The UK Hip hop scene is not amused with Jay Z’s visit to the White House. Wasn't Hip Hop about fighting the power? Apparently things have changed according to British rappers Akala and Lowkey. "Is hip hop serving power, or is hip hop challenging power," that is question. And, "if the US government loves the same rappers as you love, you have to question whose interests are those rappers serving. “ In a conversations three British minds (Akala, Lowkey and Saul Williams) discuss the current state of hip-hop and it's misguided use by the youth of today. They underline the various struggles in making music as an independent artist.
Andy and the Bey Sisters were a jazz trio in the 50's and 60's consisting of brothers and sisters Andy Bey, Geraldine Bey de Haas and Salome Bey). This clip is from a live concert in 1965.
December 1, 2010–February 28, 2011 $1,000 cash prize and 50 copies
The final judge for this year's Snowbound Award is Ellen Doré Watson.
Manuscripts are judged anonymously. Tupelo Press will consider all finalists for publication.
Guidelines:
This competition is open to any poet writing in English. Previously published poems with proper acknowledgment are acceptable. Translations are not eligible, nor are previously self-published books. Employees of Tupelo Press and authors previously published by Tupelo Press are not eligible.
Manuscript Requirements:
Submit 20 to 30 pages (of poems) plus SASE and a $20 reading fee. Manuscripts should be on good quality white paper, paginated consecutively, with a table of contents and acknowledgments, and bound with a clip. Include two cover pages, one with only the title of the manuscript and a second with your name, address, telephone number(s), email address, and title of the manuscript. The author’s name should not appear elsewhere on the manuscript. Please retain a copy for your records.
The Snowbound Chapbook Award is open to anyone writing in English, whether living in the United States or abroad. Translations are not eligible for this prize.
Individual poems in a contest manuscript may have been previously published in magazines, print or web journals, or anthologies, but the work as a whole must be unpublished (this includes previously self-published books).
Simultaneous submissions to other publishers or contests are permitted, as long as you notify Tupelo Press promptly if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
Before you submit a manuscript to a Tupelo Press competition, please consider exploring the work of the poets we have published.
Tupelo Press endorses and abides by the Ethical Guidelines of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), which can be reviewed here, along with more about Tupelo Press’s ethical considerations for literary contests.
Entries must be postmarked or uploaded to the online Submission Manager (see below) between December 1, 2010 and February 28, 2011.
Terms:
A reading fee of $20 (US) by check or Pay Pal must accompany each submission. If sending a check, please make this payable to Tupelo Press, Inc. Multiple submissions are accepted, so long as each submission is accompanied by a separate $20 reading fee.
Why a reading fee? We are an independent, nonprofit literary press. Reading fees help defray, though they don’t fully cover, the cost of reviewing manuscripts and publishing the many books we select through our competitions.
Notification:
If mailing your submission, you may include a stamped, self-addressed postcard for confirmation of your manuscript’s receipt. The online Submissions Manager (see below) automatically confirms receipt.
If you like, enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope (SASE) for notification of the winner. An email announcement will also be sent to all entrants. Do not enclose a SASE for return of manuscript; all manuscripts will be recycled at the conclusion of the competition, except those under consideration for future publication.
Results will be announced in late spring 2011.
Online Submission
Click here to submit electronically. The online submission system will be accepting Snowbound Chapbook Award manuscripts between December 1, 2010 and February 28, 2011.
Click below to pay the reading fee for online or postal mail submissions:
Submission via Postal Mail
We also accept manuscripts via postal mail. Please include a check or money-order for the $20 reading fee, payable to Tupelo Press, or utilize our online PayPal option and enclose a copy of the receipt with your printed submission.
You may also include a self-addressed postcard for acknowledgment of receipt of your manuscript and a SASE for notification of the winner, who will also be announced by email.
Mail your submission (and check or PayPal receipt) to: Tupelo Press Snowbound Chapbook Award Tupelo Press PO Box 1767 North Adams, MA 01247
International submissions only: Tupelo Press Snowbound Chapbook Award 243 Union Street, Eclipse Mill #305 North Adams MA 01247 USA
All Snowbound entries must be postmarked or certified by our online Submissions Manager between December 1, 2010 and February 28, 2011.
We are pleased to announce that the judge of the Spring 2011 Chapbook Prize will be Evan J. Peterson. Four of Evan's poems from his own chapbook, Secular Exorcisms, are featured in the fall 2010 issue.
Submit no more than 26 pages of original poetry by December 31, 2010. Include biography and acknowledgements.
FORMAT: Please list your name and email address in the header of each page. Your manuscript will be coded for blind judging. Please save and submit your manuscript as a .doc or .rtf file.
The author of the winning chapbook will receive 100 copies of the publication. All entries will receive a copy of the winning chapbook. Other publication details will be announced as they are made final.
Hardback Book Publication • $2,000 Award • Selected Poems in Tampa Review
Winning manuscripts are issued in both hardback and paperback editions & authors receive royalties on sales in addition to the cash award. Past winners include Jordan Smith, Julia B. Levine, Sarah Maclay, Lance Larsen, Jane Ellen Glasser, Steve Kowit, and Kent Shaw, and range from first books to new titles by well-published poets.
Guidelines for Submission
Manuscripts must be previously unpublished. Some or all of the poems in the collection may have appeared in periodicals, chapbooks, or anthologies, but these must be identified.
Manuscripts should be typed, with pages consecutively numbered. Clear photocopies are acceptable. Manuscripts must be at least 48 typed pages; we prefer a length of 60-100 pages but will also consider submissions falling outside this range.
Please submit your manuscript as loose pages held only by a removable clip or rubber band and enclosed in a standard file folder. Do not staple or bind your manuscript.
Entries should include a separate title page with author’s name, address, phone number, and e-mail address (if available).
Entries must include a table of contents and a separate acknowledgments page (or pages) identifying prior publication credits.
Submissions must be postmarked by Dec. 31. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but the University of Tampa Press must be notified immediately if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
Include a nonrefundable handling fee of $25 for each manuscript submitted. Make check or money order payable to “University of Tampa Press.”
The winning entry will be announced in the subsequent spring, usually by May 15. Enclose a stamped, self-addressed postcard for notification of receipt of manuscript, and a stamped, self-addressed envelope for notification of contest results. No manuscripts will be returned; the paper will be recycled. All contestants enclosing SASE will be notified following the final selection.
Manuscripts should be sent to:
The Tampa Review Prize for Poetry University of Tampa Press 401 West Kennedy Blvd. Tampa, FL 33606-1490
Noah Sow is the author of the book "Deutschland Schwarz weiss - der alltägliche Rassismus" ("Deutschland Black & white. Everyday Racism"). And front woman of her Punk Rock band NOISEAUX . And she is also the founder of the anti-racist media watch dog "Der Braune mob". And if that's not enough she also appears on television as a moderator.
In an interview she talks about the media watch dog and the racial issues in Germany. "Der braune mob is Germany's first and as far as I know only media watchdog that's concerned with issues of discriminatory and politically incorrect language, content or pictures, mainly in media and advertising. Our focus lies on educating about what public racial discrimination actually is.
We have a lot to do, as Germany is a developing country in terms of racism. Most of the time the newspapers don't even know that for example referring to Obama as 'the coloured candidate' is wrong, so when we write to them they argue a lot. Plus, in Germany, the word racism is taboo.
If you accuse someone of having used a racist expression, they will deny that it's racist even when the term the N-Word is said."
