Interesting infographic from Upworthy. Thoughts?
Human Rights
Martin Luther King leaning on a lectern. Deutsch: 1964: Martin Luther King Português: Martin Luther King (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
On this day 44 years ago, April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed.
It is interesting reflecting on this sitting here in Uganda where sometimes it is hard to tell he ever lived.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the unfairness of the ex-pat life. There are times it feels like the old south – you go to an expat party and the only black faces you see are those of the servants. We live in nice houses and drive our own cars, spending as much to fill the tank once as we pay our maids for a month of work. We are able to come and go freely between Uganda and our home countries, whereas a Ugandan can spend a lifetime trying to get a visa to enter the United States.
Organizations here even have “local” and “expat” pay rates. I heard from one American woman that she flew back to the US to sign her contract because she would get paid more. A Ugandan wouldn’t have that option. And the benefits packages are often staggering – shipping containers to bring all your possessions from home, flights home for visits for the whole family, private school education for your kids (I must admit, as someone who hasn’t ever had a paying job here in Uganda I am sometimes a little jealous of some of these perks! But then I think about all of the benefits I do have.).
We are given extra – and undeserved – status based on the color of our skin (see my post The Expat/Ugandan Dynamic), and can walk into nearly any venue without being questioned. I have often thought it would be interesting to be a white con-artist here just to see what you could get away with.
I believe all of this undermines the goals of international development, an important one of which is local empowerment. One thing Uganda needs is jobs and business development. Bright, young people with an entrepreneurial spirit that will drive the economy forward. Instead, what they see is that the way to get rich is to work at an international NGO. In the United States, college kids who want to make money go into business. Here, they go into any field that will get them a job at USAID. This leads to thousands of “briefcase NGOs” whose only goal is to come up with a good mission statement and get money without ever delivering any services.
What would Dr. King think if he spent time in the expat world of Kampala (or the capital city of any other nation in the world that has a large foreign-aid industrial complex)? I hope that he would feel there is some good, important work being done with good intentions, but what I see when I imagine the encounter is a look of bewilderment and a tear of discouragement running down his cheek.
Mark D. Jordahl – Kampala
Here is a video created by Rosebell Kagumire, a respected journalist and blogger in Uganda, with her thoughts on the Kony 2012 video:
Please pass this on, as it is important – AND DIFFICULT – to get the voices of Africans into debates about Africa.
Mark D. Jordahl
Invisible Children (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)
OK – after I sent out that last post, I got a lot of questions about whether I have changed my past views on Invisible Children since I chose to promote their video.
I should have been more clear. While I believe they do their work with the best intentions, I am not a fan of Invisible Children, and I would not, personally, send them money.
At the same time, I am a fan of raising awareness about Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army, and nobody else is doing it as effectively as Invisible Children. This video is worth watching even though they completely mislead people about how easy it will be to catch Kony if only people will watch the video.
I must admit that I am conflicted in my feelings towards them. There are a lot of reasons not to like them:
- They twist information to boost their fundraising efforts rather than trying to put out current facts and educate people. I remain convinced that they want people to think the war still rages in Uganda because that is the country their fundraising efforts identify with. Even in this most recent video, they refer to Uganda as “relatively safe,” without coming right out and saying that the LRA has not been active in Uganda since 2006.
- They take sole credit for the advocacy efforts of dozens of people and groups.
- They simplify the issues in a very mainstream-media sort of way, which can lead to misguided activism.
- They have never had their finances independently audited, and they have no board of directors. (updated 3/8, apparently they have done audits and have a 4-person board, but have no standing audit committee)
- Most of all, they have a pretty lousy reputation in Uganda which, to me, is one of the strongest indictments.
And some big guns like the One Campaign (who asked their field staff not to promote Kony 2012 as a representative of One) and the Council of Foreign Relations have either distanced themselves or flat-out shot them down publicly.
Many of the criticisms being leveled against them are bogus. People are crying out about the fact that the top three staffers/founders are each making over $80k. Come on – they are running a $13 million operation, and probably are at it 80 hours per week. That is around average compensation for Executive Directors at organizations with half that budget, and we live in expensive times. If they were working for USAID or the US Embassy in Uganda, they would be making far more, with a benefits package that would blow your mind.
People also complain that they don’t put enough money into programs in Uganda. It is true that they are doing very little on the ground there, but that isn’t actually their main goal. They are a United States lobbying and advocacy group. The problem is, they pretend they are having a huge impact on the ground in Uganda rather than just being honest about it. This is one of the main reasons they aren’t viewed well in Uganda.
