges tradition. The article’s sec- revolution. It has encouraged social ond part will examine the economics interaction, a feature that had been of the crowd, question the differences missing.

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The social web allowed ordinary people to share, discuss, rant, and complain. Rapidly, it drew attention as a catalyst for political action. In particular, several recent protests worldwide have been coordinated using social media websites. The 2009 protest in Moldova, which led to the ouster of the Communist Party in power, was dubbed by some the “Twitter Revolution.”

Others argue that the Arab Spring was in part a social media production.

Looking Into the Crowd Now, GCS thinkers and actors are faced with the following paradox: They spoke for—and, to some extent, protected—civil society for decades. Yet they do not appear as natural leaders to the individuals comprising the online “crowd.”

Is the crowd, aka “netizens,” synonymous with civil society? This is less disputable in the developed world, where 75 percent of the population has access to the Internet. In comparison, 70 percent of the French population had the right to vote during the 2012 presidential election.

This revolutionary use of Internet caught the attention of many observers, and especially that of the U.S., which was tempted to see itself as the power which empowered civil societies worldwide, in their attempts to overthrow authoritarian or corrupted regimes. According to Clay Shirky [2011], this was visible in Secretary of There are two main reasons why GCS thinkers State Hilary Clinton’s 2010 speech on Internet freedom. are not spiritual leaders to the crowd. First, most of the crowd has never heard of GCS by name. Second, the The skeptics say that: (1) not all the protests organ- crowd is diverse by nature and contains many different ized with social media have been successful (e.g., the views.

2010 Red Shirts movement in Bangkok, which was repressed with violence) and that (2) successful uprisThe rise of the crowd affects the way traditional ings had happened before without the use of social GCS actors can act or speak, too. Under the idea of media (e.g., the 2001 protest in Manila that was coordi- GCS, a small number of actors, mostly NGOs and nated by text messaging). social movement leaders, would speak for the rest of the “unrepresented.” That was both effective and muchTechnology writer Clay Shirky argues that these needed in the previous context. criticisms focus too much on an “instrumental” view of the Internet, as opposed to an “environmental” view Now, however, the rise of the crowd means that of Internet. In the instrumental view, the Internet is individuals can speak for themselves. Practically, a topconsidered a means for statecraft with expected short- down entity such as a NGO or a think tank will have a term effects. In other words, the Internet works as a hard time claiming that it speaks for the crowd when fix for non-democratic or corrupted regimes. An exam- producing a normative discourse. Total legitimacy is not ple is the White House’s promotion of anti-censorship possible under the assumption of a real crowd. software Haystack to show its commitment to pro-democratic regime change in the Middle East. Discussions Why does the online crowd lack cohesion? It has about social media’s failure to make the Green Move- a very complex interconnectedness that makes it diffiment succeed in Iran are biased toward an instrumental cult for any planner to understand fully. Also, this crowd view, too. is a distributed as opposed to a centralized network.

This means information flows in all directions. Third, the In the environmental view, the existence of a strong Internet allows participants to act toward a variety of civil society is a prerequisite for political transformation. goals, not all of which coincide.

The Internet is understood as a long-term investment and is no guarantee of a movement’s success. The “Vanishing” Classifications environmental view will not blame social media for a failed revolution, but focuses on its ability to create a In cognitive science, Daniel Kahneman has coined space where different members of civil society engage the term Wysiati. It means “what you see is all there is,” in a discussion. and it describes how people’s brains are designed to Shirky defends the environmental view as better policy goal. He shows that social media lead to “shared awareness,” even allowing participants to change the balance of power between the state and civil society.

Since they discuss freely with one another, irrespective of their location, this could enable “domestic politics at the global level.” And that is the GCS ideal, fulfilled.

think in terms of what constitutes their environment. In mental computation, something local and concrete will prevail over something distant and hence more vague.

In terms of network dynamics, this bias is also understood as the “vanishing point” theory. Emotionally close issues will usually take priority over international issues. That is to say, most people don’t want to be activists. The crowd is less concerned than GCS organizations with activism on the international stage.

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DOSSIER: TRANSPARENCY Activism is not a shared value among the majority of crowd participants. Two different strategies can be adopted, I think, to resolve the chasm between the crowd’s preferences and the directives of GCS activism: - Adaptation to a market logic - A new GCS narrative The first option consists of influencing the crowd but letting it function autonomously. This weakens the argument saying that GCS actors now have a representativeness problem. This option results in the development of political consumerism strategies, such as fair trade branding or the “RED” trademark, where political activism is conveyed through market signals. This non-invasive approach can result in crowd-funding strategies like Oxfam’s Unwrapped Goat campaign.

These strategies might appear cynical or commercial. They’re effective, however, when they leverage the crowd’s support without forcing an agenda on them. On the other hand, these are lesser forms of activism that do not help with building a global public sphere.

Then there is the possibility of creating a new GCS narrative. That term, when applied to the Internet, conveys an overlapping identification with the crowd. But GCS actors can also stand for the interests of the crowd without necessarily being their representatives.

To me, these two narratives are quite different and contribute to the vagueness of the term GCS. The first narrative, which is more problematic, could be discarded as less relevant than the second one. In fact, I think there are some instances where GCS actors can actually enhance their legitimacy by drawing support (or funds) from the diffuse and fickle Internet crowd.

Joining Forces: The New Battles Ahead

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This article will conclude on some negative aspects of Internet.

Given its role as a space for conflict, the union between Internet leaders and GCS thinkers would lead to a disruption in activism.

The Internet has already turned off some regimes. Where it has been perceived as giving too much liberty to individuals, this liberty has been reduced. At the application level, websites that hosted the public sphere have been forced to make concessions. Twitter said in January of last year that it was ready to accept censorship when ordered to by a country’s law. By contrast, Google dramatically moved out of China after it said it would not censor search results anymore. At the infrastructure level, there have been the SOPA/PIPA and ACTA fights in legislatures. And multiple national censorship tools have been deployed, such as the “Great Firewall” of China.

The restrictive SOPA/PIPA and ACTA measures were challenged by the Western public. But the next wave of conflicts is looming, since the Internet crowd is notorious for challenging authoritarian regimes (provided they’re close enough). Will the crowd have enough power to defend against attacks on its liberty to express itself on the Internet? Or will the crowd need serious backing from GCS actors?

The Internet has been described not only as an object but as a process. It has given an invisible crowd the possibility of discussing and even acting on shared goals at the individual level. With its growing user base, the Internet holds the promise of a global public sphere emerging soon—in which the crowd will be the core element.

Advocates of a public sphere based within the Internet understand that the platform has limits. The Internet does not exist in isolation from traditional activists, nor from politicians afraid of the challenge it brings. It won’t be long before GCS actors seek leadership in the Internet crowd. Without this sort of conver-

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gence, traditional activists and the online crowd might face shutdown.

References - Hacking Society (hackingsociety. us) a meeting of Internet experts gathered by USV, 2012 - Steven Johnson, Future Perfect, 2012 - Gladwell, Why the Next Revolution Won’t Be Tweeted, 2010 - Shirky, Politicial Power of Social Media, 2011 - Baker, Problems in the Theorisation of GCS, 2002 - Kaldor, The Idea of a GCS, 2003

Cedric Bellet is entering his second year in the Paris School of International Affairs.

DOSSIER: TRANSPARENCY

From the Global21 Network : 北京大学 par Shi Wenjia

On critique facilement le gouvernement et la société chinoise sur le manque de transparence et l’incapacité du peuple à se révolter contre des pratiques qui semblent dater d’un autre âge. Mais qui doiton blâmer ? Est-ce c’est la faute de la « grande muraille », des journalistes chinois, ou celle du peuple ?

La « tradition » de ne pas laisser savoir Remontons à la dynastie des Qins . Depuis l’arrivée de Qin Shi Huang au pouvoir, deux modes de propagation de l’information se sont développés : les affiches (réservées aux gens capables de lire) et la communication quotidienne à l’oral par des hérauts. C’est ce dernier mode qui prédomine, dans une population encore majoritairement analphabète. Il est évident que l’empereur ne diffusait que les nouvelles qui le servaient, et cette communication quotidienne était limitée géographiquement.

Contrairement à ce que certains pourraient penser aujourd’hui, cela allait à l’encontre des valeurs traditionnelles confucianistes qui ont toujours eu une grande influence sur l’Histoire et la Culture chinoises. « Laisser faire le peuple quand ils peuvent se charger, les faire savoir quand ils ne peuvent pas faire » a dit Confucius. Informer ses sujets était, dans les écrits de Confucius, le devoir d’un gouvernant, ce qui peut contraster avec certains penseurs occidentaux comme Machiavel. Si les valeurs philosophiques et politiques chinoises étaient très en avance sur leur temps, l’exercice du pouvoir ne

La Transparence en Chine Vue par une étudiante de l’université de Beida

les a pas laissé s’exprimer.

Juste après l’établissement de la Nouvelle Chine, le gouvernement central a contrôlé les informations en usant du même prétexte que celui de Qin Shi Huang. Beaucoup de médias étrangers ont alors critiqué le journalisme chinois comme ne remplissant pas sa vocation.

Mais quelle est-elle ?

La différence essentielle

Différent du le journalisme étranger, le journalisme chinois a son propre caractère. Dans le monde occidental, la plupart des agences de presse, des stations de radiodiffusion ou des stations de télévision appartiennent à des personnes morales ou physiques, avec des liens plus ou moins clairs avec le monde politique. En Chine, au contraire, les médias sont en majorité dirigés par l’État. Certaines agences principales sont même des corps du gouvernement central. Par exemple, l’Agence de Xin Hua, un des plus grands médias officiels de Chine, est dirigée directement par le Conseil des affaires d’Etat. Bien qu’elle soit une agence censée représenter l’opinion publique, elle porte une caractéristique chinoise.