Music The Punk Rock band NOISEAUX
Book In the book Deutschland Black & white she write about racism, but not about being black in Germany. "My book isn't about being black," explains Sow in an interview. "It's a mix between humour, education, how racism was 'invented' and what it serves for. It also about structural racism, like in sports, government, police and media. And its about modern and new racist strategies and how to beat them, and also - what I thought was very important - ideas how to help end racism, for the future.
So it's not a book about being black. Actually it's almost the opposite. It's about the role of whiteness in perpetuating racism. Can be used for self-medication. From the feedback so far, white readers learned something new about themselves and black readers had a good time with the humour chapters, like 'List of stupid phrases we never want to hear again - and according answers."
Although the book is written in German, there is a interesting English section with large outline of her book, and her 'List of stupid phrases'. One of those stupid phrases is "I cannot be a racist, I have a Black wife / Black children.” See her website for the answer here.
"Germany is a developing country in terms of racism" By Erik Kambel April 2008
She tells it like it is when it comes to racism. An interview with the German Noah Sow about her new book 'Deutschland Black & white. Everyday Racism'. She talks about her work as an anti-racism activist and about herself as a singer in a punk rock band. And for young people, she has a clear message too. Noah Sow, born and raised in Bavaria Germany, is a moderater in radio and TV shows. She is also a radio play writer, author, speaker and producer. As a composer and singer she became well known with the band "Noah Sow & The Heimlich Maneuver." In 2001, she founded the organization der braune mob, the first anti-racist media watch dog in Germany.
Question: You founded the media watch organisation 'Der braune mob'. What does the organisation do?Answer Noah Sow: Der braune mobis Germany's first and as far as I know only media watchdog that's concerned with issues of discriminatory and politically incorrect language, content or pictures, mainly in media and advertising. Our focus lies on educating about what public racial discrimination actually is. We have a lot to do, as Germany is a developing country in terms of racism. Most of the time the newspapers don't even know that for example referring to Obama as 'the coloured candidate' is wrong, so when we write to them they argue a lot. Plus, in Germany, the word racism is taboo. If you accuse someone of having used a racist expression, they will deny that it's racist even when the term the N-Word is said.
When skinheads beat a Black guy into a coma while calling him "N...r", in Germany the whole thing is actually not considered a racist or hate crime by the judge and the mass media. We have many many cases like this happening. So the public perception here is a little schizophrenic.What does Der Braune mob mean?
'Brauner mob' is often used in reference to Neo-Nazi hoards or groups. So we thought we'd turn the colonizing of group/movement names around and name ourselves 'der braune mob', indicating that we are many, many people, and showing some sense of humour. The name's quite edgy, but it worked, we're number one on German Google and the Nazis aren't. Plus, the name inflicts questions and irritates.
You wrote the book Deutschland Schwarz weiss - der alltägliche Rassismus (Deutschland Black & white. Everyday Racism). When did you decide you wanted to write the book. Was there a special incident that triggered you? To be honest, it wasn't my idea. A literature agent who had seen me in I think the documentary movie 'Black Deutschland' asked me if I wouldn't want to write some book about racism. At first I didn't like the idea too much. I thought: "I'm sure as hell not going to write my autobiography or something." You have to know that Germany's big publishing companies usually 'allow' for those topics almost exclusively in the form of autobiographies with the word 'negro' in the title. Or in the form of victim stories, literature 'about Africa' or literature written by white authors.
There are so many books about being black in a white society. What makes this book special?
From a German perspective, I guess, there a not even twenty books. However, my book isn't about being black, it's a mix between humour, education, how racism was 'invented' and what it serves for. It also about structural racism, like in sports, government, police and media. And its about modern and new racist strategies and how to beat them, and also - what I thought was very important - ideas how to help end racism, for the future. So it's not a book about being black. Actually it's almost the opposite. It's about the role of whiteness in perpetuating racism. Can be used for self-medication. From the feedback so far, white readers learned something new about themselves and black readers had a good time with the humour chapters, like 'List of stupid phrases we never want to hear again - and according answers'. In june 2005 the German City Augsburg planned a African culture festival in a zoo. How could this happen? Some Africans didn't see any harm in the event. So why did you?I guess this is pretty clear. One point is, the tradition of associating Africans with wilderness, versus civilisation. The organisers also wrote that they thought the zoo was "exactly the right place" for African traders, and the zoo director pointed out that if the idea of an 'African village' in a zoo would be wrong, then "coloureds" couldn't as well be "allowed" to "be seen at sporting events.
Let's switch to music. You arepunkrock singer, but from a black perspective punkrock is more 'white' music. How does this relate to your views on black and white?
'White music' and 'Black music'? I know what the industry is marketing but I'm also musician and educated enough to know that "Black music" is a pleonasm. Besides, you bet whenever I open my mouth to sing, what comes out is Black music by definition. Seriously, I'm not going to do any pigeonholing or categorizing, just because this makes things easier for some other folks.
I sing, compose and produce whatever I want to and whatever feels good to me. I'm a singer and love playing punkrock and alternative. I’m versatile though. I also have a quite different side when I'm with 'Sisters', a group of female Afro-German solo-artists. The girls really make my soft side come out ... occasionally. The punk thing is good for my nerves. The Sisters thing is good for the heart. Both are important for my soul.
What do you know about the Netherlands?I know a lot of German prejudices about the Netherlands: "they're more democratic", "they're so open-minded", "they're very progressive". But I wouldn't know if that's true or not.
Do you have message for people who want to start a career in the media?
Don't think you know stuff or have the right to judge or define or explain something, just because you happen to have a microphone and your place in an editing room. If you really want to do journalism, never talk about people, have them talk instead. Don't ask "experts" about youth. Ask the youth. And refuse to lie or "stretch the truth" when your editor or station ask you to. Because they will.
If you're not looking to work in journalism but in entertainment: speak for yourself only, and on behalf of yourself. Stay yourself. Promote yourself. For girls especially: Know your business and don't take any bullshit from people pretending to act in your interest, because of course, they don't. Rely on yourself. This will make it hard, maybe even result in the opposite of 'career', but after all you want to be able to look at yourself and not hate that spineless person. There's not all too many people doing it like this, but they will find and recognise you. Then the fun begins. You'll be in excellent company.
"Bhutto," a documentary examining the Greek tragedy of that Pakistani family -- with a special emphasis on the life, rise, and violent 2007 death of Benazir Bhutto -- premieres this weekend in theaters across the country. It is a harrowing, moving -- even wrenching -- film about history, family and sacrifice for country. It is also a magnificent and artful effort to bring audiences up to speed on Pakistani history, from partition to the present, throwing so many dates and facts out it's a bit like taking a crash course, a whole semester in 1 hour 51 minutes.
Benazir Bhutto was the first woman to lead a Muslim nation. Think what you will about her -- and there are those who question her role and accomplishments, laced as they were with allegations of inefficiency and corruption -- it is difficult not to find her rise and her legacy fantastic, even triumphant. Her untimely death, blamed by many on the failure of Pervez Musharaff's government to protect her when she returned from eight years of self-imposed exile, was a blow to Pakistani democracy, a blight on efforts to bring transparency and openness to the region.
But as much as the Bhutto family seemed blessed by good fortune, intelligence and beauty, the children of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto -- who himself served as both president and prime minister of Pakistan, brokered a famous peace agreement with India and later was ousted in a coup by his chief of staff -- eventually met catastrophe. Three of Zulfikar's children were assassinated. Only Benazir's sister, Sanam, the only apolitical Bhutto, was spared. (As for Zulfikar: After his ouster by Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, he was incarcerated and eventually executed.)