They seem to be kids on a joyride who are quite fond of themselves and are very good at what they do, which is media campaigns, not humanitarian work.
And really – is it just me, or is it downright creepy to wear a bracelet with Joseph Kony’s name on it as if he’s your boyfriend?
If Invisible Children would be more honest about what they do and don’t do, if they had a higher financial transparency rating on Charity Navigator, and if they made more of an effort to provide accurate, nuanced information about Africa, I could potentially become a fan since I ultimately support their goal of catching Kony. And really – what am I doing to help? At least they are diving in.
Here are a number of links that dive more deeply into the controversies around IC:
http://siena-anstis.com/2012/03/07/on-invisible-childrens-kony-2012-campaign/
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/should-i-donate-money-to-kony-2012-or-not
http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/post/18890947431/we-got-trouble
http://texasinafrica.blogspot.com/2009/05/what-causes-badvocacy.html
http://innovateafrica.tumblr.com/post/18897981642/you-dont-have-my-vote
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, whether you agree or disagree with me. And feel free to send it on to others so they can add it to the mix of deciding whether or not to become active in the Kony 2012 campaign.
Mark D. Jordahl
Invisible Children has come up with another powerful campaign, Kony 2012, and another powerful video that you can view here:
While I am bracing myself for an onslaught of media making it sound like the war is still happening in Uganda, I am thrilled that there will be more awareness of the atrocities committed by the madman, Josephy Kony, and his Lord’s Resistance Army.
I have taken issue with Invisible Children’s perpetuation of the perception that Kony is still active in Uganda and that there are still “night-commuting” children in Gulu. At the same time, I have to give them immense credit and respect for the amount of visibility they have brought to this conflict that now ranges through Central African Republic, Eastern DRC and, by some accounts, South Sudan.
The video makes it seem pretty simple to capture Kony this year, just by keeping the world’s attention on him and keeping the 100 US military advisors in Uganda. I think it will probably be a little more difficult than that, given that the Ugandan army has been trying to defeat the LRA for nearly 3 decades, and the US did participate in a joint operation (Operation Lightning Thunder) in 2008-9 led by the armies of Uganda, South Sudan and DRC without success. The jungles of eastern DRC provide a lot of good hiding places for a small group of 200-or-so rebels, and they have a pattern of dividing up after an attack and re-grouping in a new location, making it even harder to track them down.
That said, I am glad that the United States is finally making a long-term military commitment to stopping such extreme human-rights violations. Also, having the military advisors there means the Ugandan army will have access to top-secret intelligence and military satellite images – things we weren’t likely to just hand over the keys to.
The things Kony forces his child-soldiers to do are beyond horrible, and beyond the comprehension of anyone who hasn’t heard the stories or talked to the children. I have written about some of my own feelings in What If It Was My Son? This is a man that needs to be stopped, and if public awareness around the world is one piece in the puzzle of stopping him, then I hope this video spreads far beyond the 3.5 million views it has had so far.
Mark D. Jordahl
There should be a global outcry against the Tea Party for this one.
Apparently they want to change American school textbooks to make slavery look like it really wan’t that big a deal in our history. A Huffington Post article quotes a spokesperson:
According to reports, Hal Rounds, the Fayette County attorney and spokesman for the group, said during a recent news conference that there has been “an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another.
Hmmm…”made-up criticism.” Let’s think about that. Did our founders “intrude on the Indians?” Intrude might not be the right word. How about “come crashing in, in a genocidal sort of way?”
And our Founding Fathers DID own slaves. That isn’t “made up,” and that needs to be a part of the conversation. Hal went on to say:
The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn’t existed, to everybody — not all equally instantly — and it was their progress that we need to look at,” Rounds said, according to The Commercial Appeal.
Yes, they were revolutionaries, and they did bring a new form of governance into the Western world (there is evidence that the US Constitution was significantly influenced by the structure of the Iroquois Confederacy, which existed long before the fledgeling United States). They did bring liberty into the world for some, but let’s keep in mind that abolition movements had been happening in various part of the world for millenia, so it was not a new idea that slavery was wrong. The idea was there, so they could have fast-tracked it a bit more if their own slaves weren’t helping them to stay rich.
To look at History without the “ugly parts” destroys the opportunity to learn from History. The world constantly struggles with threats to human rights. The complex web of issues that both nurtured slavery in the States and led to its downfall can give us insight into modern-day struggles for human rights.