Pour ainsi dire, les journalismes chinois et les médias étrangers ont une intention divergente. En fait et lieu de l’investigation et de la diffusion massive d’informations, elle collecte et répand les nouvelles qui correspondent aux besoins de l’État Chinois. Il est intéressant à ce propos de rappeler qu’en chinois le mot « propagande » n’a pas de connotation péjorative : c’est un traitement de l’information orienté et assumé comme tel. Les articles chinois sont toujours descriptifs, ils portent peu d’analyses et

peu d’opinions personnelles du journaliste.

L’époque de l’invasion de l’information

Tout était parfaitement sous contrôle jusqu’au jour où l’Internet fit son entrée dans la vie quotidienne de centaines de millions de chinois. Ce fut le début d’une époque d’explosion des informations. L’Internet nous donne une espace d’échange des informations, il réduit la distance entre les individus et offre plus d’occasions pour les communications quotidiennes. Par conséquent, la presse devient graduellement un moyen secondaire de diffuser les informations et les masses ont un accès plus facile aux diverses nouvelles et autres faits sociaux.

De nos jours, avec le développement de la technique informatique, de plus en plus de forums sur ligne et de sites sociaux sont crées sur lesquels on partage des informations, donne notre propre opinion et discute vivement sur un sujet (le moyen le plus usité étant encore aujourd’hui weibo).

La « grande muraille » s’est dressée rapidement après l’apparition de l’internet et a pour but d’empêcher l’infiltration culturelle des étrangers. On nous ferme la porte des sources étrangères de peur que trop des informations puissent menacer la stabilité du pays.

Pour le gouvernement, il faut savoir rester aveugle dans certains cas.

Manque de l’esprit critique du peuple

Pourquoi notre gouvernement est-il tellement nerveux que le peuple apprenne de nouvelles

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Cela ne signifie pas que nous n’avons pas besoin de plus de transparence. Mais nous devons d’abord nous donner les moyens d’avoir des yeux clairs capables de distinguer le vrai du faux. Sans esprit critique, la transparence nous aveugle.

Shi Wenjia est étudiante en double-license Français-Sociologie à l’université de Beida.

Map Credit : Atelier de Cartographie Sciences Po

choses? Y a-t-il vraiment un risque d’infiltration culturelle ? Je ne crois pas. Le problème vient de nousmêmes !

Dès l’antiquité chinoise, les gens n’ont pas fait grande attention sur l’esprit critique, on n’a pas encouragé à mettre des faits en question. Si le modèle des mandarins a permis de former des élites très performantes, il n’a pas réussi à créer une éducation de masse.

On a conservé l’habitude de croire ce que disaient des hommes sages, les autorités, comme nous le faisons depuis des millénaires.

C’est ces traditions qui ont rendu les chinois dociles et tolérants au manque d’informations.

Il ne manque pas d’intellectuels en Chine, et ceux-ci ont pris conscience de la faiblesse du peuple, certes éduqué mais selon les opinions du gouvernement. S’appuyant sur l’Internet, ils ont publié des articles et leurs propres opinions pour réveiller le peuple. Ils ont reçu un écho, mais bien vite nous avons vu ses effets pervers. En Août 2012, quand la Chine et le Japon se sont affrontés sur les îles Diao Yu, certains chinois se sont organisés spontanément via les réseaux sociaux et ont lancé des manifestations violentes. Ils n’ont pas hésité à brûler des voitures de police, symbole de l’autorité fédérale de l’État, sous prétexte qu’elles étaient de marque japonaise. Ces incidents étaient ridicules, en particulier pour des îles qui ont somme toute un intérêt négligeable, mais en même temps, ils peuvent refléter la faiblesse actuelle du peuple chinois : les gens ont l’habitude de croire ce qu’on leur présente, et les foules peuvent facilement s’embraser. C’est ainsi pourquoi, à mes yeux, il existe tant de mesures pour nous bloquer quelques sortes d’informations, car on risque de devenir extrémiste en l’absence de l’esprit critique. Une guerre avec le Japon serait catastrophique, et les conflits en Irak et en Afghanistan nous rappellent à quel point l’excitation guerrière des peuples peut être tragique.

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DOSSIER: DOSSIER:TRANSPARENCY DEMOCRACY

Tunisia’s Political Awakening

by Maria Nagawa

I am a Sub-Saharan African who has never been to North Africa—aka, a different Africa. Needless to say, I was more than a little excited when one of my school’s associations organized a trip to Tunisia. I wanted to discover why this place was so different that the Sahara was the least of its divides with the rest of Africa.

My first hurdle was getting a visa.

I couldn’t help but notice that my European colleagues did not need one—yet a Togolese girl was denied one. (I’m from Uganda.) And mine, I got only the evening before the flight.

When we got out of Tunis International Airport on a Sunday morning, we were greeted by sunshine and New York-esque yellow cabs. The chaos and noise made me nostalgic for my home country. It kept us company as we waited half an hour for a bus that never showed. We had to give up and took two dusty taxi vans to our hotel in downtown Tunis. Fortunately, or not, it was right around the corner from the French embassy, which was grotesquely surrounded by barbed wire. The point, I assumed, was to keep out protesters.

The adjoining street had been closed and our driver went down a one-way—the wrong way—to get us to the door of our hotel. Even more intriguing, the tram lines were converted into vehicle and pedestrian routes—yet no trams were hurtling along them or honking people out of 18

the way. This was one of the very few Tunisia might be beautiful—but things that felt “third world” to me: this postcard beauty has long been synchronized chaos. a façade for political and economic deprivation. The unwillingness of the Other than that, Tunis bears Tunisian people to settle for anything minimal resemblance to the Africa less than regime change—despite I know and grew up in. As for infra- their initial goal of protesting the structure, it has not been irrevocably shortage of jobs—is a testament to damaged by the onset of revolution. the widespread bitterness.

And contrary to mainstream media rhetoric, I felt safe everywhere we Why, I asked myself, did the went. The Medina, the largest in the international community stand back Arab world, not only provided us with from the situation for so long? First, a colorful background for beauti- though, I needed to learn the cirful pictures, but also a journey into cumstances behind Tunisia’s recent a world of naturally scented oils, revolution. incense, handmade metalware, carpets and dodgy guides with stories When Mohamed Bouazizi, the about their families. In Sidi Bousaid, young man who sparked the “Arab a city of blue and white streets that Spring,” burnt himself to death in the now sits quietly beside the ocean, picturesque town of Sidi Bousaid, he we watched a sunset at one of the had dreamt of buying a pickup truck seaside terraces. At Monastir, home so he could expand his fruit-selling to a famous mausoleum, we ate at business. He had been working a restaurant empty of patrons, then since he was 12 years old. Accorddragged our feet carefully along the ing to reports following his death, sandy but littered beach.

Bouazizi suffered harassment and corruption at the hands of police and We couldn’t jump out of our municipal officials during his years clothes and into our swimsuits, how- as an informal vendor. He earned ever. None of the women we saw in only $73 a day for his seven-member Tunisia was skimpily clad. Because household. Formalizing his business the sun was hiding stubbornly behind would have taken 55 administrative the clouds, we were happy to climb steps, 142 days, and $3,233. rocks jutting out of the sea. Tunisian boys entertained us with their musThe country’s former leader, Ben cle flaunting and their diving skills. Ali, went to visit Bouazizi as he lay We ended up dancing to traditional dying in the hospital. He allegedly Tunisian (as well as techno) music at brought promises to compensate a seaside bar. the fruit-seller and his family—but

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fled Tunisia days after his death.

The details of Ben Ali’s departure remain sketchy. He has claimed that the head of the presidential guard, General Ali Seriati, tricked him into believing there was an assassination plot, and advised him to go with his family to Saudi Arabia. Ben Ali was supposed to come back alone a few hours later, after the presidential palaces had been secured. To his surprise, the presidential plane had left Jeddah without him. Charges against the general for aiding the first family’s departure were dropped in 2011.

Approximately 338 deaths and 2,174 injuries later, what has become of the Jasmine Revolution?

One thing is clear: prior to the revolution, civil society was nonexistent. Today, by contrast, Tunisia is teeming with associations that perform myriad functions. We spoke to the National Assembly, African Development Bank, and several NGOs (Al Bawsala, Sawty, The Carter Centre, Commission d’Anti Corruption and I-Watch). These NGOs are engaged in youth politicization, election oversight, monitoring of parliament deputies, and the fight

against corruption.

This concern for transparency was a drastic reversal from the Ben Ali era, during which political discourse had been reduced to cautious whispers. I heard that Islamists, by the thousands, had either been in jail, in exile, or hiding.

The rise of the Islamist party, Al-Nahda, is one of the most contentious issues in Tunisia today. The associations and NGOs diverge on this issue, among and within themselves. Some claim that Al-Nahda used charity to bribe voters and that the source of their funding was suspect. (By law, election campaigns in Tunisia cannot receive any funding from foreigners). Others point to the Islamist party’s grass-root campaigning and good attendance at parliamentary meetings—versus the progressive parties’ lethargy and elitism. This dedication, not ideology per se, might have been key to the Islamist party’s growth.

The Tunisian non-political class, however, is disheartened by the official rhetoric that focuses on Tunisia’s identity: secular or Muslim state?

The seven percent youth participa-

tion at elections is testament to such apathy. At a meeting with Tunisia’s national assembly, a young female deputy from Nah’da stated that the West’s fear of Islamism was a sign of intolerance. I hadn’t realized that some of Tunisia’s young people are embracing Islamic norms and seemingly rejecting Western ones.

