Wednesday, February 27, 2008
INCORE Summer School 2008
INCORE is pleased to announce that the 2008 International Summer School will be held from Monday 16th June to Friday 20th June 2008.
INCORE will offer three separate one-week courses:
• Evaluation and Impact Assessment of Peacebuilding Programmes;
• Reconciliation in Societies Coming Out of Conflict; and
• ***Transitioning from a Post-settlement to a Post-Conflict Society.
The school provides an intensive week of training, networking and discussion in the field of conflict resolution. It attempts to bridge the gap between policy, practice and research.
The INCORE Summer School is recognised by UNITAR (United Nations Institute for Training and Research) Programme of Correspondence Instruction in Peacekeeping Operations, and may form part of The Certificate-of-Training In Peace Support Operations (COTIPSO) Programme.
The closing date for applications is 29 February 2008. For further information on module details and how to apply, please click here.
***New module - it will draw on findings from INCORE's current Journeys Out project - for further details click here.Labels: Courses, INCORE .....
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Report on the Commission of Truth and Friendship
ICTJ recently released the publication of “Too Much Friendship, Too Little Truth: Monitoring Report on the Commission of Truth and Friendship in Indonesia and Timor-Leste”. The report focuses on the Commission of Truth and Friendship. The report reveals according to ICTJ: - The CTF was created not with truth-telling and interpersonal reconciliation in mind, but as a means to ignore calls for international criminal justice already made by the UN and the international community.
- The process for creating the Commission was insufficiently transparent and consultative, resulting in a body that has failed to reflect international best practices and the views of Timorese victims and communities.
- The CTF’s Terms of Reference are fundamentally flawed, and included a mechanism for recommendations of amnesty while prohibiting recommendations for new judicial processes;
- The Commission’s public hearings failed as a truth-telling activity. Most took place in Indonesia and gave accused perpetrators of serious crimes in Timor-Leste opportunities to provide self-serving accounts that charged the UN with responsibility for the mass violations and promoted factually incorrect versions of events. The UN Secretary General made a decision not to cooperate with the Commission due to its flawed mandate, so UN personnel were not able to respond to the serious allegations made against themselves and the organization in the public hearings.
The ICTJ adds thar "the Commission’s final report will be the final opportunity for the Commission to achieve some level of international credibility, which has been seriously compromised. This can only be achieved if the report places the principles of truth and justice ahead of the political factors which have marred the process to date". To download the publication click here. Labels: ICTJ, Publications, Timor-Leste, Transitional Justice, Truth Commissions .....
Sunday, February 17, 2008
The woes of 'affluenza'
During a rain delay at the Wimbledon tennis tournament this year, former champion John McEnroe was asked if his children played tennis. He responded by saying they did and were good at it. He was then asked if he thought they would make it to stardom. He answered that they would “probably not”, because his children suffered from affluenza. He went on to explain that they had too much money, lacked motivation and were not ‘hungry’ enough to put in the hours needed to be champions.
British psychologist Oliver James has written a book called Affluenza. He claims consumerism and keeping up with the Joneses have resulted in increases in depression and anxiety among millions in cities from Shanghai to New York. Research published by the United Nations University also shows that wealthier people are not necessarily happier.
Personally, I am not overly concerned that the pursuit of material gain can make one feel anxious, overworked, unhappy and stressed. It does not take a psychologist to remind people to get their lives into perspective and that the single-minded pursuit of material goods can leave one feeling emotionally unfilled. It is McEnroe’s quip about his lazy kids I find most interesting.
In his 1895, novel The Time Machine, HG Wells takes McEnroe’s view of affluenza to its logical (if not hyperbolic) conclusion. The novel centres on a time traveller, who travels forward in time into a world where the previously rich, because of their sedentary lifestyle, have devolved, rather than evolved, into a docile and ineffectual species called the Eloi. Members of the working class, in turn, have mutated into bestial creatures called Morlocks. The Morlocks live underground and toil to keep the Eloi’s world ticking over and bountiful. The twist, however, is that the Morlocks eat the Eloi from time to time to survive. Oddly, however, all have adapted to their roles and the strange world works with a de facto class structure still in place.
Of course, the real world is not as straightforward or as fantastical as Wells’s make-believe world. Many scientists and businesspeople come from wealthy homes and continue to evolve up the prosperity ladder. Some are even philanthropists. Children of high achievers, especially those that have to continue to work hard to maintain a middle-class lifestyle, are usually very motivated. They are not simply modern Elois. It is equally problematic to paint the working class as inherently brutish.
That said, children born into wealth, who do not need to work to keep their comforts, are, arguably, becoming more Eloi-like. The celebrity world is filled with the offspring of the wealthy who are layabouts with little social utility, typified by Paris Hilton, heiress to the Hilton Hotel fortune.
Now I am not recommending that the working class devour the rich or Paris Hilton, particularly. Publicly endorsing cannibalism seldom wins friends. But McEnroe’s comments and Wells’s novel provide food for thought.