Read more about the issue of slavery in textbooks in Texas.
Mark D. Jordahl
Related articles
- The Tennessee Tea Party Wants to Do What? (tinfoilhatman45.wordpress.com)
- Tea Party Groups In Tennessee Demand Textbooks Overlook U.S. Founder’s Slave-Owning History (kaystreet.wordpress.com)
- Oh Isn’t That Nice! The Tea People Want us to See Slavery in a Cheerier Light… (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)
- First Tucson, now this: Tennessee Tea Party ‘Demands’ That References To Slavery Be Removed From History Textbooks (classroomconscious.wordpress.com)
As I suspected, the “Kill the Gays Bill” has returned as a priority item for the new Parliament in Uganda. It will be interesting to see if the death penalty aspect is still stripped out, or if it has been added to the bill again.
Here are a couple of recent articles:
The New Civil Rights Movement on Kill the Gays
Warren Throckmorton on Kill the Gays
This issue will need to be watched for years to come.
Mark D. Jordahl
One of the best things about blogging is that you get to interact with your readers, unlike most other forms of writing. A good friend, and one of my favorite Devil’s Advocates, had some great perspectives on my last post about the Land Grab in South Sudan, and I thought it was worth sharing our conversation here since many people don’t make it to the comments section.
I love being around people who don’t agree with me. I think it is dangerous to always be surrounded by like-minded people that never force you to stretch your view of the world. Mike is one of those friends that I love hanging out with because he makes me think.
If there are others of you out there who ever disagree with what I write, don’t hold back – I love it! And feel free to dive in on this conversation, too (especially if you disagree with Mike 
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Here it is:
Mike Bradysays:
July 20, 2011 at 2:57 pm (Edit)
Therefore what? Emailing the investment fund or Nile Trading will accomplish pretty much nothing.
Since the article doesn’t mention anything about payoffs to officials (in defiance of US laws), we can’t project that the US firms did anything illegal. If there is proof or even allegations to the contrary, I can’t find anything.
Therefore, I’m left with the thought that the outrage should be the bad deals the South Sudanese government officials entered into. Whether the company is in Texas or not is irrelevant.
If I’m a gov’t official and I took a bribe, that’s bad and the company (US or otherwise) is wrong to pay. But, assuming that’s not the case, then I as a gov’t official want the maximum amount because why wouldn’t I? It’s not in my interest to take anything less (assuming no bribe and they never mention one) unless I just want to unload it and go home early. Therefore, I put the land out to bid on the open market for firms or governments from many countries to compete for.
Let’s say everyone emails Nile and the investment company and are successful in restricting their and any other evil US corporation from buying land rights in South Sudan. Does that mean the selling stops? Of course not, it just means the Chinese (or other large buying interest in Africa) get it and at probably a lower price because there are less potential buyers at the auction. By removing the US buyers without putting the pressure where it appropriately should be placed (South Sudanese officials), how did this change anything?
MB
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Mike Brady says:
July 21, 2011 at 7:12 am (Edit)Interesting points as usual.
I guess my ultimate point is that there are unintended consequences of barring or shaming NTD to the exclusion of South Sudanese pressure to change the system (not just 1 player).
You bring up an interesting question, which would make a good expanded blog post, which is “enter into deals with warlords, are we a “better” option?”. My answer is yes. While I emphatically disagree with your assertion that China is more transparent than the US and our multi-national corporations (another good blog topic), the fact remains that you have to have a seat at the table in order to have any influence at all.
For now, let’s assume there are warlords and someone is going to do business with them. If you say “no one should”, then you’re being unrealistic as it’s the same as saying “no one should visit prostitutes, buy illegal drugs, or make war”. So, assuming at least 1 party in the world is going to deal with them, I have to rank who I trust more and who I, as an American, will be able to influence the most to change the interaction between the 2 parties.
1.China
2. South America
3. Europe
4. Japan
5 US
Your rankings might be different than mine, and that’s fine, but as an American citizen my levers of change are much higher (even if it’s still low) on the US than on the first 4. Even if my trust in the ethical dealings is near zero in the US, it’s still frankly higher than my other choices. If you believe Europe is higher in ethical standards and transparency (gov’t and private), I’ll share with you sometime my European business experience in 2004/2005–it was not pretty and not the “Europe is wonderful” marketing campaign. Beautiful to visit, I want to retire there probably, but I trust their gov’t and private less than the US. But, I’m off on a tangent.Your other questions about how to effectuate systematic change, etc. are good ones. That, in my humble opinion, is where the discussion should be and the article should have highlighted.