The previously oppressed politicians may be able to speak out now—but they are not addressing the issues that led Bouazizi to set himself on fire. Unemployment has increased to over 15 percent, while economic growth declined to 2.4% at the end of 2012. A Medina vendor asked me to deliver this message to the outside world: Tunisia is safe and as beautiful as ever. People like him need, more than ever, the tourism money that helped them survive prior to the revolution.

Maria Nagawa (pictured below) is entering her second year in the Master of International Economic Policy program (PSIA).

Photo credit: Jakob Weissinger

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VARIA

A Speculative Safari: Land Acquisitions in Africa

by Sven Witthoeft

Large-scale land acquisitions in developing countries have attracted much attention from the media and the general public in recent years.

This phenomenon, often referred to as “land grabbing” or “land rush,” is frequently criticized as a form of neo-colonization of countries with weak land rights and food-insecure populations. The Economist (2009) described it as the “third wave of outsourcing”: after they outsourced manufacturing, capital-rich countries now outsource the production of food to other countries. However, developing countries’ governments often promote these deals since they hope for beneficial investments that build infrastructure, modernize agriculture, and create employment.

Due to the secrecy surrounding most of these transactions, the issue’s magnitude remains unclear.

Some estimate that between 2000 and November 2011, both the land under negotiation and deals that have already been approved involve more than 200 million hectares worldwide—an area equal to eight times the size of the United Kingdom. In particular, one case had a large echo in the media: in Madagascar, the granting of 1.3 million hectares—half of the island country’s arable land—for a 99-year lease to the South Korean company Daewoo Logistics. This transaction led to popular outrage and the overthrow of the government in early 2009.

The general lack of transparency, and the absence of legally binding international rules, also complicate the monitoring and enforcement of investment contracts.

In more general terms, foreign direct investment (FDI) in agriculture by developed countries is not a new phenomenon and has occurred for decades. However, the current deals differ from the past as they involve larger plots of land, other actors, and

different commodities.

The first thing to note is that the term “land grab” describes no uniform phenomenon, but includes a diversity of plot sizes, resources accessed, and business models. In order to avoid misunderstandings, it is therefore imperative to distinguish between productive investment in land—for instance, providing capital for infrastructure and technology— and the acquisition of land where the property changes hands.

Features of Recent Land Grabbing in Sub-Saharan Africa The lack of official data impairs scientific analysis of the issue.

Instead, many institutions including the World Bank rely on land deal data extracted from media reports.

Moreover, many global organizations—such as the International Land Coalition (ILC) and the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA)–support the online public database Land Matrix. It collects data on land deals from media, government websites, reports by NGOs, and field-based research.

There are some inconsistencies between the Land Matrix downloadable database and the publications based on it, sometimes even within the publications. For this reason, all data should be read skeptically.

They reveal, however, that Africa is the region where most land is transferred. The transactions tend to involve large-scale projects: the median size is 40,000 hectares.

Within Sub-Saharan Africa, data from government inventories show that chronically food-insecure countries are net sellers of farmland. The size of the transactions is considerable if one compares them to the total arable land: about 20 percent of the 20.16m hectares in Sudan,

for example, according to the World Bank (2012). Furthermore, the data reveal that land acquisitions generally tend to concentrate in more fertile areas and those with closer links to markets.

With respect to the type of investors, a shift has occurred with a rising number of government-togovernment transactions and private investors from the financial sector, instead of food processing companies. Many governments explicitly support private-sector acquisitions of farmland abroad—for instance, the “The Abdullah Initiative” for Saudi Agricultural that focuses on strategic staple crops.

According to national inventory data, the majority of land acquisitions are still made by domestic investors.

They account for over 90 percent in Nigeria and more than half of the area allocated in Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Sudan. (Domestic transactions tend to be much smaller than those involving a foreign party, with a median size of only 50 hectares.)

Analysis of West Africa shows that 95 percent of investors are nationals, only 10 percent of whom live abroad.

As these investments do not imply exports of the grown food, the impact on national food security can be beneficial—whereas local smallholder farmers might still be displaced and have their livelihood destroyed.

Drivers Behind This Wave Many factors have contributed to the recent rise in demand for foreign land.

The food price spike in 2008, and the subsequent restriction of exports in many developing countries, have created fears of a shortage in food-importing countries such as Saudi-Arabia or South Korea.

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world prices are not as worrying as the quantitative restrictions that decrease world trade in agricultural commodities. Therefore, export bans have substantially undermined trust in the global food market and have led to the circumvention of trade through direct sourcing in countries with abundant farmland. This trend is likely to persist in emerging economies as the middle-class grows larger and their diet changes. In particular, China is looking for new food sources since it has 20 percent of the world population but only nine percent of the world’s farmland.

Second, as the data on land acquisitions corroborate, biofuel production has contributed to the land rush. Aiming to decrease their reliance on fossil fuels, and hence slow down climate change, many countries have increased the demand for biofuels such as palm oil or sugarcane. In 2009, the European Union set a biofuel target at 10 percent of all transport petrol and diesel consumption by 2020.

The majority of these biofuels need to be imported. Accordingly, some European companies acquired land to grow palm oil in Africa.

Meanwhile, global food companies are increasingly acquiring farmland.

They can extend their value chain into the production stage to benefit from rising commodity prices and decrease fluctuations in supply prices. Apart from these investments by the “classic” players from the food business, financial investors have discovered that such land acquisitions promise high returns due to the projected rise in demand for food and biofuels. This marks a break with the past, because agriculture has historically attracted only a minor fraction of investment.

The speculative nature of the current acquisitions, which build on future increases in prices, seems confirmed by data on the development of acquired lands. Only 21 percent of the reported projects have actually initiated production, often on a smaller scale than originally intended. Moreover, the financial crisis appears to have slowed down land transaction thanks to lower food prices in 2009 and 2010 and a decreased availability of capital.Yet since 2011, prices are soaring again and the FAO Food Price Index is now above its 2008 level because of 22

high prices for sugar and cereals.

Expected Benefits–or Not? Governments have hoped that the acquisition of land by foreign investors would create jobs, benefit local communities, improve infrastructure, and transfer farming technology.

In general, investment in agriculture is desperately needed in African and developing countries: the FAO estimates a need of $30 billion annually to double food production by 2050.

Particularly for Sub-Saharan Africa, yield gaps for major crops, as high as 70 percent, point to a huge potential for increasing output through investment.

Looking at the sheer magnitude of investment, one is inclined to believe in these positive expectations: for instance, the Arab States’ reported investment in Sudan of 7.5 billion in 2010, which equals half of the country’s total investment according to The Economist (2012). Others argue that the transformation of smallholder farms into larger farms promotes the use of technology that creates economies of scale. However, the benefits of largescale farming in Africa are disputed and tend to focus more on cash and high-value crops instead of the staples that dominate in land acquisitions.

It also seems troubling, from an ethical perspective, that many foodinsecure countries such as Ethiopia and Sudan, which depend on food aid, are transferring their agricultural land and exporting deeply needed stable crops to other countries. The aforementioned King Abdullah Initiative commits to exporting a “reasonable percentage” of the grown food, but this share is said to be well above 50 percent.

In fact, the lack of effective land governance and property rights is a major factor for large land acquisitions. It leads to the displacement of smallholder farmers and indigenous populations, and allows investors to acquire land well below its value. Governments in developing countries sell land that they consider being “surplus” or “vacant,” but in most cases, smallholder farmers cultivated this land before. In Sub-Saharan Africa, only about 10 percent of all rural land is subject to statutory titles. Moreover, a

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study in Bangladesh (Spieldoch and Murphy 2009) found that uncultivated land is crucial for grazing, wild foods, and medicinal plants, providing about 65 percent of the food needs of rural families without their own land. These smallholder farmers, particularly women, often live under a system of customary law and are missing a political voice.

Even if farmers have property rights, they face a highly unfavorable bargaining position, which could be alleviated through collective mechanism. Despite recent tenure reforms in many Sub-Saharan countries, those governments, in practice, use coercion or manipulation to access large areas of land. Weak governance also lowers the probability of a successful implementation of projects. Thee secrecy around deals that involve large monetary inflows creates the danger of corruption. This lack of information also prevents accountability and monitoring of compliance by civil society groups.

In addition, the case of Madagascar points to the danger of violent conflicts due to land acquisitions.

To date, international land deals have mostly taken place in a regulatory vacuum Binding international rules are absent, which contributes to the often-detrimental impact on developing country’s populations. The African Union, African Development Bank, and UN Economic Commission for Africa in 2010 presented a “Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa” that aims to help governments incorporate the land sector in the development process.

These recently endorsed voluntary guidelines are a first step to making investments more beneficial for local populations, but further progress is needed. Home countries of investors should monitor the activities of firms and make export credits conditional on the respect of land rights. And increased transparency is necessary to analyze land grabbing and where it’s even happening.

Sven Witthoeft finished the Master in International Economic Policy program (PSIA) earlier this year.

Above: Kenya’s Green Belt Movement is among the forces calling attention to the recent increase in foreign land sales.

Photo credit: Afromusing via Flickr CC

Left: In this UK demonstration, Oxfam makes the point that land grabbing could result in destruction or negelct of arable land.

Photo credit: Oxfam International via Flickr CC

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VARIA

The Plight of Guest Workers in Lebanon: An Unnoticed Minority

by Tamara Moussa Lebanon is one of the top destinations for foreign domestic workers from different origins—everywhere from Sri Lanka to Senegal. Living in severely poor conditions, in some cases earning less than $1 per day, these people find themselves with little choice but to migrate to other countries, seek employment, and send money back to their families.