And yet Benazir seemed, from birth, someone who would transcend the limitations set on women in Pakistani society. This movie is an hommage to that transcendence. Not for nothing has it been called a hagiography. (NPR's term: "hero-worship.") But in celebrating Bhutto's life, its wide range of commentators -- especially the fantastic voice of Tariq Ali -- do not shy from questioning her legacy.
For some, the film by Duane Baughman is not new, nor is interest in it. "Bhutto" premiered at Sundance last winter and was shown in June to a sold-out crowd of Washington luminaries such as Nancy Pelosi, as Eleanor Clift reported at the time. In addition, many foreign policy scholars, politicians, and others in this country knew Benazir Bhutto -- who went to Harvard in the late 1960s and then Oxford after that -- as a friend or colleague or stateswoman. Baughman will be joined by Mark Siegel, Bhutto's longtime friend and U.S. spokesman, talking to audiences in Washington this weekend at the E Street Cinema.
I talked to Baughman by phone this week about making the film, and about its subject.
PD: I cover foreign policy, and I thought I knew the basics of Pakistani history, but I felt I learned a lot watching this film. Was that the goal?
DB: I think anyone who reads the New York Times every day feels that way, and the interesting thing is that you get to learn how much what we know is literally our own version of what other people want us to know. There is always a healthy dose of political messaging on Pakistan and United States relations with Pakistan. That was the beauty of funding the movie myself. I was free to go on any tangent I wanted to explore, to be able to lay out as clear a picture as I've seen. Benazir is the vehicle for being able to tell the story of Pakistan, and I don't think you can tell the story of Pakistan without telling the story of the Bhuttos.
PD: What led you to tell that story?
DB: I came to the film through my day job as an American political consultant and international consultant who has done work against dictators. . . . We were being vetted to get pulled into Benazir's race [for re-election -- an effort that was ended by her assassination in 2007] by Mark Siegel. . . . The work never came to pass. I realized I knew the people I needed to know to be an asset to the family. I also knew they didn't trust any Westerners. They got contacted by hundreds of filmmakers with resumes longer than mine -- partly because mine was non-existent! Once I had the trust and permission of the family, I knew I could get anyone else I needed to get on board. I had no idea it would end up being [former Secretary of State] Condi Rice or [former Pakistani President] Musharaff or [New York Times correspondent] John Burns. . . .
PD: And you spoke to Benazir's children and husband, so extensively and openly.
DB: The family was pivotal. I was fortunate enough to get the family for the first, and possibly the last, time on film. I got to the children, and the family as a whole because of Mark Siegel, and this movie would not have been made without the assistance of Mark. Mark . . . had the ear and the trust of the family and he convinced them that I could pull together all the required elements from Hollywood and from Washington.
PD: How did you go about trying to balance your coverage?
DB: I would go to bed at night having cold sweats, worrying that Pakistanis would say that Westerners don't understand our country or they don't understand our culture or our politics. It made me ultra-aware and ultra-sensitive, to make me dig as deeply as I could to get voices. . . . The first country that bought this film after we world-premiered at Sundance last year was Pakistan. It opened in June [and] had an extended run of two months. It was not only the first time a U.S. documentary was bought and run in Pakistani theaters, but it also ran to decent reviews and uncut, which was a true testament to freedom of expression and political expression, and it shows the care and feeding we did to be respectful of culture, country, religion, people and politics.
PD: Ultimately, the piece comes across as very, very pro-Bhutto, though you do have a few voices that call into question her story -- Fatima Bhutto, for example, her niece and the daughter of her murdered brother Murtaza. And there's an interesting moment when New York Times correspondent John Burns seems to almost imply that his story -- about corruption in Pakistan -- might not have been airtight.
DB: Fatima has made a cottage industry of criticizing her aunt. That's politics in Pakistan and it's a blood sport and a lot of times its feudal. . . . Her disdain for her aunt didn't begin when her father died but when she was born. . . . .The bottom line is what I tried to do was present facts and not opinions, and the fact was they were accused of a lot but they were not convicted of anything. You might not like Pakistani courts or elections, but it is not up to us and you have to trust to reach conclusions and justice. . . . Our foreign policy has been incredibly short-sighted. . . . Only now are we taking some of the proper, long-overdue steps with Kerry-Lugar (the bill which triples aid to Pakistan).
I think the story seems positive because I believe you can't make history in a positive way . . . and come across as anything but a heroine. Regardless of her human frailties, she broke a very significant barrier and there isn't anything anyone can do to undo that. She was constantly saying, "We are in office but we are not in power" in 1988 [ during her first administration]. The administration hadn't sat down and drawn up a plan for day 2. No one expected them to wrest power from the military or that the ISI [Inter Service Intelligence Pakistani Security Services] would allow it to happen.
The second time [in office -- Bhutto was elected prime minister twice], she was more savvy and had more of a vision and achieved more accomplishments, like the opening of thousands of women's police stations across the country, which, for the very first time, gave women a voice in legal maters and a safe haven to keep their voices heard on matters of justice. Even with those victories, her hands were tied on a daily basis, not just by a military that didn't salute -- not just didn't want to salute -- that didn't salute. One of the parties she formed a coalition with was a conservative Islamic party. It was like ruling in a box of knives; everywhere you turn you get cut. It is almost as difficult to believe that she succeeded, that she got there in the first place.
Soulful Stitching: Patchwork Quilts by Africans (Siddis) in India
Tuesday, February 1 through Thursday, June 30, 2011
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Latimer/Edison Gallery (Map and directions)
Partially accessible to wheelchairs
The Siddis of Karnataka, India are the descendants of both early African immigrants to South Asia and enslaved Africans brought to Goa on India’s west coast by the Portuguese beginning in the 16th century. Gradually, they escaped slavery and moved southward into the remote Western Ghatt mountains of Northern Karnataka in order to create free, independent African Diaspora communities. While they have adopted, adapted, and integrated many aspects of Indian cultures, Siddis have also retained and transformed certain African traditions. In the visual arts, one tradition stands out: the patchwork quilts known as kawandi.
Mixing together a vibrant array of well-worn clothing fabrics, Siddi quilts are highly individualistic, yet quilters share many clear and precise opinions about quality, beauty, and the need to “finish properly” the corners with triangular patches called phulas, or flowers. Catholic and Muslim Siddi women sometimes incorporate crosses or crescents in their designs, and baby quilts in particular are often bejeweled with lots of small, colorful patches called tikeli.
This exhibition is curated by Henry J. Drewal, Evjue-Bascom Professor of African and African Diaspora Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Exhibition Hours: Monday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Sunday. For exhibition information, call (212) 491-2200. No admission fee; contributions and memberships are welcome.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — For weeks now, the rumors have leapt from tent to tent, passed from one bedraggled survivor of the earthquake to the next. They would be expelled, driven into the streets by tractors. When, nobody knew for sure. But it would be soon.
Worry and resignation are plain in the misty eyes and slumped shoulders. Haitians have endured a hurricane, election upheaval, the threat of cholera — and now this.
So far none of it has broken Reginette Cinelien, 14, but this feels as if it could. She has spent more than 300 nights on this rutted soccer field, making do in one of the dozens of tents turned drab and limp by the alternating punishment of rain and sun. She lost her left leg to the quake, crushed by a cascading wall. A small mission from an artificial limb company in New Hampshire made her a prosthetic leg in March, optimistic they could spare her the ostracism that befalls amputees in this country.