That’s it for now. As usual, thought provoking.
MB
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Mark D. Jordahl says:
July 21, 2011 at 1:00 pm (Edit)But what’s the point of having a lever if you choose not to use it? You say that your ability to effect change is greater in the US, but you say not to bother trying to influence a US corporation and instead to focus on trying to influence the South Sudan government. I think we should pull as many levers as possible, and one of the main things that has changed corporate actions in the past is public pressure (think the Nike sweatshop campaign).
As far as “being at the table,” you might notice that in no place did I say that NTD or Jarch should get out of Sudan. I said that NTD should be encouraged to be fair to the people of Sudan in their dealings there, and that Jarch should work through the legitimate government of South Sudan now that there is one.
And I have to say that while I agree that if one person refuses to work with a warlord another will likely move in, I don’t agree that that justifies doing business with (and therefore funding) warlords. Southern Sudanese have suffered unspeakable horrors at the hands of warlords, and I wouldn’t want my money to be supporting those activities, even if the end result is that they get the money from somewhere else. There are certain things in this world that I just don’t want to be a part of, and saying that “if I don’t do it someone else will” just isn’t a good enough excuse for me.
I don’t think China is more transparent overall, just that their motives are on the table more than ours.
And regarding where the conversation should be focused, systemic change certainly needs to be part of it. However, awareness is the first step, and I see my job as awareness and opinion more than answers since most of these things are way over my head.
This is fun – we should figure out a joint blog post to write sometime!
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July 23, 2011 at 1:11 pm (Edit)
Yes legitimate gov’t versus warlords, if possible. Regarding your money with warlords instead of someone else’s? I probably don’t agree,but I’d have to think about it a little more. My first inclination is that you feel better (your money not involved) but the overall goal of effecting change is hurt because you’re not there to effect change from within or with engagement. This boils down to a belief I have that change for system is best accomplished by those involved in it (like from within a corporation, NGO, gov’t, etc.) not from without or detached engagement. But I have to admit I’d have to noodle that a little more.
MB
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July 25, 2011 at 10:09 am (Edit)
Ahhh…I think I see where our basic assumptions differ. If I am reading you correctly, you seem to be coming from the assumption that companies at the table will WANT to affect positive change, and therefore it is beneficial to have them at the table. I’m not sure I accept that. I come from the assumption that without outside public or legal pressure, most companies will want to set up the deals that will make them the most money.
So yes, I agree that change from within is better, as long as there is some motivation for positive change.
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Mike Brady says: July 25, 2011 at 11:23 am (Edit)
I appreciate you clarifying. Close, but not exact, but since our conversation morphed in many directions, it’s my fault as my points were getting swallowed up but sub-points.
It’s a hierarchy of choices.
If the choice is between
1. Irritation and pressure on a US company vs. Sudanese cooperative, I choose the latter (although the first might make you feel better which I’m not interested in)
2. Having a US Company deal with Sudan vs. a non-US company, I choose the first, although not having the US Company deal at all might make someone feel morally superior, I think the unintended consequences are greater and I’m not interested in how someone feels. It’s not about you it’s about the ultimate action you want and the world is a dirty place
I think you’re just more negative on companies than I am. For every example of a misdeed in a private company filled with imperfect people, I can give an example of a misdeed of a government entity filled with equally imperfect people. But, that is definitely another conversation.
MB
Related articles
- Macmillan ordered to pay $17m for corruption in South Sudan (guardian.co.uk)
- South Sudan – a Subsidiary of Texas (wildugandablog.com)
Image from roehampton.blogspirit.com
I just read an article that brought up a number of red flags for me about the direction Uganda is taking right now. It is well-known that President Museveni is living in fear of what has happened in north Africa. He has seen a number of his fellow “Rulers for Life” taken down by public action, and he is doing everything he can to prevent that from happening in Uganda.
The most visible and obvious sign of this is his violent reaction to the “Walk-to-Work” protests led by his main opposition and one-time friend, Kizza Besigye. We all know how insidious walking can be, so of course Museveni has reacted by having his police and army fire live bullets into crowds of peaceful protesters. You know, you just can’t risk having people walk.