Despite the hundreds of thousands of migrants coming to Lebanon, their situation has not necessarily improved. The Lebanese government has done little to protect them, if not contributed to their current situation. Most of the migrant domestic workers are unaware of the situations they’ll be facing.

Providing accurate statistics on this issue is a difficult task since most cases are not documented. It wasn’t until recently, when a video leaked over the Internet of an Ethiopian woman getting beaten by a Lebanese man, that the government has become slightly more aware of certain measures that should be taken to ensure the safety of these migrant domestic workers. Even then, the effort has been of little significance.

Traditionally, young Lebanese women coming from rural areas, Palestinian women from the refugee camps, or Syrian and Kurdish women took up domestic work. But in the early ’70s, Filipinas and Sri Lankan women started arriving in Lebanon and competing for this employment. Recruitment agencies were established to bring these women to Lebanon. Over the next decade, migrant women from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Ethiopia gradually took over domestic work from Arab women. In 1997, 39,188 visas were issued for foreigners with almost 40% given to Sri Lankan national alone. In 2009, the number of Ethiopian migrant workers in Lebanon was around 36,638, more than twice the number of Sri Lankan 24

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nationals.

There are several reasons for this shift in nationalities. Coming from extreme poverty, migrant workers have accepted much lower pay rates than the Arab domestic workers. Another reason is Lebanon’s history of sectarianism, highlighted throughout the civil war from 1975 to 1990. As a result of the deepening divide between sects, it became more difficult to hire a Palestinian refugee or a Shiite woman as a domestic worker. A third factor is the degrading connotation now associated with domestic work.

The method by which migrant domestic workers come to Lebanon is based on a sponsorship system.

Local agencies or direct sponsors recruit the migrant domestic workers. Today, according to Human Rights Watch, there are over 500 such agencies registered with the Lebanese Ministry of Labor. The women seeking employment go to agencies in their home country and pay a fee of around $200.

The fees of the Lebanese agencies range between $1,000 and $2,000, depending on the nationality of the migrant domestic worker. (Domestic workers from the Philippines have the highest rate due to their education, training, and level of English.)

With agency recruitment, the sending country provides the women with a contract, while the Lebanese agency provides another contract, drafted in Arabic, for the employer and employee to sign.

Once the employer has paid the bond and signed the contract, s/he must go with a sponsor from the agency to the airport in order to pick up the employee. In the meantime, the migrant domestic worker is issued a 3-month visa with the name of her employer or sponsor. After the domestic worker arrives, the Security General holds her passport until the employer shows up. The pass-

port actually gets transferred to the employer, and the agency keeps a copy with the visa stamped on it.

The responsibilities of the employer—and rights of the employee—are usually outlined in the contract. When applying through an agency, employees sign a contract in their native language before coming to Lebanon. This contract also includes the maximum working hours per day (usually no more than 10), at least 8 hours of consecutive rest per day, at least 24 consecutive hours off work per week, and a paid vacation.

Unfortunately, once in Lebanon, the migrant domestic worker’s previous contract in her homeland is not recognized. She has to sign another contract through her employer’s agency in Lebanon, usually drafted in Arabic, a language the employee can’t read. In most cases, this second contract does not include days off, the payment process, or responsibilities of the employer.

This is where rights are violated on numerous levels. Domestic workers find themselves confined to the house or certain rooms, working over 15 hours a day, with no days off, getting paid irregularly or sometimes not at all. They may receive insufficient food, or be subjects to verbal, physical, and sexual abuse.

They are not made aware of their rights to file complaints; even those who do aren’t taken seriously by the Lebanese court, which almost always favors the employer. These conditions lead to problems within the household, attempts by the employee to run away, and in many cases suicide.

Some live-in migrant domestic workers get lucky and end up with an employer who treats them well. But not many of the domestic workers end up lucky this way. As mentioned earlier, they find themselves in intolerable living conditions

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at least as bad as the poverty they had left. A 2006 book called Labor Abuses in Lebanon, by Ray Jureidini, stated the following figures about migrant domestic workers: 100,000 have been verbally abused, up to 70,000 have been exposed to punishment like captivity or starvation, and 10 to 20,000 have been physically and sexually abused. Refused, delayed, and insufficient payment are the most commonly reported forms of abuse.

Disturbingly, the Lebanese Labor Law excludes migrant domestic workers from its scope. Without a law to protect the rights of these employees, their working conditions are dependent on the contractual agreement with their employer. But this does not guarantee a maximum of working hours and days, as the Labor Law does.

In addition, the contract is drafted in Arabic—which hinders migrants from knowing their rights and makes them vulnerable to exploitation. By giving the employer such power, the employee is faced with a situation bordering on slavery.

What has been done so far to alleviate these harsh conditions?

Various local and international NGOs have helped to raise awareness in the Lebanese community about the treatment of migrant domestic workers. This effort is definitely significant, yet not sufficient for the government to take drastic measures. In fact, the suicide rate of migrant domestic workers has increased over the last decade, with the Lebanese media covering only some cases.

In June 2011, Lebanon voted in favor of the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Convention No. 189

on Decent Work for Domestic Workers. Afterwards, with funding from the European Union and in collaboration with the Lebanese Ministry of Labor, the PROWD project was put into place. Among the PROWD initiatives are a standard contract now under government review, a code of conduct for placement agencies, and even a children’s book series titled “Adam Around the World” meant to introduce Lebanese children to the home cultures of migrant domestic workers.

Are these initiatives enough to alleviate the near-slavery conditions migrant domestic workers are living under? Despite the progress made so far, if Lebanon wishes to see any advancement, drastic measures have to be acted upon.

For one, the draft contract in line with international standards, presented by the ILO, must be integrated into Lebanese law. Other Arab states, such as Jordan and Bahrain, have changed their labor laws to recognize domestic workers. If that were to happen, much of the violence and hardship they experience would be filtered out.

Another suggested reform—information pamphlets—would need to be handed out before the workers’ arrival in Lebanon to be valuable. While going through the recruitment process at home, the domestic workers’ agencies provide them with a 12-day training to prepare them for the work they will be doing in Lebanon. The ILO must work with the domestic workers’ governments and the recruitment agencies to enable proper understanding. The workers must be informed of certain hotlines they may call in case of emer-

gencies or any sort of mistreatment.

Some governments, such as Kenya, have included such information on their embassy’s website, with warnings of what their nationals may face in Lebanon.

An additional way to create a fruitful relationship within the households is to restrict the agencies in Lebanon.

Laws must be revised or created that would screen recruitment agencies.

High fines must be given to illegal agencies not registered in the Lebanese Ministry. Only agencies that pass international standards may remain open. In the same manner that domestic workers should be enlightened and warned about their rights, potential employers should also go through educational sessions that raise their awareness. This may help eliminate the racist mentality, associated with domestic work, widely held in the Lebanese populace.

Migrant domestic workers have often suffered while living in Lebanon.

As the ILO upholds international standards, it should keep exerting pressure on the Lebanese government to follow through with the initiatives outlined so far. Proper investigations must be done in the cases of violations—and transparent records must be kept.

As a final note, the Lebanese courts should not be biased toward their citizens. When a Lebanese employer violates commits a crime against a domestic worker, he/she she must receive a considerable sentence; not just 15 days of imprisonment, while the domestic worker suffers life-long injuries.

Tamara Moussa is entering her second year in the Master in International Security program (PSIA).

Underneath the plastic tarp, according to the photographer, is the body of a deceased Filipina migrant domestic worker who had fallen out of a building in Lebanon.

Photo credit: Matthew Cassell via Flickr CC

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Palestinian Nationalism

Distinctive Features of Its Quest for Recognition

by Catherine McNally Of all the nationalist struggles in modern history, the Palestinian movement is distinct in a number of ways.

To begin with definitions, nationalism is a sense of consciousness revering one nation above others and placing emphasis on the promotion of its interests, as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups. It refers especially to support for national independence and selfdetermination, as in the Palestinian case. Unlike other such movements, Palestinian nationalism is marked particularly by the fact that it completely lacks a state. For this and other reasons, then, it is problematic to compare the Palestinian struggle for self-determination with that of, for instance, the Basques and Chechens, Indians and Irish, Kosovars and Kurds, Quebecois and Tamil, or even the Zionists.

In this article, I will address the special characteristics of Palestinian nationalism with regards to similar movements. First I will explain why the Palestinian and Zionist nationalist movements are overall incomparable. I will then describe some of the features of Palestinian nationalism that make it distinct from other movements: the sacred nature and unique history of the land to which it is attached; the marked evolution of Palestinian nationalism through the 20th century, influenced by strands of the Nahda cultural renaissance; the policies used by the British to control the Palestinian Mandate, which were different from colonial policies elsewhere; the centrality of the Palestinian question to the Arab states and other powers; and the overwhelming U.S. support for the Palestinians’ rivals. All of these features render Palestinian nationalism like no other—and perhaps contribute to the intransigent nature of the Palestinian struggle for statehood today.

As Benedict Anderson has noted, 26

nationalisms are modern expressions of “imagined communities,” derived from specific conditions but at the same time real. This applies to both Arab and Jewish nationalism. However, calling Palestinian nationalism a reaction to Jewish nationalism would be an oversimplification. In addition, one should avoid making too facile comparisons of the two movements, even though the Palestinians were in conflict with the yishuv (Jewish community in Palestine) for control of the same land.

For instance, the yishuv had much stronger external support and greater economic power. They were much more urbanized than the largely rural Palestinian population. The yishuv had another relative advantage: they were dominated by one movement, in contrast to the many political trends percolating within Palestinian Arab society—and they had a more secular society than the Palestinian Arabs.

