The Danger of A Single Story: Boko Haram and #BringBackOurGirls

As always, Chimamanda Adichie gets to the heart of the matter as she addresses Boko Haram and the Chibok girls in a recent interview with BBC World News.

The social media activism of #BringBackOurGirls has been a fascinating local phenomenon to watch unfold on the global stage. The protests were a pivotal moment for Nigerian democracy, but as the feverish call for action has crossed borders, critics have accused the movement of devolving into hashtag activism and mere sentimentality. Moreover, the wave of “analysis” by Western media following the kidnapping was shoddy at best. We require nuanced writing in order to understand Boko Haram, a complex group whose motives and methods continue to evolve.

Because gender remains a hot-button issue across the globe, a “single story” narrative of #BringBackOurGirls casts Boko Haram as an antiquated, chauvinistic group hell-bent on restricting women’s rights. However, as Adichie points out in her BBC interview, this framing of the story is far too simplistic. Comparisons between Boko Haram and the Taliban, disturbingly popular these days, are contrived, at best. While Boko Haram may object to the education of girls, it remains primarily focused on the general idea that Western education is bad. It is not focused stopping Western education for girls; it is focused on stopped Western education for everyone in Nigeria - including boys. In February, 59 boys were killed when Boko Haram attacked Northern boarding schools. Over 171 teachers have been killed during Boko Haram’s reign of terror.

This is not a war on gender. This is a war on learning. 

While it is laudable to witness the passion of celebrities like Anne Hathaway, we must get our facts straight. When Hathaway proclaimed at a rally that only 5% of Nigerian girls get an education, that statistic was parroted by bloggers and news outlets alike. It is wrong. According to World Bank data, the primary completion rate (the percentage of students completing the last year of primary school) in Nigeria was nearly 72% in 2010.  We are right to be angry, but our anger should stem from facts and the real situation at hand. 

When Western media frames Boko Haram’s actions as a part of a global war on women, it obscures the focus from the group’s fundamental aim; it ignores the why behind all its current attacks. Boko Haram's desire to disrupt and uproot the Nigerian state stems from frustration over widespread inequality in Nigeria as well as a corrupt and inept government. Teju Cole’s dark humor captures this frustration (perhaps foreshadowing Nigerians’ current exasperation with President Jonathan?):

Consider the enormous wealth of the Lagosian elite as captured in this recent New York Times article:

A small elite live in walled enclaves where palms and bougainvillea shield Porsche collections, new palaces and swimming pools. According to a recent study by New World Wealth, the number of Nigerian millionaires is expected to reach 23,000 by 2017…. Lagos’s billionaires and multimillionaires spend up to $50 million on long-range jets, and Nigeria has one of the fastest-growing markets for private aircraft in the world.

Juxtapose that narrative of largesse against these stark statistics on Northern Nigeria’s poverty from Human Rights Watch:

The National Bureau of Statistics’ report… shows that 70 percent of Nigerians in northeast Nigeria—Boko Haram’s traditional stronghold—live on less than a dollar a day. 

Chronic Malnutrition among children is also more prevalent in northern Nigeria than in the south. More than 50 percent of northern children under the age of five are moderately to severely stunted compared to less than 30 percent of their southern counterparts. Infrastructure development also lags behind in the north. In northeast Nigeria, for example, only 24 percent of households have access to electricity, compared with 71 percent of households in the southwest.

Given Nigeria’s staggering income inequality and low provision of social services, the North (particularly the highly impoverished Borno and Yobe states, hotbeds of the Boko Haram insurgency) remains ripe for extremism. Boko Haram easily draws upon a large population of frustrated, uneducated young men as well as almajiris,street children under the guidance of Muslim religious teachers. Thus, Aliko Dangote’s recent World Economic Forum pledge to invest $2.3 billion in Northern Nigeria signals a growing awareness among the country’s business and political elite that inequality must be curbed for the sake of the country’s future. 

The attention around #BringBackOurGirls may be waning, but we owe it to the people of Northern Nigeria, whose lives have been so marred by violence and poverty, to at least ensure that their story is told correctly, albeit it retroactively. 

***

For excellent news coverage of Boko Haram, take a look at the work of phenomenal reporter Alexis Okeowo.

A good context piece on the insurgency via British GQ.

To learn more about the future trajectory of the group, take a look at this excellent blog post by Jideofor Adibe of the Brookings Institution on “Possible Trajectories of the Boko Haram Conflict in Nigeria.”

Most importantly, don’t rely solely on Western sources. Read Nigerian newspapers. Some good ones to start with: The Guardian, The Sun and Vanguard.

Being Black in the Ivory Tower

Take a look at my latest piece of writing for Medium’s Culture Club collection. The post takes a critical look at why the recent proliferation of “I, Too, Am..” campaigns among minority students at the nation’s top colleges is an essential part of our national dialogue on race. 

Grieving for Nigeria’s Kidnapped Girls

In early March, the world watched befuddled as Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 seemingly disappeared into thin air. As an international search and rescue effort began in the South China Sea and ended in heartbreak in the Indian Ocean, news outlets devoted hours to covering the bereaved families. 

In mid-April, Boko Haram, the Nigerian terrorist group, abducted 100 schoolgirls in Northeastern Nigeria. After killing two guards at the school, the terrorists packed the girls into the back of an open truck. While 8 managed to escape by grabbing low-hanging branches and jumping out of the vehicle, the majority of the girls still remain missing. 24 hours after the initial disappearance, the Nigerian military reported that they had rescued most of the girls - only to be contradicted later by the principal of the school who insisted that most of his students were still missing. Between misleading statements from the military and the growing climate of fear in Northern Nigeria following recent increases in the boldness and intensity of Boko Haram attacks, there are no doubt that the parents of those girls are paralyzed with fear and worry. 