The leg’s not such a good fit anymore, but that hasn’t kept her from using it all day long. It is the prospect of being forced from the camp — first broached by leaders of the soccer field — that seems too much.
“I don’t sleep at night, thinking about where I will go,’’ she said, dainty fingers knit pensively. “I’m not an animal, to ship me out of the camp like this.’’
Eleven months since calamity laid waste to this impoverished capital city, the story of Reginette Cinelien is the story of Haiti. More than 1 million of the dispossessed remain mired in tent camps, big and small. The horrifying novelty of catastrophe — and, with it, the global spotlight and legion of volunteers — has ebbed, replaced by a grim grind.
There are few signs of progress to match the billions in international aid. Good intentions have proved hard to sustain: The Manchester, N.H., prosthetics team, pinched by the demands of work at home and the tribulations of working in Haiti, made limbs for Reginette and 11 other amputees, but none since the spring.
“Failure is easy in Haiti,’’ said Dennis Acton, whose wife’s family owns New England Brace Co., the company that built the legs. “Everywhere you look, people are having difficulty trying to get things done.’’
Forced to leave
Pierre Michel Tanis, the wiry, canny president of the neighborhood soccer club, founded the camp where Reginette lives. He paid for water from his own pocket in the hours after the quake. He scoured the streets for medicine to save lives.
It has fallen to him to execute the dismantling of the refuge, now that the owners of the field want the land back and soccer teams clamor to resume play.
“The land doesn’t belong to me,’’ he explained one day in November. “The last meeting I had with the owner, four or five months ago, he said we have to move out.’’
“We have an obligation to kick them out,’’ he said.
The camp’s population has already shrunk from well above 1,000 to barely 700, and conditions have deteriorated. A hillock of rotting garbage rises at the entrance.
There used to be a camp doctor. There used to be help for Reginette and the other amputees with new legs. There used to be parties to keep spirits up.
“Those things disappeared,’’ said Reginette’s mother, Rosemaine Cius.
Her right foot was swollen, the smallest toe nearly the size of the biggest. She was hauling debris for a US government agency when she stepped in fetid water. She thinks something bit her foot. It had been like this for weeks.
“We survive,’’ her mother said.
On weekends, Reginette reclines listlessly on a cot, marking time by the sun. Marking time until 8 a.m. Monday, when she returns to the place she values most, to school.
School as a haven
One morning last month, Reginette and 28 other students crammed into a classroom made from plastic and tin and two-by-fours, which sits behind a guesthouse for Catholic missionaries next to the soccer field. Tanis and other leaders of the tent camp started the school, which now has more than 250 students, in late spring. For Reginette, it is both haven and beacon.
“I can learn something,’’ she said. “I will have a better life.’’
In Reginette’s class, children sang: “We have dreams. Dreams so beautiful. Up there on the hill. The hill with birds.’’
There was something different about Reginette’s eyes that morning. They had turned from vacant and remote to intense, steely. She shared a bench with six other girls, attending to a geometry lesson. The eraser on her pencil was worn to nothing. She appropriated the nub that remained on a classmate’s pencil.
Many of the girls wore ribbons in their hair. Reginette had a different fashion concern. She made sure to wear long pants to conceal her prosthetic leg. That way, maybe children who came to the school from outside the camp wouldn’t know her secret.
At first when she received the leg, she was tentative, regarding the plastic and metal device as alien. But moxie trumped doubt, and now Reginette wears the leg nearly all the time.
She tries to walk fluidly. A stutter step betrays her. During recess, she hovers in the shadows, watching as other children skip rope and whack soccer balls.
Acton said from New Hampshire that he’s working on getting her a new, better-fitting limb by collaborating with an aid agency. He has visited Haiti nine times, with his efforts now focused on trying to create jobs for the amputees.
On one trip, he brought a chunk of foam to create a cosmetic covering for the exposed metal pylon of Reginette’s leg. Reginette had been distressed by its metallic appearance, so Acton used a hacksaw and sandpaper to make the covering.
“We knew how self-conscious Reginette was about it. We understood that,’’ Acton said. “Any teenager would be.’’
In school the subject at 10:30 was Haitian history. The instructor was a lean, handsome man of stern countenance named Joseph Josué. Students were summoned to recite history they had been required to memorize from texts published in 1942, with only nominal updates.
Reginette’s answers were confident, correct. Other students, not so assiduous, cowered as the teacher ordered them to turn their faces toward the wall in shame. Some he dismissed entirely.
Classes continued until 1 p.m. Then tutoring began. Some days, Reginette attends three tutoring sessions, extending past 5.
Tuition at the school is a few dollars a year, but tutoring costs extra. Josué, who lives in a tent near Reginette’s, told her mother not to worry about paying, to give him money when she can.
“Reginette,’’ he said, “wants to go to school to help her family come out of poverty.’’
1.3 million displaced
That family — Reginette, her mother, and 5-year-old sister Francesca — has no apartment to return to, no relatives to provide shelter in Port-au-Prince. Reginette’s father, last seen by her the morning of the quake, is presumed among the more than 200,000 who died. Her 9-year-old sister also perished.
It was in October, Reginette’s mother remembered, when they first were told their departure from the camp was imminent. Someone came to each tent, she said, telling them the owner wanted the land back.
Tanis, the soccer club president, provided the Globe with a phone number for a man he said represents the owners. That man agreed twice to meet a reporter at a Port-au-Prince hotel but failed to appear. He did not respond to e-mailed questions.
Acton said late last week that he is trying to broker a deal for a small patch of land where houses could be built for Reginette and other amputees.
Sister Mary Finnick, the sprightly nun who runs the guesthouse abutting the soccer field, vowed that the tent dwellers — especially the disabled — will not be cast out on the streets. Donors, she said, are eager to construct houses.
“They just can’t get through the bureaucracy,’’ said Finnick, deep in her 70s. “It’s like an onion.’’
Government and aid agencies, which have already built some temporary housing, have ambitious plans to build much more — if they can find the land. First, rubble must be cleared. It has been estimated by engineers that there’s enough detritus in Port-au-Prince to fill dump trucks stretching half way around the world. Removal is painstaking: Heavy equipment can’t travel down twisting, pocked streets, and work must proceed gingerly, given the human remains and personal valuables that remain entombed.
There are issues, too, with structures that weren’t destroyed. The earthquake, and consequent housing shortage, exposed weaknesses in Haiti’s land system decades in the making. Port-au-Prince is a city of renters, but there’s often no certainty the person you rented from actually owned the property. That complicates resettlement.
So striking the tent camps will be a daunting proposition. To an outsider, life in an encampment seems a shambling existence. And, in many respects, it is. But in post-earthquake Haiti, some camps — even those more wretched than Reginette’s — offer amenities previously scarce here: free education, free meals, free medical care. They have become communities unto themselves, with beauty shops and food stalls and even discos — and no rent.
Aid agencies predict some camps — especially the big ones — may turn into permanent urban slums akin to the city’s Cite Soleil shantytown. Even if people do leave, there’s no guarantee they will find a place to live.
“This is the largest urban displacement ever,’’ said Paul Weisenfeld, a senior executive at the US Agency for International Development. Even if 200,000 or 300,000 people are resettled, he said, “when you have 1.3 million displaced . . . you don’t even notice it.’’
In Reginette’s tent, where the floor is dirt and the cots are shared by more than a dozen adults and children, the future is regarded with trepidation.