Establishing Common Ground What did the yeshuv and the Palestinian Arabs value (if not have) in common? Both of their nationalisms are rooted in a land with religious as well as historical significance.

The special nature of this land—the competition over it among Christians, Jews, and Muslims, and the centrality of it to both Palestinian and Zionist nationalism—are factors that have raised the stakes in the Palestinian struggle, making it especially intractable.

As Kramer explains, until Palestine was established as a British Mandate in the 20th century, it was not recognized as an independent geographical or political unit.

Its names, borders, and population changed throughout the centuries.

Still, Palestine—and particularly Jerusalem—has been recognized for more than 1,000 years as a central

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place of origin for the world’s three great religions.

As scholar Henry Laurens describes in La Question de Palestine: L’invention de la Terre sainte, the beginning of the rediscovery of the Holy Land originated with Napoleon’s entry into Palestine in 1799.

This incursion marked the start of the period of European colonization of the Middle East, when the Great Powers went to immense lengths to establish protectorates in the Levant and surrounding areas. Palestine in particular, with its holy cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, among others, became a center of political and military conflict. Palestine was not a distinct entity at the time; the terms “Arab,” “Palestinian,” and “Muslim” were often interchangeable, and well-established Christian and Jewish communities existed in the area.

The land of Palestine changed greatly during the 19th century, due to modernizing reforms by the Ottoman Empire. The first forms of nationalism began to arise in the early 20th century. From 1880 onwards, the rising strength of anti-Semitism in Europe generated increased Jewish nationalism—the most radical form of which was called Zionism. During World War One, the French and the British led hesitant and contradictory policies, trying in vain to please both the Jewish and Muslim sides. From 1919 to 1922, the British began the process of establishing the Palestinian Mandate. After the League of Nations approved the Mandate charter, it became clear that it would be impossible for the British to fulfill their commitments in the region.

By this time, as Laurens explains, the old Holy Land of religions became the new Holy Land of nations. The sacred nature of this land only grew in importance, sparking different conflicts. For instance, it was not until the British established

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Mandatory Palestine that Jerusalem reemerged as a leading city in the region. The British emphasized the sacred nature of Jerusalem—as a peer to Mecca and Medina—in addition to making Jerusalem a political and administrative center.

The special and contested history of this land, the wellspring of Palestinian nationalism, is one distinct aspect of the movement. In addition, unlike other nationalist movements, Palestine’s followed a distinct evolution from the 20th century through today. It was influenced by forces like Arab nationalism, the Nahda cultural renaissance, and struggles against the British and Zionists.

Arab nationalism, which arose in the latter half of the 19th century, was based on three themes: the revival of the Arabic language, the myth of the Arab uprising, and the duplicity of the European colonizing powers.

This Nahda movement tried to model itself on European nationalisms—as well as proposing a new, uniquely Arab nationalism. These two currents—the Nahda renaissance and Islamist movements—began to cross the Arab world in the 19th century.

At the time, Arab nationalists and Islamic activists were not completely opposing forces, but were competing in the same political arena.

With the establishment of the British Mandate in Palestine came the genesis and affirmation of the Palestinian nationalist movement. Indeed, the King-Crane Commission of 1919 had already found an inchoate thirst for the right to self-determination among the Palestinians. The Mandate territorialized the Palestinian Arabs, cutting them away from Greater Syria and the legacy of centuries of history centered on Damascus. After the establishment of the Mandate, the Palestinian Arabs clashed increasingly with the rising number of Jews. Therefore, from the 1920s onward, Palestinian nationalism grew into an increasingly bitter struggle against both the British and Zionist forces.

The British Mandate used a number of policies that were unique to the region. These were designed to preclude the possibility of Palestinian self-government, giving rise to

another distinct aspect of the Palestinian struggle. During the mandatory period, the British tried both to honor the promises made to Zionists and to block Arab unrest, all while maintaining administrative control of the region. Until the Arab Revolt of 1936, British policies attempted to create divisions within the traditional Palestinian leadership, to widen rifts between the urban and rural elites and between the notable families of Jerusalem, and to build counterweights to the Palestinian national movement.

The British also created religious structures to coopt or diminish the power of the Palestinian elite. For instance, in 1921, the British named Hajj Amin al-Husseini as the first Grand Mufti (an invented position who had the power to create fatwas).

They also established a centralized Palestinian political power, or Islamic council, divided between two families of notables, the nationalist Husseini and the less anti-British Nashashibi.

Local notables were coopted by the British, as they were by the Ottomans. The notables’ policies and internal divisions completely handicapped the Palestinian nationalist movement through the 1930s. For example, one of the contradictions of the Palestinian nationalist movement was that it boycotted British institutions. But at the same time, it was willing to compromise with Britain because the Grand Mufti thought that it held the keys to Palestine’s future.

Palestinian nationalism is also unique because of its links with Islamist references, which have fed the movement since its very origins.

After the riots of 1929 and the World Islamic Congress in 1931, the idea began to arise that Palestine was the center of a wide movement of Muslims around the world. The Grand Mufti, who had organized the Congress, began to speak for the first time of “national jihad.” It is logical, then, that the Palestinian Arabs who started the general strike of April 1936, leading to the Arab Revolt, acted in the name of jihad. However, the policies of the notables during the Great Uprising handicapped the Palestinian nationalist cause, causing them to lose Palestine long before

the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948.

With the Lausanne Conference of 1949, where there was a total lack of Palestinian representation, came the birth of the Palestinian question as we know it today—a series of temporary arrangements that have become permanent. This lack of representation continued until the founding of political party Fatah in 1959 and the creation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964.

Thus, from the Nakba to the Naqsa (loss) of the Six-Day War of 1967, the Palestinians disappeared as autonomous actors. After the SixDay War, the Arab states began to devote much stronger military and political attention to the Palestinian question. This is because—in contrast with other nationalist movements—Palestine is a crux of neighboring foreign policies. Treatment of the Palestinian question by various Arab states has ranged from support to outright hostility toward the Palestinians. For instance, many Arab states recognized that the Palestinians could be a destabilizing force and did not necessarily welcome their refugees. As an extreme example, Jordan went so far as to expulse the PLO and Palestinian fighters to Lebanon in 1971. Due to inter-Arab rivalries that continue to the present day, outside recognition of Palestinian nationalist goals has not been sufficient to achieve them.

A final aspect of Palestinian nationalism that sets it apart is the Great Powers’ support for its rivals, which continues to this day. This power imbalance is not mirrored in any other nationalist rivalries.

As Khalidi points out, even now “the Palestinians remain much less powerful than the forces that are preventing them from achieving independent statehood.” This is due partly to strong U.S. support for Israel.

From World War II to the 1990s, the U.S. strongly supported the Israelis over the Palestinians not only due to reasons of faith and identity, but for political, economic, and strategic reasons: Cold War politics, the need to suppress Soviet influence, and the desire to ensure steady access to oil.

In many ways, U.S. policies in the Middle East have been

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a carry-over of Britain’s—the previously dominant power. Both powers consistently favored a self-beneficial, politically convenient situation in Palestine, and both tended to privilege the interests of the Jewish residents over the Arab residents.

The United States has yet to support an independent Arab Palestine through actions—as opposed to rhetoric. Both Britain and the U.S. have been driven by strategic and domestic political concerns in their Palestine policy. These concerns include keeping the land under the control of allies, the domestic gains of supporting Zionism, sympathy for the Zionist cause among politicians and evangelical Christians, and an admirable attempt at compensation for the tragedy of the Holocaust.

Especially after the second intifada began in 2000, there has been increased U.S. resistance to any criticism of Israel’s policies—even as there has been growth in settlementbuilding and an extension of Israeli’s military occupation over the Palestinians. The U.S. has also made support for Israel’s regional influence a crucial part of its Middle East strategy.

The continuity between British and now American backing for Israel is another crucial characteristic that hinders Palestinian nationalism.

All of these influences on Palestinian nationalism (overpowering U.S. support for Israel, the religious dimension, and nearly a century of struggle against colonial rule and a rival nationalist movement) make this movement unique—and also enduring—in comparison with other nationalisms. As Khalidi asks, “Is statehood the destined outcome for a people who, since the early part of the 20th century, had a clearly defined national identity but who have been unable to develop lasting, viable structural forms for it, or to control a national territory in which it can be exercised?” A strong sense of national identity, combined with repeated failures over the decades to obtain statehood, might be the most important feature of Palestinian nationalism of all. And that could end up proving the ultimate advantage for the Palestinians.

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Catherine McNally is entering her second year in the Master of International Human Rights program (PSIA).

In contrast with other nationalist movements, Palestine is a crux of neighboring foreign policies. Treatment of the Palestinian question by various Arab states has ranged from support to outright hostility toward the Palestinians.

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Right: A boy holds up a Palestinian flag in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, a landmark of the Arab Spring movement that did not have a significant impact on the Palestinian question.

Photo credit: Hossam el-Hamalawy via Flickr CC

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What Fate for Female Genital Mutilation in Somalia?

Its Effects on a Woman’s Life, and the Eradication of the Practice

by Emily Thompson Female genital mutilation (FGM) is an integral part of life in Somalia. The majority of Somali women undergo this procedure, as it is deemed necessary for the continuation of traditional culture and women’s role in society.

The practice prepares young girls for their futures as wives and mothers in a patriarchal society and ensures their respect within the community.

However, FGM induces a variety of health and human rights concerns that women face for the span of their whole lives. The custom is excruciatingly painful and its ramifications are experienced in many aspects of a woman’s life, from the damaging procedure itself, to consummation of marriage, to childbirth and beyond.