Are sections of the wealthy slowly sinking into Eloi-like uselessness because people are too comfortable? Is the growing wealth gap alienating the needy from the world of cappuccinos and coffee shops, trapping them in a destitute and brutalising world? Will this, in turn, lead to violent revolution? Or is Wells’ two-tier world of haves and have-nots, which ‘functions’ in a perverse cycle of mutual dependence more realistic?
In terms of the latter, I was thinking of writing a science-fiction novel. The story will centre, as unrealistic as it might sound, on a world made up of people who have no choice but to work like slaves for $1 a day. These unnamed individuals work in dark sweatshops to create clothes with fashionable labels on them for others who inhabit air-conditioned shopping malls seldom seen by the sweatshop workers. The people in the malls lust after the clothes with fashionable labels, but only get temporary satisfaction from each purchase so they continually demand more clothes and varied styles. In turn, the sweatshops grind on indefinitely.
Brandon Hamber writes the column "Look South": an analysis of trends in global political, social and cultural life and its relevance to South Africa on Polity. Copyright Brandon Hamber, May 2007. "Look South" Column published on Polity on 13 July 2007. To comment on this article click here.Labels: Look South, Money and Wealth .....
Monday, February 11, 2008
Transitional Justice Data Base Project
A new Transitional Justice Bibliography of over 2,000 academic sources organized by theme and country has been made available by the Transitional Justice Data Base Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The bibliography can be found here.Labels: Transitional Justice, Websites .....
Friday, February 08, 2008
Why squirrels are as dangerous as TV
One of my child’s favourite television programmes is Dora the Explorer. It is a fantastical animation about a young girl and her sidekick, Boots the monkey, who live in the rainforest and have adventures helping forest creatures. To up the educational ante, the animals speak Spanish and the adventures require colour, number and shape recognition to be completed.
According to psychologist Dr Aric Sigman, however, I am damaging my two-year-old child by allowing him to watch Dora. Sigman recently told British MPs that the State should offer guidelines on children’s TV consumption. He recommended banning TV for children under three and reducing older children’s watching hours to no more than one-and-a-half hours a day. His guidelines are considerably less than the three hours of viewing a day the average British child imbibes. He backs his recommendations by studies that link watching TV with obesity, as well as sleeping and behavioural problems.
That said, Sigman is accused of trying to create a ‘nanny State’ that regulates everyday life. Organisations such as the Save Kids’ TV Campaign see Sigman’s suggestions as unrealistic and highlight studies that demonstrate the educational benefits of TV. I have some sympathy with this lobby, which is interested in the content of TV rather than simply seeing it as an evil instrument. It feels the intellectual, creative and cultural diet we feed our children is as important as the food we give them. If done correctly, this lobby adds, TV can encourage diversity as well as an interest in sports and the arts.
Sigman is, no doubt, worried about my boy’s mental health, but, to the best of my knowledge, his TV watching, which is done in moderation, has benefits. The joy he gets out of Dora’s adventures is palpable. I could not rob him of that. It adds layers of humour and imagination to his world. In fact, if anything, I think the excessive concern with education is problematic, at times.
As much as my child enjoys Dora’s adventures and can now recognise shapes and colours, and speak a little Spanish (or so I think), as a result, the constant educational emphasis can be absurd. With traditional education, Dora the Explorer also embeds messages such as the importance of wearing seat belts in cars or life jackets at sea. The problem with this is the car Dora drives safely buckled into is chauffeured by a squirrel. She also makes a point of wearing her life jacket when riding on the back of sea creatures such as whales.
I am all for my child getting free public education. But is the seat belt message not overshadowed by the fact she’s getting into a pink convertible driven by a purple bolero-wearing squirrel, and the life jacket safety message somewhat redundant, given the fact that she’s wearing it while bareback whale-riding with a talking monkey for company.
When I think of the children and TV debate, it is the advice a teacher gave me that springs to mind: the problem with common sense is that it is not so common. Science does not need to tell us that excessive television watching could be hazardous, just as too much outdoor activity could result in injuries. Equally, we know we should give children healthy food but the odd sugary snack can be a nice treat, even if it has no intellectual benefit.
Most dangers in this world come from warmongering politicians, corrupt intellectual ideas, reckless drivers, corporations that destroy the environment, media organisations that distort reality, fanatics of all kind, criminals, some schoolteachers and, sadly, even parents.
TV can be educational – and it should be. But why not also allow it to be a medium for escapist entertainment at times? Obviously, all this should be part of a balanced diet of creative activities and exercise. Everything in moderation, I say, even the odd bit of whale riding.
Brandon Hamber writes the column "Look South": an analysis of trends in global political, social and cultural life and its relevance to South Africa on Polity. Copyright Brandon Hamber, May 2007. "Look South" Column published on Polity on 13 July 2007. To comment on this article click here.Labels: Dora the Explorer, Look South, TV .....
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