At this time of year, dusk descends swiftly. There are no lights on the soccer field, save for the ruby glow of charcoal grills. By 6 p.m., most of the people of the tents have returned to them.
But Reginette was not in hers one recent night. A boy inside said he would help find her.
Down a row of orderly tents, a solitary figure sat hunched over a borrowed school book, bathed in the halo of a street lamp pointed toward the road.
Reginette Cinelien made do, grasping any light she could find.
IF there was any doubt about who is calling the shots in terms of the direction of Haiti's recovery plans and programmes, last Tuesday's meeting of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) would have removed such lingering uncertainty.
In recent weeks, several social and political commentators have been implying that Caricom leaders in general and especially the special representative on Haiti, PJ Patterson, could be doing much more to advance the plans and programmes for Haiti's recovery. Co-chair Bill Clinton, however, made it very clear, when the Caricom special representative pointed out, among several other things, that there were members of the commission who still did not know how and on what basis projects were submitted and accepted.
Mr Clinton was pellucid in explaining that the projects submitted were by the big donors, mainly the multilateral and bilateral entities. So much for those of us who felt that the IHRC was structured to ensure that the process would be Haitian-led and globally transparent. Tuesday's meeting reportedly approved some $430 million in projects.
Given the civil unrest in Haiti, the meeting was held in Santo Domingo. The first thing that would have caught the attention of participants was that co-chair, Haiti's Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, was a no-show because of a meeting of the Haiti Electoral Commission or Conseil Electoral Provisoire (CEP), which was also convened on Tuesday in Haiti.
He had to be there in his capacity as head of security/defence. The idea was for him to participate via teleconference, but this too did not really work and had to be abandoned. Naturally, in his absence co-chair Bill Clinton officiated. Initially scheduled to begin at 1:30 pm and so facilitate movement of members in and out of the country, the meeting was instead rescheduled to start at 5:00 pm. Obviously, some of the participants would have been forced to miss chunks of the proceedings.
However, several interesting things emerged, especially from the perspective of the Caribbean Community (Caricom). As reported in the Florida-based US press the following morning, Mr Patterson apparently got the attention of the commission. In recent weeks, the former Jamaica prime minister had been showing signs of growing frustration with the slow progress of the development plans and the worsening plight of the Haitians.
It must have been especially irritating to Mr Patterson to be seen to be part of the foot-dragging that has appeared to characterise Haiti's rebuilding programme. I recall hearing and/or reading in sections of the media suggestions and assertions by some of our analysts that Patterson should "take charge" if things were not moving as they should in Haiti.
PJ Patterson
In addition, Patterson's advice and guidance are constantly sought by many in our region and the general Diaspora who have their eye on investment projects in Haiti. Supreme diplomat that he is, he would have tried direct consultation with the IHRC and Haitian leaders before the meeting on Tuesday, seeking answers to some of the burning questions about several areas of concern regarding progress in Haiti and decisions by the IHRC.
Assuming he did, and I have good reason to believe that that was the case, he most likely would have been left in the dark like the rest of the leadership in Caricom. As the information which emerged on Tuesday suggests, those in the Caribbean Community were not the only ones in the dark.
At Tuesday's meeting, Mr Patterson used the opportunity to outline some of his concerns about the way the IHRC was operating. Among the several issues he highlighted were the lack of information being provided to IHRC members about projects, the submission and acceptance process, the general lack of visible progress, the continued existence of mountains of rubble deposited by the earthquake, the plight of the persons in tents, response to the outbreak of cholera and the general lack of urgency in addressing key issues.
It seems that Patterson opened the proverbial Pandora's Box as, following his remarks, Suze Percy Filippine from President Rene Preval's office spoke passionately on behalf of the 12 Haitian members on the IHRC. She said they felt like mannequins, also unappreciated and at times disrespected. She referred to their attendance at a meeting in September where there were no seats provided for them at the table!!
They, too, expressed concern about the lack of information and the slow progress on the ground. The IHRC executive was called on to respond to some of the latter charges, but the day was closing fast and my sources had to catch a flight out of Santo Domingo; so too it seems did several other participants seen in the airport departure lounge. However, last week the Miami Herald reported that the 12 representatives signed a letter that aired their frustrations with the recovery process. "The Haitian members don't even know the names of the firms that are working for the [commission] and what they are doing," said Suze Filippine. "We are just figureheads to rubber-stamp decisions when they are taken by the commission."
Meanwhile, back in Haiti, nothing has changed fundamentally. However, there has been some resumption of commercial life since December 11. The weekend calm appears to be holding, albeit uneasily. In the meantime there have been several negotiations and initiatives in an effort to resolve the election stalemate, but nothing has so far gained traction.
WATCH the FINAL CUT of Haiti: We Must Kill the BanditsFREE!! Format: NTSC 4:3, color, stereo, TRT: 66-minutes Watch for Kevin Pina's new documentary Haiti: The Betrayal of Democracy (Viewing quality may vary depending on connection speed, broadband recommended)
Also available on DVD for personal home viewing for $20 plus shipping (CA residents add 8.25% tax)
Before the cholera epidemic... Before the earthquake......it was one of the greatest human rights cover-ups in history.
Haiti: We Must Kill the Bandits
Embedded journalism in Haiti
Review of Haiti: We Must Kill the Bandits (Dir: Kevin Pina, 2010)
By Isabel Macdonald
In the pre-dawn hours of July 6, 2005, 350 UN troops stormed Haiti’s largest slum, Cite Soleil, which has been a site of strong opposition to the 2004 coup d’etat backed by Canada, the US and France against popular Lavalas president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The UN later claimed the raid to be a success as they had killed five ‘bandits’. However, according to the Cite Soleil residents interviewed in Kevin Pina’s new film Haiti: We Must Kill the Bandits (2010), the raid was a massacre by which the UN murdered dozens of innocent civilians in a poor neighbourhood. The foreign officialdom that supported the coup against Aristide has dismissed Cite Soleil residents’ account of this massacre as ‘propaganda’[1]—as it has with other documentation based on interviews with Haiti’s poor black majority who comprise Lavalas’ base of support. The international press has overwhelmingly reiterated this official position of disregard for the accounts provided by ordinary Haitians. We Must Kill the Bandits provides a rare account from the other side of the vast racialized class divide that separates the international press from Lavalas’ base of support.
The forcible removal of the elected Haitian president in a coup d’etat in 2004 was justified by the governments of the US, Canada and France as a humanitarian intervention to protect human rights.[2] This intervention brought to power a regime under which, according to several academic reports based on interviews with the Haitian population, there have been significant levels of state sponsored violence.[3] However, this reality has been consistently denied by officials. Confronted with media queries about a report published by the University of Miami law school, based on extensive interviews with residents of poor neighbourhoods in Haiti, the Canadian state’s response has been unanimously dismissive: the report is “total propaganda”[4]. While totally disregarding the accounts expressed by ordinary Haitians, the US, Canada and France have preferred to advance their own self-serving human rights discourse by financing selected ‘human rights’ groups closely tied to Haiti’s tiny elite, who oppose Lavalas.[5] In the lead up to the coup, the French embassy had even circulated to the international press pictures of confrontations between the Haitian police and anti-Aristide student groups supported by US and French agencies.[6]Meanwhile, the Canadian International Development Agency provided funding to the National Coalition for Haitian Rights, a group that, with very little evidence, accused Haiti’s constitutional prime minister of instigating a massacre. We must kill the bandits highlights the baselessness of many of these foreign embassy-endorsed claims of human rights abuses by Lavalas. Most prominently, the film casts light on the dubious nature of the claims made by the National Coalition for Haitian Rights, which were used to imprison Neptune and others.[7]
Sadly, the international press has largely reinforced the US, Canada and France’s self serving human rights discourse in Haiti. The mainstream US and Canadian media have all but ignored the crimes of the US-backed regime against the Lavalas base.[8] Meanwhile, as Pina’s film demonstrates, a completely unsubstantiated rumour painting Lavalas demonstrators as a dangerous national security threat, which was initially articulated by an organization funded by the US, Canadian and French governments, was reiterated uncritically in international newswires.[9] Thus have the international media been complicit in privileging the claims of certain actors, tied to the US, Canadian and French governments, over the perspectives of ordinary Haitians, and constructing a skewered discourse of human rights which has paradoxically been used to persecute Lavalas.