The international community, as well as some informed Somalis, considers FGM a harmful abuse against women and young girls. Yet its abolition proves to be extremely difficult.

The practice is rooted in the Somali culture; many believe the benefits of FGM far outweigh the negative consequences.

The debate over this tradition is a relatively contemporary one, with awareness of the issue rising during 30

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the 1950s and 1960s. Since then, various governmental agencies and NGOs have worked to eradicate FGM in an attempt to give women and children the opportunity to live safe, healthy lives and to foster greater equality within communities.

Incidence of FGM in Somalia Somalia has one of the highest prevalences of FGM in the world. As a functioning member of a Somali community, a woman must endure the “three feminine pains,” which include: circumcision during adolescence; becoming a wife and the consummation of marriage; and childbirth—which usually occurs multiple times, given Somalia’s high fertility rate. Although these three separate pains define Somali womanhood, the effects of FGM last a lifetime and sometimes result in death.

There have been various national and local efforts, in addition to the international attempts, to eradicate this custom—but the collapse of the Somali government in 1991 has made it nearly impossible to do so without international aid. The country does

not have the institutions, resources, security, or infrastructure to fight something so deeply engrained in society. FGM will not cease to exist in the very near future because of this, even though the international community has established laws and norms against it.

According to the World Bank and the United Nations Population Fund, about 98 percent of the women in Somalia have undergone FGM. Traditionally, circumcision was performed during adolescence; however, modifications in the practice resulted in the lowering of the age of circumcision.

Today the majority of girls who experience FGM are between the ages of four and eleven.

Most of the procedures take place in the home, often with an accompanying party to celebrate this momentous event in a girl’s life.

Guddaay, or traditional circumcisers, typically perform the operation without adequate medical training, anesthesia, or sterile instruments.

However, the amount of circumcisions by professional healthcare providers is becoming more prevalent, especially in urban areas.

Untrained village women in remote areas fulfill the majority of the FGM procedures. These women often work in unsanitary locations, such as the home, causing exposure to unhealthy bacteria. Also, the Guddaay typically use unsterile instruments—including razors, knives, or even broken glass—to complete what is called infibulation, the most aggressive variety of FGM. Despite the unsafe conditions associated with FGM, most local Somalis value the custom and insist on its continuation. For example, the World Health Organization surveyed 1,744 women between the ages of 15 and 49 years old in rural northern Somalia. Ninety percent of the women interviewed view female circumcision as a significant part of society and the idea of womanhood, and hence wish to see its perpetuation. The people of Somalia are

not ignorant to the many negative consequences of FGM, especially infibulation, but they place more value on the positive aspects of the practice.

Contesting FGM’s Necessity The debate regarding FGM largely exists between the major-

preserve virginity before marriage, maintain fidelity, heighten the husband’s sexual pleasure, ensure the husband’s paternity of the children, avoid the failure of not marrying, and escape the dangerous assumptions made about the sexuality of an uncircumcised woman. So a woman who has not experienced FGM could be seen as unmarriable or promiscuous. In this case, the only role available to her—that of wife and mother—vanishes.

Fathers play a large role in this rite of passage because he endures marriage negotiations with the daughter’s potential husband and his family. Her virginity and infibulated genitalia are crucial for the success of such talks. They involve a “brideprice,” or what the potential husband will pay for his future wife.

A girl’s family must guarantee her worthiness of the agreed-upon price, and to evaluate this promise, the suitor and his family have the right to examine the girl’s body before making a final decision.

Without measures to obtain equality for women, female circumcision will allow them to avoid a life of poverty, exclusion, and displacement.

The patriarchal Somali society places great emphasis on fertility and the repression of female sexuality. A woman would be negatively affected if she refused to undergo FGM...Somali people typically believe [...] that her soul will be unclean. ity of the international community, which views the custom as a violation of health and human rights, and the majority of the native Somali population, who consider female circumcision a vital part of a girl’s path to marriage and motherhood. Obviously this separation is not absolute.

Many native Somali men and women oppose the institution of FGM in their country, while a few academics believe that international advocates should not infringe on Somali traditions and values.

Regardless, both sides of the debate provide arguments that are important when considering methods of change.

The proponents of FGM cite the importance of infibulation to a woman’s existence in a culture that requires the practice. The patriarchal Somali society places great emphasis on fertility and the repression of female sexuality. A woman would be negatively affected if she refused to undergo FGM. Aesthetically, the female genitalia are considered dirty and grotesque; Somali people typically believe that if a woman’s genitalia remain as such, her soul will be unclean.

Sexually, the practice is meant to

FGM as a Human Rights Issue

For the international community, and some native Somalis, the negative aspects of FGM eclipse these claims that the practice is necessary.

In their study of FGM in Somalia, the World Bank and the United Nations Population Fund list five of the main fundamental rights that the practice violates: “the right to life, liberty, and the security of person”; “the right to non-discrimination”; “the right to choose (many children are circumcised without their consent and before they attain the age of majority)”; “the right to health and bodily integrity”; and “the right to be free from harmful practice that are prejudicial to a child’s welfare.”

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had the opportunity to benefit from them. The tradition of female circumcision maybe be widely accepted in Somali society, but international advocates for the elimination of the custom see it as child abuse and violence against women.

The health concerns relating to this practice are seemingly endless.

Women and children could experience infections, chronic pain, severe bleeding, respiratory problems, and sometimes death. Also, because the Guddaay typically use unsterilized, shared instruments, the girls are exposed to bacteria and infections such as tetanus and HIV/AIDS. The health concerns that result from the practice can last the victims’ entire lifetimes.

FGM also causes women to lose their ability to experience sexual gratification. The clitoris is deemed foul and unnecessary because its primary function is to provide pleasure, a feeling Somali society attempts to prevent in women in order to preserve purity and loyalty.

Instead, infibulated women experience pain and discomfort during the act of intercourse due to scar tissue and lack of elasticity.

The effects of FGM on women and children during childbirth is another reason the international community condemns the custom.

First, because the mother was exposed to bacteria and infections during the circumcision, the fetus will be exposed to them as well. Also, the reproductive tract often gets so damaged that the child would have a difficult time successfully travelling through the birth canal. In order for the child to leave the mother’s body, she must be “defibulated” once again.

Those who argue against FGM emphasize the inferior status into which the practice forces African women. These negative effects of FGM have encouraged international institutions to advocate for them, to give them the right to a life free of pain and patriarchy.

because lessening the social and economic implications of a ban on FGM takes time and strategic methods involving the local people. Some approaches used by international organizations have been seen as disrespectful to the native communities and forceful in nature, causing the people to defy these demands.

Although the movement seems to remain at a standstill, last year was productive for the fight against FGM. First, Somalia’s new constitution bans FGM, stating that “circumcision of girls is a cruel and degrading customary practice, and

is tantamount to torture. The circumcision of girls is prohibited.”

Just because there is a ban on the practice, this does not mean the government will have the ability to enforce this ban, considering the percentage of women who undergo the procedure. International NGOs have plans to aid the Somali government in this feat with funding and education. And this past November, a United Nations human rights committee called for a global ban on the FGM custom as well.

Emily Thompson is entering her second year in the Master in International Human Rights program (PSIA).

Will the Practice End?

The eradication process has been largely unsuccessful thus far,

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Photo credit: Scallop Holden via Flicker CC

De la Démocratie en Amérique ... au présent

Photoreportage

by Etienne Lepers

“Tell me what democracy looks like!” conscious population that goes en “This is what democracy looks like!” masse to the polls to choose their destiny, a population delivered from One sentence, a battle cry, an obscurantism and tyranny.

This is certainly what democracy every-morning encouragement to go knocking on people’s doors in the should look like. And it’s precisely heart of the U.S. presidential cam- what numerous thinkers, activists, and politicians were fighting for cenpaign: Ohio.

One sentence shouted by 160 turies ago.

What is certainly exceptional in students of Columbia University, who came here to ensure reelec- America is the undiminished power tion, to eat the same pizza for four of the work on the ground. This kind days, and to meet different people of activism is said to be dead in than their usual rich neighbors. Did Europe. But the four days before the we really believe in what we were latest presidential election, Cleveland revealed an optimistic and shouting? Yes, more than ever.

The 2008 campaign was a huge fantastic belief: volunteering to consuccess in terms of participation, vince people at the local scale made with turnout reaching some 58 per- a difference in the larger outcome— cent. It made sense, then, to knock an ideal of democratic action.

In the “staging location” where on doors, discuss the issues with people, and encourage them to go we were working, dozens of locals to the polls. We wanted ordinary came very early in the morning to people to be interested in politics, in brave the cold weather and knock who is governing them. We wanted on doors all day long. Some were people to use their right as citi- also coming from very far places. zens. We wanted an educated and “Three days ago I had a nightmare

that Obama will lose by 20 votes in Ohio. I took the first plane from California to Cleveland, the day after, and arrived here,” explained an old woman driving us to the canvassing site. “I’m from Chicago; my daughter pushed me to come and help, so I just drove and got there,” said another.

Volunteers like them and us were assigned a “turf” containing up to 100 precise addresses of people we needed to get to the polls. They were expected to vote for Obama, because of their party affiliation. We also knew their names, ages, and number of people in the house. After a discussion (or trying for one), volunteers fill out whether the person is at home, supports Obama, intends to vote, and knows when and how.

We also recorded whether the residents will vote for Senator X—and whether, by any chance, they had time to volunteer.

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“In Ohio, each vote counts,” we kept hearing. Someone is “not home” during one canvasser’s tour?