The ironic part of this is that Besigye was pretty much irrelevant until Museveni started to crack down on him and his followers, turning him into a new focal point for all who are dissatisfied with the current regime. He has now become a dynamic, inspirational leader, despite the fact that a few short months ago he was a bit of a has-been who was expected to be as corrupt as Museveni if he won the election.
On to the article. There were two points, in particular, that just had “dictator” written all over them. Here is one passage that concerned me:
The President, who was clad in military fatigues at Parliament where 133 MPs were sworn in on the second day of the exercise, in a letter to media houses, however, largely endorsed the police action of stopping the walk-to work demonstrations, saying its perpetrators had sinister motives.
OK – why does a sitting president, who is no longer a member of the active military, wear fatigues to a swearing in ceremony for Members of Parliament? Was he expecting to have to dive into the bush at a moment’s notice if the venue was attacked? Or does he want to remind people that he can come down on them, at any time, with the full force of the military? Perhaps he arrived in one of the eight 100-million-dollar fighter jets that he just bought to protect this country that can’t afford health care for its own people.
The second part that confirmed the trend concerned the role of the press:
In what might spell tough times for the media, the President said: “The media houses both local and international such as Al-Jazeera, the BBC and Daily Monitor and NTV are enemies of Uganda’s recovery and they will be treated as such.”
The press will be treated as an enemy. I see a free press as a critical pillar of a free society. I have only met one person in all my time in Uganda who felt that the press is not already restricted, and most people feel that the trend is getting worse. Now Museveni seems to have declared war on both local and foreign media. What does that mean for the country? How can people make informed decisions if the press are not allowed to report openly on the issues?
Uganda needs to be watched closely.
Mark D. Jordahl
I haven’t written for a while because I have been in transit for the last few weeks moving back to the States. As I have tuned back into what has been happening in Uganda, I am in total shock. Museveni seems to have completely lost it, and is well on his way to being the oppressive dictator that he said he would never become. The military and police are shooting live bullets at peaceful protestors, beating and using pepper spray on Besigye, his main opposition, and refusing to allow anybody to speak out against his increasingly corrupt and violent regime.
I have a feeling I’ll be writing much more in the near future. In the meantime, here are some links to more information about the situation in Kampala:
Ugandan protestor shot - Image from Africa Review
Related articles
- Those who said you will never see war were wrong (rosebellkagumire.com)
- Uganda opposition leader arrested again (edition.cnn.com)
- Police arrest, tear gas Uganda’s opposition leader (ctv.ca)
- Uganda Unrest (NTV)
I think “illegal” is murky in this case given the instability in southern Sudan when these deals were brokered, and I agree that probably none of these firms are doing anything technically illegal. I just think “legal” is a low bar in situations like this. Unethical is more the issue, and since money has no ethics, the only way to get many corporations to act in an ethical way is to make sure that the public is watching what they are doing. Many legal things are still wrong.
It isn’t the government officials selling the land, so saying they “want the maximum amount” doesn’t really apply here, unless they are accepting bribes (which you know as well as I do that they probably are, even though there is no “proof” or mention of it in the articles). In the case of NTD, it is the Cooperative selling the lease and, if they don’t actually exist in the form they say they do, it is the Cooperative, not the US company, breaking the law. If this is the case, do you honestly believe that NTD doesn’t know about it? Also, if it is true that 26 out of 28 land deals did not do a consultation with the local people, that does seem like the law is, at least, being skirted.
You are very right to mention China, and that is a big issue globally, not just in Sudan. How do we hold our corporations or our government to a higher standard when China is happy to step in wherever we step out? If our government tells Uganda, for instance, that we will only give aid dollars if they improve their human rights, of course they will just look to China for investment dollars instead since they don’t care. How do we deal with this?
And do we drop our own standards to make sure we are on par with China just to keep them out? If our corporations knowingly enter into deals with warlords, are we a “better” option? Maybe it’s better to have China in there, since they are more up-front about their motives and aren’t quite as sneaky in their dealings. It might be easier to monitor.
And you are right that it would be good to put pressure on (or give support to) the South Sudan government to think about their long-term interests in land deals and tighten their laws, but I honestly don’t know how to do that.
You are also right that the issue is the deals more than the fact that the deals are with American corporations. However, I am here in the U.S., as are most of the people reading this, and I think it is often difficult for people to see why they should care about Africa since it is so far away and we don’t realize how much involvement our country actually has there on many levels. Norway sounded the trumpet on this, and I hope there are people in other countries that are buying up land there who are also shining a spotlight on it.
Thanks, as always, for thinking deeply about these issues!