We Must Kill the Bandits presents a welcome antidote to the mainstream media’s silence on the repression against Lavalas in the wake of the coup. The film presents compelling evidence that Lavalas activists and supporters faced harsh repression at the hands of the Haitian police and the UN under Latortue’s rule. The film juxtaposes footage of lethal police and UN operations with interviews with witnesses of the raids and with families of the victims. Some of these shots proved so disturbing that they were greeted at a 2005 screening in Montreal with screams and wails by audience members. In this latest version, a diffusion filter has been added over the more graphic footage.
While those who lack background knowledge of recent Haitian politics may initially find the documentary’s simultaneous discussion of events from the first and second coups against Aristide, and criticism of media treatment of these events, confusing, Pina succeeds in making a compelling argument that touches on a range of complex historical issues. Drawing on footage from his first film about Haiti (Haiti: Harvest of Hope) which covers Aristide’s election as Haiti’s first democratically elected president in 1990, and the murderous CIA-backed 1991 coup against Aristide, We Must Kill the Bandits presents the 2004 coup as part of a legacy of US imperialism in Haiti. The film opens with a powerful juxtaposition between archival footage of US marines rounding up “bandits” (as the young Haitian men who resisted the 19 year American military occupation of their country were known by the marines) in 1915, and footage of a contemporary raid by UN soldiers in a Haitian slum. The historical parallel is framed by a quote from the commander of the UN force in Haiti, who explains the contemporary raid in terms eerily reminiscent of the marines: “we must kill the bandits”. Pina draws a direct line of continuity between the US-backed puppet regime imposed on Haitians under marine occupation, and the unelected US-backed regime headed by Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue that ruled Haiti between March 2004 and May 2006.
The film features several poignant interviews with the families of Lavalas political prisoners, as well as with some of the prisoners prior to their illegal arrests. Haiti’s Prime Minister, Yvon Neptune, is interviewed the day after the coup, and describes, with alarm, how he has been made a prisoner in his own office. Shortly afterwards, Neptune would be locked in a prison for over two years without charge. In a similarly alarming scene, another prominent Fanmi Lavalas figure, Father Jean Juste, is filmed laughing and joking as he serves free lunches to children in his parish, before the image suddenly freezes and we hear the priest’s voice on the Pacifica radio station KPFA’s Flashpoints show, describing how his wrists are bleeding as a result of the handcuffs that have been placed on him following his illegal arrest.
If the portrait of post-coup Haiti represented by We Must Kill the Bandits is miles away from the story that we have been fed by the US press, it is in no small part due to the fact that Pina has taken a radically different approach from that of his counterparts in the commercial media. The film is produced by the alternative media organization Haiti Information Project (HIP) that Pina founded, which includes several local Haitian journalist collaborators. Originally from Oakland, California, Pina has lived in Haiti on and off for 15 years, and has close contacts in the Lavalas movement, while some of his local collaborators live in the popular pro-Lavalas neighbourhoods. The journalists for the commercial media organizations typically lack such local contacts. On the rare occasions that Haiti is deemed newsworthy in the international media, international journalists are temporarily stationed at one or two luxury hotels, where they rub elbows with foreign diplomats, and foreign aid agency financed NGOs.[10] While they may only geographically be a few miles from Cite Soleil, in terms of the barriers of class and language, which are deeply racialized in Haiti, they are actually a world away. When international journalists temporarily stationed in Haiti have been spotted in the poor black neighbourhoods such as Cite Soleil, they have sometimes been embedded with the UN troops, seeing the neighbourhood from within the armoured personnel carriers with which the international community occupies the popular neighbourhoods.[11] Pina’s film provides an important counterpoint to the media accounts that have resulted from such limited perspectives. It is a scrupulously documented account from an international journalist who has chosen to embed on the other side of the vast racialized class divide that separates the international press from Lavalas’ base of support.
Isabel Macdonald is a doctoral student in the Communication and Culture programme at York University (Toronto). She conducted field research on international journalists’ practices in Haiti for her MA thesis, ‘Covering the coup: Canadian journalists, media sources and the 2004 crisis in Haiti’ (2006).
Notes
1In the fall of 2005, at a ceremony commemorating the arrival of a new contingent of UN troops to support the UN Security Council mandated force to stabilize post-coup Haiti, I enquired about the UN’s response to the documentation of the July 6 killings. The site of this military ceremony could not have more clearly embodied the imperialist character of the recent foreign intervention in Haiti; the ceremony took place at the university that president Aristide had built for Haiti’s historic bicentennial commemoration of 200 years of independence from slavery and from French imperialist rule—a building which has, in the wake of the coup, been transformed into a base of operations for the UN military officers. A UN communications officer’s answer to my question was instructive in highlighting the power of imperialist forces, versus ordinary Haitians, in shaping dominant discourses about human rights. That is ‘propaganda’, the UN communications officer replied matter-of-factly.
2 See Bush, 2004; Villepin, 2004.
3 See for instance Griffin, 2005, Kolbe and Hutson, 2006.
4 Pierre Pettigrew, cited in Haiti Action Montreal, June 23, 2005. These were the specific words of Canada’s former Foreign Affairs minister, however, Canadian officials have denounced the report as ‘propaganda’ to journalists with such consistency that observers have noted that there must be an official memo (J. Podur, personal correspondence, April 6, 2007).
5 See Pina, 2003, 2004; Engler and Fenton, 2004; and Hallward, forthcoming, 2007.
6 Eric Bosque (Political Analyst at the Embassy of France in Haiti), interview with author, Port-au-Prince, February 2006.
7 For more on this organization’s role, see Skerrett, 2005.
8 Sprague, 2006.
9 Jean-Claude Bajeux, who serves on the Steering Committee of the Group of 184, which is funded by the International Republican Institute, the EU and the Canadian International Development Agency, accused Lavalas demonstrators of instigating an armed campaign called “Operation Baghdad”. The Associated Press, one of the premier uncritically republished this claim.
10 Such were the author’s observations during her field research in Haiti during the 2006 Presidential elections, however it should be noted that this is by no means unique to Haiti. In an age in which global news flows are largely dominated by a few corporate giants based in North America and Western Europe, there are increasingly few foreign correspondents permanently stationed in Third World countries. Rather, media organizations rely during crises and elections on “parachute” journalists, who typically lack local contacts and knowledge, and this distance is exacerbated by the fact that they are stationed at hotels that are extremely inaccessible to all but the elites of the host country (Hamilton and Jenner, 2004, p. 313; Pedelty, 1995, p. 117).