In that case, volunteers are sent to the same door for a second and even a third round until the person can be reached. Someone is a Latino and only speaks Spanish? The Obama campaign provided special Spanish brochures in Ohio, as well as bilingual canvassers. Some people are too old or too sick to go to the polls?

They could book a free ride by giving their phone number—and an army of volunteers drove them on Election Day. Canvassing didn’t just involve taking people by the hand and physically bringing them to the polls. It was also supposed to make people interested in civics. We gave information about how to vote when people didn’t know how to register or where to report.

In other states, Obama’s canvassers used iPads to capture every detail of the discussions with potential voters. This also allowed people to directly register online for the elections. Overall, the turfs were full of diverse information on the U.S. citizens entering the big electoral machine.

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This past year was indeed the real entrance into the world of big data. Those data have since been manipulated by teams of behavioral psychologists, mathematicians, and computer scientists. They will help political activists build the next strategies and speeches, so they resonate with a large share of the public. Crossing the data from previous elections, and the more qualitative data from canvassers, will allow political candidates to locate the so-called undecided voters, to know their preferences, and take them into account while campaigning.

Specifically, two pieces of software were used by the candidates: Orca for Romney and Narwhal for Obama. (Yes, both were named after sea mammals.) The former was a web app aimed at counting and describing voters as they left the polling location. The data from the latter allowed canvassers to avoid bothering committed voters— and, second, to switch over email lists from donors to volunteers when the desired amount of funding has been reached.

By 2016, technology will improve and the software will be even more

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carefully designed. Merging the power of volunteers and the power of technology to target the right people will certainly be a priority in America’s next elections.

What struck me, after my time in Cleveland, is a paradox among three elements: 1) these optimistic, impressive, and extraordinary volunteers we met, who hope for change and believe in democracy; 2) the way they are included in this huge electoral machine; 3) and some oldfashioned aberrations that persist (for example, elections held on a working day, different requirements across states, various barriers to reaching a ballot station).

Were we, as volunteers, contributing to the fulfillment of democracy?

Was it “what democracy looks like”?

In a sense, yes: maybe in an American sense. But beyond our joy for Obama’s second victory, we—the two foreigners in this trip—left Ohio only partially satisfied.

Étienne Lepers is a dual-degree student based in Sciences Po Paris.

This series of photos was taken during the author’s 2012 trip to Ohio, where he volunteered for the Obama reelection campaign and admired the use of technology to mobilize potential voters.

Photo credit: Étienne Lepers

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Civilian combatants have transformed from a seldom-seen paradox into an increasingly common factor in modern warfare.

Photo credit: Jon-Luke by Flickr CC

In modern warfare, the “exceptions” are happening more often.

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Patterns in Irregular Warfare

by Faisal Abdullah

In describing the vast conquests of the early Arab Empire, at the dawn of Islam, Fred McGraw Donner links their success to ideology. The University of Chicago professor, a leading scholar of Islamic history, suggests that other civilizations at the time (Byzantine and Persian) were more advanced militarily and technologically. So the primary reason for the success of the Arab armies was their ideological coherence. It was neither weapons nor terrain that allowed the Bedouin armies, originating in the Arabian Peninsula, to establish the largest pre-modern empire.

were often the conventional decisive factor in regular warfare. But as David L. Grange wrote in 2007, for the National Strategy Forum Review, “irregular war is unconventional” at its core. It renders useless the realist argument favoring the constant improvement of arms.

The underlying basis of conventional warfare, like realism, is summed up in the infamous quote of Thucydides in the Melian Dialogue: “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” Conventional warfare has traditionally focused on defending or expanding one’s territory. This created an emphasis on land and naval forces, and a historical competition amongst powers in the realm of military technology.

The spread of Islam is one of many examples—stretching up to the present—of the power of thought and the use of ideology as a preferred “weapon of choice.” People are capable of manipulation, and once swayed, A limited understanding of warfare their dedication can prove longer-last- relies completely on the concept that ing and more “price-effective” than a warfare is an exclusive domain of the regular weapon. Virtually free. state. In this view, only nation-states can conduct war. In terms of civil wars Irregular war, which David Ben- or rebellions, it is presumed that the est in his British Leaders and Irregular “stronger” side prevails.

Warfare defines as “war among the people,” reminds military planners In modern warfare, the “excepthat strategies shouldn’t focus solely tions” are happening more often. on improving technology. This does Since 1946, of the over 350 military not always translate directly to guar- conflicts, only 44 have been formalanteed military success. Weapons ized wars between nation-states. As

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irregular warfare becomes more of a norm, tacticians, strategists and planners should take a more balanced approach to the future of military conduct. Without completely neglecting preparation for conventional threats, leaders would be smart to increase their knowledge of “counterinsurgency” (methods against irregular warfare).

Irregular warfare, despite its improvised origins in hit-and-run tactics and “guerrilla warfare,” has evolved into a much more serious force that cannot be easily contained. Nor can it be destroyed with an awesome display of force by a much larger, more organized and more technologically advanced power. The battlefield of irregular warfare is no longer solely on land, sea and sky; it is also in the minds of populations. Championed and theorized formally by Mao, insurgency and guerrilla warfare have been the methods of choice for technologically-backwards groups with radically differing ideologies.

Anti-government militant groups have adopted and operated various insurgencies that have outlasted and tired many a world power. The 21st century is full of examples of technologically advanced military powers experiencing extreme difficulty, even indirect defeat, at the hands of irregular guerillas: the French in Algeria, the Americans in Vietnam, the Israelis against the First and Second Intifada, Russians in Chechnya, and most recently, for over a decade, the U.S.-led NATO efforts against “terrorism” (as practiced by Islamic fundamentalist groups).

There are, of course, arguments suggesting insurgent groups are only capable of being decisively victorious against modern militaries because the latter adhere to what one could call the protocols of war. They include restricting the legitimate kills in “war” to combatants and not civilians. Insurgents and practitioners of guerilla warfare might not hold similar definitions, blurring the line between combatants and civilians. Meanwhile, the high-tech military forces of nation-

states will continue obeying these protocols for a variety of social and political reasons. Also, technological prowess does also not address what is credited as the essence of irregular warfare: people.

On the other hand, technologically advanced modern militaries invest heavily not only in technology and equipment, but in the training and professionalization of their armed forces. A single loss for a formally structured military is a greater From Mao’s cultural revolution, loss, in terms of the training costs, to the British “hearts and minds” than a single loss of an insurgent or strategy, first insurgents and now guerrilla. even conventional military powers recognize the need to control the Overinvestment in military techminds of the populace. No amount nology—while ignoring the potential of advanced technology in the world for counterinsurgency—leads to can compete with the human mind. unpreparedness for certain styles of It is, at the same time, a weapon attack. Overinvestment in counterand the battlefield itself in irregular insurgency, others argue, leads to warfare. Each person in the conflict conventional vulnerability. A fine balzone is a potential combatant or a ance must be found and maintained. potential supporter, which confuses the traditional methods for distinMilitary technology will conguishing between the two. Violence tinue to advance not only because against one’s own supporters, to of demand from national defense incite fear and love, is becoming sectors, but for economic reasons more commonplace and also blurs as well. Yet it is not foreseeable that the lines in warfare. advanced military technology will be able to successfully fight ideology.

Current strategies for fighting “The pen is mightier than the sword,” terrorism have largely failed, on as Edward Bulwer-Lytton claimed in the part of countries like America, his 1839 work Richelieu. Translated to win the “hearts and minds” of into 21st-century terms, the power the average Muslim. One can see of an idea is often stronger than the a direct correlation between this power of technology. effort and the rise in support for Islamist movements—and even revolutions—across North Africa and into the Middle East.

There is an economic angle as Faisal Abdullah is entering his secwell. Ideologies spread by word of ond year in the Master in Internamouth, preaching, family and cul- tional Security program (PSIA). tural ties. People so dedicated to an ideology that they are willing to die for it, using a simple homemade weapon, are easier to “produce” (and easier to replace) than tanks, planes, drones, specially trained soldiers.

This disposability of people, as unpleasant as that concept may be, is a great advantage to irregular forces. That factor is completely unrelated to the technology of their adversaries. Irregular forces fighting on their home fronts are theoretically constrained only by the number of inhabitants. That is, with the right ideology and propaganda, anyone could become an irregular militant for a given cause.

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Les Révolutions Oranges : Une Rétrospective

by Paul Laurent

Photo credit: Saritarobinson via Flickr CC

L’Eurasie est la clé de voûte de la géopolitique mondiale. Quand les révolutions colorées éclatent dans les nouvelles républiques du giron russe, l’enjeu dépasse largement celui de la démocratie et des libertés individuelles. Sur fond de financements américains et d’appétits énergétiques, premier acte d’une bataille larvée entre tout-puissants pour la suprématie régionale.

Auréolée de sa célèbre tresse blonde, mitaines et écharpe orange, le poing levé sous les flocons, Ioulia Timochenko exulte. Le soir de Noël 2004, la coalition pro-occidentale de Viktor Iouchtchenko vient de remporter la présidentielle en Ukraine.

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Le spectre russe quitte pour un temps le palais Maryinski : avec Leonid Koutchma c’est toute la stratégie de rapprochement avec Moscou que le peuple a rejeté : le récent projet d’espace économique unique avec la Russie, la Biélorussie et le Kazakhstan, les accords bilatéraux sur le gaz et les oléoducs ou le rapprochement avec la CEI. L’ère pro-occidentale qui s’ouvre alors autour de la mer noire oriente ces bastions de l’ex-URSS, le GUAM (Géorgie – Ukraine – Azerbaïdjan – Moldavie), vers l’UE et l’OTAN, vers la mise en place de réformes libérales et démocratiques et vers la lutte contre la corruption et le népotisme.

Mais 5 ans plus tard, la parenthèse se ferme : Viktor Ianoukovitch, le

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poulain du leader déchu de 2005 découvre le pouvoir et la langue ukrainienne, claque la porte occidentale et rouvre les négociations avec la Russie (reconnaissance du russe comme langue régionale en juillet dernier). La révolution orange avec ses espoirs et ses désillusions, sa tresse blonde et ses mitaines disparaît au fond de la cellule 260 de la prison de Lukyanivka.

Cette trajectoire, c’est à peu près celle qu’ont connue tous les pays qui s’étaient pris au jeu démocratique. Ce qu’on appela par gourmandise sémantique « les révolutions colorées » (vice lexical étendu jusqu’au Moyen-Orient, avec les révolutions pourpre, verte

et bleue...) caractérise les renversements des pouvoirs autoritaires en place, en Ukraine mais aussi en Yougolslavie en 2001 (révolution de velours), en Géorgie en 2003 (révolution des roses) et au Kirghizstan en 2005 (révolution des tulipes) à travers des processus d’une similitude surprenante : au moment où les régimes en place tentaient de se pérenniser par une succession en grandes pompes ou en secret sous les oripeaux de la démocratie, des fronts d’opposition composés de jeunes et d’ONG se sont formés pour contester les fraudes commises lors des scrutins avant de renverser (plus ou moins) pacifiquement les leaders en place, Chevardnadze en Géorgie, Akaiev au Kirghizstan. S’en suit quelques années de férule pro-occidentale, pro-européenne et pro-otan avant que le désenchantement de la foule fasse dans les urnes ce qu’elle avait fait quelques années plus tôt devant les palais présidentiels : le 12 octobre 2012, c’est le parti d’opposition le rêve géorgien qui remporte les élections législatives sous la houlette d’Ivanichvili. Mais il faut rester mesurer, plus que la pro-occidentalisation c’est un pouvoir rongé par la démesure (grands travaux), les scandales (justice expéditive, violences en prison), l’usure du pouvoir et une situation économique délétère (chômage de masse) que la foule a sanctionnés. Quant à savoir si le nouveau premier ministre opérera un rapprochement avec Moscou il est encore trop tôt pour le dire. Au Kirghizstan, la fracture consommée entre un sud à majorité ouzbèkes et islamiques et un nord orthodoxes et pro-russe paralyse littéralement le pays et les institutions ; Bakiev, l’impopulaire, en proie à quelques penchants autoritaires et népotiques imite Akaiev, son prédécesseur, dans la fuite.. Les roses et les tulipes sont fanées ; quelques pétales jonchent encore les prisons et les partis d’opposition, les livres d’histoire et les espoirs américains.

On pourrait voir dans cette chronologie les prémices douloureux de la construction de républiques démocratiques, secouées par des spasmes autocratiques et des réveils nationalistes. Si les facteurs sociaux

et économiques ont joué un rôle primordial dans cette valse des régimes depuis l’effondrement de l’ère soviétique, ces républiques voient pourtant en toile de fond se réveiller sur leur territoire l’affrontement géopolitique centenaire entre EtatsUnis et Russie. Zbigniew Brzezinski, le célèbre conseiller diplomatique réaliste de Carter puis Obama voyait dans l’Eurasie l’«échiquier sur lequel se déroule la lutte pour la primauté mondiale ». « Le but de l’Amérique, depuis la fin de la guerre froide est de refouler la Russie et de contenir la Chine. Depuis 1990, les américains ont ainsi fait glisser les frontières de l’OTAN à l’est. Les pays d’Europe centrale et les pays baltes ont été intégrés. L’objectif maintenant est d’intégrer l’Ukraine, la Géorgie, l’Azerbaidjan, et sans doute plus tard, les Etats musulmans de l’exURSS dans l’alliance atlantiste » explique Aymeric Chauprade dans Chronique du choc des civilisations.

Des enjeux tout autant énergétiques par ailleurs que géopolitiques, les Etats-Unis cherchant à assurer et sécuriser l’approvisionnement en pétrole et en gaz sans lequel les marchés mondiaux offriraient un nouveau 17 octobre 1973. Et puis biensûr la démocratie qu’ils promeuvent avec un soft power de plus en plus sophistiqué. « One day, this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world » exorgue Bush.

Les révolutions colorées ont donc été le premier acte de cette stratégie de containment moderne : par le financement et la formation des leaders des groupes qui ont aiguillé la foule (Kmara, Pora !, KelKel) lors des soulèvements des « combattants de la liberté » comme on les appelle à Washington, ils ont activement participé au renversement des proches de Moscou. La stratégie américaine, sous couvert de promotion démocratique « à l’occidentale » suit 3 grands axes.

1. La formation des forces d’opposition : outre les figures montantes des révolutions comme Saakachvili ou Kataryna Ioutchenko, de nombreux opposants se voient offrir des formations aux Etats-Unis (MBA) ou dans les établissements

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implantés directement dans les foyers de contestation (6 rien qu’à Bichkek), des bourses d’études, des séminaires sur les théories pacifistes de Gene Sharp, Machiavel de la non-violence, des stages d’entraînement peu avant les élections, etc. La clé en 3 points pour renverser un pouvoir ? Un slogan et un symbole fort (le poing yougoslave, l’orange ukrainien, la tulipe jaune kirghize), une main-tendue vers les forces de l’ordre et les manifestations publiques de mobilisation.

Et ce marketing politique porte ses fruits.

2. La mobilisation de l’opinion publique : les Etats-Unis ont financé certains journaux d’opposition jusqu’à en assurer l’ impression comme au Kirghizstan, via des ONG très bien implantées, telle Freedom House ou l’USAID. Ils diffusent également des modes d’emploi pour renverser un régime : De la dictature à la démocratie, de l’Albert Einstein institute, bible de tous opposants d’Asie centrale ou encore Bringing down a dictator, film produit par Steve York, qui montre par étapes la chute du gouvernement de Milosevic.

3. La création d’un mouvement international : Par l’invitation des opposants kirghizes en Ukraine pendant la vague orange, par la formation des leaders de la vague orange par les opposants yougoslaves, les américains ont tenté de créer un vaste mouvement transnational d’opposition aux régimes pro-russes.

Toute l’architecture financière de cette politique extérieure américaine repose sur deux piliers, un pilier gouvernemental et un pilier nonétatique. C’est par l’intermédiaire de l’USAID, bras humanitaire de la politique internationale américaine, et du NED (national Endowment for Democraty), organisme paraétatique, que le gouvernement aurait aidé les opposants, que ce soit dans la logistique (tentes, nourriture) ou la formation, jusqu’à rémunérer certains leaders à hauteur de 3000 euros par mois comme le révèle l’institut Voltaire. Deux organismes, alimentés par le NED aurait ainsi fait

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Photo credits: Saritarobinson and USFlashMap via Flickr CC

le lien entre ce financement fédéral et les mouvements libéraux et ONG sur place : le IRI des républicains et le NDI des démocrates, dirigés respectivement par Mc Cain et Albright. Outre la Freedom house, les sources privées ramènent le plus souvent à la fondation Soros fondée par l’homme du même nom, qui par l’Open Society Institute aurait contribué aux financements des mouvements de jeunes et des sondages à la sortie des urnes qui embrasèrent les rues.

Mais l’échec des soulèvements embryonnaires en Biélarussie et en Ouzbékistan et le retour d’une ligne prorusse après quelques années témoignent du retour en force de la Russie dans la région.

Et c’est la guerre de 2008 entre la Russie et la Géorgie qui rappela violemment aux Etats-Unis que Moscou ne comptait pas se laisser faire. Pour rappel, les géorgiens tentèrent de mettre fin aux tensions séparatistes secouant l’Abkhazie et l’Ossétie du Sud, avec l’appui des Etats-Unis malgré leur soutien à l’indépendance kosovar six mois plus tôt, faisant la sourde oreille aux menaces de la Russie, avant que celle-ci ne riposte brusque-

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ment. Cette dernière sortit renforcée du conflit : victoire militaire, victoire politique, signal fort envoyé au reste du monde. C’est une Russie qui revient sur le devant de la scène, qui retouve goût à la puissance, avec des réservoirs énergétiques considérables que Poutine reprit aux oligarques, un rapprochement avec la Chine avec l’OCS, une industrie militaire puissante et une diplomatie agressive.

L’entente cordiale entre voisins du Bering n’est qu’une façade. En 2005 à Bratislava, c’est en marge de la rencontre pour la réconciliation entre G.W Bush et Vladimir Poutine que la délégation américaine reçoit à l’hôtel Marriott les leaders des groupes qui ont fait triompher les révolutions colorées : Ivan Marovic leader de Otpor ! qui renversa Milosevic, Giga Bokeria leader de Kmara, Vladislav kaskiv leader de la révolution orange. Les batailles pour la démocratie dans ces jeunes républiques d’Asie centrale, que la diplomatie occidentale qualifia de « révolutions de couleur », sont pour les Etats-Unis une première pierre dans la stratégie de containment russe et même chinois à long terme (d’où l’intérêt du petit territoire kirghize). L’Ukraine, pour

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fermer la Mediterranée, la Géorgie, pour le projet de l’oléoduc BTC qui contourne la Russie, ces républiques d’Asie centrale et occidentale recèlent d’intérêts géopolitiques majeurs. Clin d’oeil au conflit du siècle précédent, c’est indirectement que se joue le contrôle de la région, de façon plus subtile cette fois-ci.

Paul Laurent is an undergraduate student based in Sciences Po Paris.

Photo credit: Erdalito via Flickr CC

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