- Feminists Debate Sexual Allegations Against Julian Assange
As more details emerge about the sex crimes allegations against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, we host a debate between two feminists: Jaclyn Friedman argues the sexual assault allegations shouldn't be dismissed just because they're politically motivated, while Naomi Wolf says by going after Assange, the state is not embracing feminism, it's "pimping" it.Original Post http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/2...
I read your open letter to the Swedish Government. I am afraid they will probably not answer. They’re a bit busy at the moment: The aftermath of the financial crisis requires attention. And there’s also the thing with the first suicide bomber in our country, which has caused quite some commotion. But don’t you worry, it is very unlikely that we will use this single act of terror as an excuse to invade a country. Or maybe a very small one, but that it is unlikely.
Anyway, since the Government will not answer your letter I thought maybe I could send you a short note,from the perspective of a Swedish lawyer on how the Swedish legal system works and how it doesn’t work . It seems there is some confusion here, probably as a result of differences between our systems.
1. I am afraid that you sent the letter to wrong place. In Sweden we keep our judicial system separated from the Government. The courts and the prosecutors carry out their work without intervention of the Swedish government. In fact, such intervention is forbidden.
We think this is a good idea, but maybe we should think more outside the box here. It is just that states that allow for the Government to decide if an accused person should be held in custody or not in our country would be considered as dictatorships. Like the Soviet Union.
2: In some countries the Government runs a little judicial system of its own, on the side. I know that some countries even run little torture camps, so to say, outside the borders of the country where it is said that normal rules don’t apply. This way one could escape the tiresome requirements of due process, for instance.
The Swedish state has not taken this route, even if there are several nice islands close that could be used for this purpose. Ösel, for instance. Or Åland. But so far the Swedish government has refrained from trying to cheat its way out of the requirements of the rule of law in such a way.
I am sure this seems very backwards and inefficient to you. Anyway, this all means that the Government has nothing to do with the the processes of the legal system in individual cases.
3.Statistics is a difficult thing. Not all people know how to read statistics. When you quote statistics on the ratio between reported rape and legal proceedings, you seem to be getting it quite wrong, I am afraid. A reported crime is not the same as a crime and it is something completely different from a provable crime.
Many reports of rape has its background in events that have happened behind the closed doors of a home. In these cases it can often be difficult to prove what has happened. And when sufficient evidence cannot be produced we have this peculiar principle in Swedish law called the presumption of innocence. You might have heard of it.
It means that if the prosecutor cannot prove her case the law will consider the accused person as innocent. The downside of this is that possibly guilty men and women will go free. Yes, we would even let ”thousands of Swedish rapists roam free” if needed to uphold a Rechtsstaat.
4. Maybe there’s another difference here. In Sweden, we try not to let statistics influence individual cases of criminal investigations or proceedings. In your letter you quote (misinterpreted) statistics and seem to hold that this has relevance for whether Mr. Assange should be arrested or not. (So far the only question on the table has been whether to arrest Mr. Assange.)
In the view of our archaic legal system it is not considered relevant whether Mr. Assange or someone else involved in the case, or if the allegations as such, fall into any particular statistical category. Each case should be dealt with individually.
5. A little digression into the Swedish language. In Sweden we have a saying that has recently become popular. We talk about ”foliehattar”. A foliehatt is a hat made by tin foil. It is used by people who wants to protect the brain from mind reading and other intrusions, for instance by the Government. I am not sure, but I think that the hat may also be used to block out signals from a transmitter that has been hidden in someone’s teeth.
When a person is called a foliehatt it’s often because she’s a conspiracy theorist. The Assange case is a wet dream for the conspiracy theorist. Some talk about ”dark forces”, others about ”honey traps”, and you pitch in a little story about ”a conservative MP” that supposedly influenced the prosecutors in Sweden to change their position.
People forming these arguments we call foliehattar in Swedish. It is difficult to take such arguments seriously. Some of these arguments may turn out to be, in reality, true or somewhat true. But it seems unlikely. It seems unlikely that an advanced CIA/Mossad/SÄPO trap would use these kinds of accusations. They crimes that Mr. Assange has been accused of are not the kind of activities that would put you in jail for a very long time. It seems unlikely also for a lot of other reasons. Even thewikileaks people in Sweden seem to think so. But what do I know, maybe it’s all part of the plan.
6. Your argument seem to be resting on an idea of fairness different from that of our little system. Here’s a quote. ”But that really wouldn’t be like you would it, to go all the way to another country to pursue a suspect for sexual assault when you can’t even bring yourselves to make it down to the street to your own courthouse to go after the scores of reported rapists in your country.” You seem here to be saying, in a nuanced manner, that since many rapists are allowed to walk free in Sweden, without even being brought to justice, the accusations of Mr. Assange shouldn’t be investigated. I don’t agree with the premise of the argument.
Outside my window right now I see a father with a trolley, a woman holding a bag full of Christmas presents and two people trying wipe snow off their cars. Now, I know you can’t tell just from looking – but I would be quite surprised if all these people turned out to rapists. But let’s assume they are rapists, rapists that are being allowed to push trolleys, buy Christmas presents and drive cars, without the Government even trying to arrest them. Even if it was so, I can’t understand why not another accusation should be sufficiently investigated. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
7. Finally, to clear out some misunderstandings that have flourished in the discussion: Mr. Assange has not been charged with anything by anyone as of yet (and maybe he never will – the investigation is still ongoing); it is not criminal to have sex without a condom in Sweden; it is criminal to have sex without a condom if the person you’re having sex with wants you to use a condom; it can be criminal to have sex with a sleeping person; whether the accused person is a saint, or a horrible person, has no influence on the investigation of a crime; Sweden’s rape law is as far as I understand it not that different from most other Western countries.
Futhermore: Mr. Assange has the right to be presumed innocent, and a right to privacy; the women that has accused Mr. Assange of a crime should be considered as trustworthy as long as no compelling evidence says otherwise, and these women also has a right to privacy. Here I think that we have already seen a problem with the Swedish legal system, namely that it does not protect privacy enough in matters such as these. This holds for both Mr Assange, as well as for the women that made the allegations. We should also talk more about the relationship between the protection of privacy and freedom of speech. But these points have been completely lost in some strange war where people feel they have to take sides in an ongoing investigation regarding something they cannot know anything about. Quite depressing, really. Personally I sympathize strongly with wikileaks and the struggle for transparency. But that is not what the Swedish legal system is occupied with at the moment.
Allright, that was just some thoughts from Stockholm. I am sorry for mistreating the English language like this. I have been trying to make knäck at the same time as I wrote this. Have you tried it? I think you’d like it. Knäck is normally very tasty. This batch turned out a bit burned, though. Those damned dark forces.
With best regards from a snowy Stockholm
Mårten
[Update: A preliminary draft of this post was published for a short while here. A hacker attack, I'm sure.]
John Pilger: Swedes are smearing him and encouraging the US
Sunday, 19 December 2010
I don't regard the Guardian article as revelatory but as more of what we know, plus scuttlebut. There are serious omissions. The impression is given that Julian Assange refused to attend a meeting with the Swedish director of prosecutions on 14 October. This is false. Assange offered to attend on the 15th and 16th. When these days weren't suitable, he offered a complete week instead.
What happened in Sweden was a public smear, and trial by Swedish tabloid media. The chief prosecutor, Eva Fine, understood this. After making her own inquiries, she cancelled the arrest warrant. "Julian Assange is not suspected of rape," she said. It was only the intervention of a leading political figure, Claes Borgstrom, that reactivated the case.
After the "crime", one of the women wrote on Twitter that she was with "the world's coolest smartest people". And when asked whether Assange should leave her flat, she replied, "No, it's not a problem. He's very welcome to stay here." Referring to their night together, she said that she "felt dumped" when he left her bed to work on his computer.
This may help to explain why Assange is not charged with any crime, and why the director of prosecutions has appeared so reluctant to provide the defence with documents. The first official document arrived on 18 November, three months after the alleged offences.
Whether or not the smear is a "CIA conspiracy", it is clear that Assange's name has been blackened. Also, the women's details have been hauled across the internet. And his very serious enemies in Washington have been hugely encouraged to pursue their vicious campaign against him. Meanwhile, we have the spectacle of the US Attorney General trying to concoct a specious law to prosecute Assange for revealing the lies and obsessions of rapacious great power, which, under the First Amendment in the land of Thomas Jefferson, is not a crime. He deserves all our support.
Whatever the unusual aspects of the case, the Obama administration’s reported plan to indict WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for conspiring with Army Pvt. Bradley Manning to obtain U.S. secrets strikes at the heart of investigative journalism on national security scandals.
That’s because the process for reporters obtaining classified information about crimes of state most often involves a journalist persuading some government official to break the law either by turning over classified documents or at least by talking about the secret information. There is almost always some level of “conspiracy” between reporter and source.
Contrary to what some outsiders might believe, it’s actually quite uncommon for sensitive material to simply arrive “over the transom” unsolicited. Indeed, during three decades of reporting on these kinds of stories, I can only recall a few secret documents arriving that way to me.
In most cases, I played some role – either large or small – in locating the classified information or convincing some government official to divulge some secrets. More often than not, I was the instigator of these “conspiracies.”
My “co-conspirators” typically were well-meaning government officials who were aware of some wrongdoing committed under the cloak of national security, but they were never eager to put their careers at risk by talking about these offenses. I usually had to persuade them, whether by appealing to their consciences or by constructing some reasonable justification for them to help.
Other times, I was sneaky in liberating some newsworthy classified information from government control. Indeed, in 1995, Consortiumnews.com was started as a way to publish secret and top-secret information that I had discovered in the files of a closed congressional inquiry during the chaotic period between the Republicans winning the 1994 elections and their actual takeover of Congress in early 1995.
In December 1994, I asked for and was granted access to supposedly unclassified records left behind by a task force that had looked into allegations that Ronald Reagan’s campaign had sabotaged President Jimmy Carter’s hostage negotiations with Iran in 1980.
To my surprise, I discovered that the investigators, apparently in their haste to wrap up their work, had failed to purge the files of all classified material. So, while my “minder” wasn’t paying attention to me, I ran some of the classified material through a copier and left with it in a folder. I later wrote articles about these documents and posted some on the Internet.
Such behavior – whether cajoling a nervous government official to expose a secret or exploiting some unauthorized access to classified material – is part of what an investigative journalist does in covering national security abuses. The traditional rule of thumb has been that it’s the government’s job to hide the secrets and a reporter’s job to uncover them.
In the aftermath of significant leaks, the government often tries to convince news executives to spike or water down the stories “for the good of the country.” But it is the news organization’s ultimate decision whether to comply or to publish.
Historically, most of these leaks have caused the government some short-term embarrassment (although usually accompanied by exaggerated howls of protests). In the long run, however, the public has been served by knowing about some government abuse. Reforms often follow as they did during the Iran-Contra scandal that I was involved in exposing in the 1980s.
A Nixon Precedent
Yet, in the WikiLeaks case – instead of simply complaining and moving on – the Obama administration appears to be heading in a direction not seen since the Nixon administration sought to block the publication of the Pentagon Papers secret history of the Vietnam War in 1971.
In doing so, the Obama administration, which came to power vowing a new era of openness, is contemplating a novel strategy for criminalizing traditional journalistic practices, while trying to assure major U.S. news outlets that they won’t be swept up in the Assange-Manning dragnet.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that federal prosecutors were reviewing the possibility of indicting Assange on conspiracy charges for allegedly encouraging or assisting Manning in extracting “classified military and State Department files from a government computer system.”
The Times article by Charlie Savage notes that if prosecutors determine that Assange provided some help in the process, “they believe they could charge him as a conspirator in the leak, not just as a passive recipient of the documents who then published them.
“Among materials prosecutors are studying is an online chat log in which Private Manning is said to claim that he had been directly communicating with Mr. Assange using an encrypted Internet conferencing service as the soldier was downloading government files. Private Manning is also said to have claimed that Mr. Assange gave him access to a dedicated server for uploading some of them to WikiLeaks.
“Adrian Lamo, an ex-hacker in whom Private Manning confided and who eventually turned him in, said Private Manning detailed those interactions in instant-message conversations with him. He said the special server’s purpose was to allow Private Manning’s submissions to ‘be bumped to the top of the queue for review.’ By Mr. Lamo’s account, Private Manning bragged about this ‘as evidence of his status as the high-profile source for WikiLeaks.’”
Though some elements of this suspected Assange-Manning collaboration may be technically unique because of the Internet’s role – and that may be a relief to more traditional news organizations like the Times which has published some of the WikiLeaks documents – the underlying reality is that what WikiLeaks has done is essentially “the same wine” of investigative journalism in “a new bottle” of the Internet.
By shunning WikiLeaks as some deviant journalistic hybrid, mainstream U.S. news outlets may breathe easier now but may find themselves caught up in a new legal precedent that could be applied to them later.
As for the Obama administration, its sudden aggressiveness in divining new “crimes” in the publication of truthful information is especially stunning when contrasted with its “see no evil” approach toward openly acknowledged crimes committed by President George W. Bush and his subordinates, including major offenses such as torture, kidnapping and aggressive war.
Holder’s Move
The possibility of an indictment of Assange no longer seems to me like rampant paranoia. Initially, I didn’t believe that the Obama administration was serious in stretching the law to find ways to prosecute Assange and to shut down WikiLeaks.
But then there was the pressure on WikiLeaks’ vendors such as Amazon.com and PayPal along with threats from prominent U.S. political figures, spouting rhetoric about Assange as a “terrorist” comparable to Osama bin Laden and a worthy target of assassination.
Normally, when people engage in such talk of violence, they are the ones who attract the attention of police and prosecutors. In this case, however, the Obama administration appears to be bowing to those who talk loosely about murdering a truth-teller.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced last week that he has taken “significant” steps in the investigation, a possible reference to what an Assange lawyer said he had learned from Swedish authorities about a secret grand jury meeting in Northern Virginia.
The Times reported, “Justice Department officials have declined to discuss any grand jury activity. But in interviews, people familiar with the case said the department appeared to be attracted to the possibility of prosecuting Mr. Assange as a co-conspirator to the leaking because it is under intense pressure to make an example of him as a deterrent to further mass leaking of electronic documents over the Internet.
“By bringing a case against Mr. Assange as a conspirator to Private Manning’s leak, the government would not have to confront awkward questions about why it is not also prosecuting traditional news organizations or investigative journalists who also disclose information the government says should be kept secret — including The New York Times, which also published some documents originally obtained by WikiLeaks.”
In other words, the Obama administration appears to be singling out Assange as an outlier in the journalistic community who is already regarded as something of a pariah. In that way, mainstream media personalities can be invited to join in his persecution without thinking that they might be next.
Though American journalists may understandably want to find some protective cover by pretending that Julian Assange is not like us, the reality is – whether we like it or not – we are all Julian Assange.
PJ Patterson
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