Howard French, professor at Columbia School of Journalism and former New York Times bureau chief for West Africa summed up my sentiments best when he recently tweeted: 

Does the collective silence of the international media stem from the tacit belief that violence is the norm in Africa? Are we conditioned not to bat an eyelash at the sorrow of the mothers and fathers who do not know if their children will come home? 

These are hard questions with no easy answers, however they merit reflection. As you ponder these questions, please pray for the bereaved families - but pray especially for their girls. 

Rudisha Usalama For Whom?

The following post is adapted from an assignment for my class Human Rights in the African Context. All Yalies, if you have the opportunity, please take this course as Soo-Ryun Kwon is a fantastic instructor. 

Like the rest of Nairobi, Eastleigh, a largely Somali neighborhood often called Kenya’s “Little Mogadishu”, has flourished as the rest of the country’s economy has thrived. However, the economy is not the only thing booming in the Green City in the Sun. On April 1, 627 people died following bomb blasts in Eastleigh that were suspected to be the work of al-Shabab sympathizers. The following day, the Kenyan police launched a large-scale counter-terrorism operation called Rudisha Usalama (“restore peace” in Kiswahili).

Since April 2, more than 4,000 people, many of them of Somali origin, have been arrested as part of Rudisha Usalama. In visits to Pangani police station in Eastleigh on April 4 and 8, Human Rights Watch found hundreds of detainees packed into cells designed to accommodate 20 people. Forced into unsanitary conditions and detained beyond 24 hours without arraignment, such treatment violates both Kenyan law as well as international laws including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

While some of these detainees will be eventually released, hundreds of Somali refugees face a catch-22 because many lack valid papers as registration of Somali refugees has essentially slowed to a trickle since 2011. These refugees have an uncertain future: the vast majority have been rounded up and taken to Kasarani football stadium for holding. Kenyan activists on Twitter have aptly summed up the situation with #KasaraniConcentrationCamp.

The government crackdown on refugees continues to escalate. The recent Eastleigh arrests are the latest in a series of assaults on their dignity and freedom of movement.  Calls for forced movements of urban refugees to camps have resurfaced in the past few days – a direct violation of freedom of movement. In cases in which refugees have actually been deported without recourse to asylum is a clear violation of the principle of non-refoulement, a cornerstone of international law and a prominent feature of the Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa. While that document signaled a new era of progressiveness in matters of refugee issues and cast Africa as a leader in the field of refugee affairs, the recent events in Kenya have set back the continent’s progress on this matter.

Rudisha Usalama kwa nani? Restore peace for whom? As a woman falls unconscious in Kasarani stadium after losing consciousness from hunger, fright and anxiety and ababy is left to die as police seize its mother, we must ask ourselves whom we are really helping. Despite the searches, the arrests and the deportations, no terrorists have been uncovered and no more explosives revealed. Instead we must turn to the question of who were are hurting. The answer is all of us. 

While the global war on terror remains a challenge across the world, mass arrests and ethnic profiling is unlikely to prevent future attacks or keep Kenyans safe. Terrorism is a terrible; yet even more terrible are the fear-driven actions that such fear compels us to take. Alienating the Somali community through ethnic profiling for the sake of the “security of the nation” only leaves Kenya more insecure and more fragmented across social lines. State security need not come at the expense of human rights.

Instead of allowing violence to beget more violence, Kenya requires a concerted, coordinated approach from all levels of the government bureaucracy to end the ongoing arbitrary detention and abuse of Somali-Kenyans and refugees. The call for an end to state human rights violations must come from the highest office of the land to ensure that resolving the situation becomes a priority for the Kenyatta administration. The president must compel the Interior Cabinet Secretary to respect the July 2013 High Court ruling that forbade the forcible return of refugees to camps. Instead of continuing a system of mass arbitrary detention and deportation, undocumented people should be permitted to file asylum applications. Lastly, police and security forces should be held accountable for the documented incidences of brutality. If it truly wants to restore peace, Kenya’s government should tread carefully for “violence is a disease, a disease that corrupts all who use it regardless of the cause.”

Justice for Kenya

Originally published in Fair Observer on February 4, 2014

A closer look at the ICC and the trial of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Background

Despite the fact that the International Criminal Court (ICC) may appear to be a recent phenomenon, in reality, the long story of its establishment stretches back to the late 19thcentury.

In 1872, Gustav Moynier, one of the founders of the International Committee of the Red Cross, proposed the creation of a permanent international court to seek justice for crimes committed during the Franco-Prussian War.

The next resurgence of interest in the establishment of an international tribunal occurred in 1919 during the Paris Peace Conference, when the drafters of the Treaty of Versailles proposed the establishment of a court to try Kaiser Wilhelm II and German forces. The idea was abandoned until it was resurrected following World War II, when the Allies started the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials to seek justice for victims of atrocities and to punish the perpetrators.  

Following these trials, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The document called for criminals to be tried “by such international penal tribunals” that have jurisdiction, while it also asked the International Law Commission (ILC) “to study the desirability and possibility of establishing an international judicial organ for the trials of persons charged with genocide.” Although the International Law Commission drafted these documents, the plan for an international tribunal was abandoned due to the tense political climate of the Cold War.

In 1989, Trinidad and Tobago, partially motivated by a desire to combat drug trafficking, moved to resurrect the pre-existing proposals for the establishment of an international tribunal. Consequently, the ILC resumed drafting a statute.

In the early 1990s, as the United Nations (UN) established ad hoc tribunals in Rwanda and Bosnia to seek justice for genocide and other crimes against humanity, the need for a permanent international criminal court became increasingly clear.

After years of negotiations, the UN General Assembly convened a conference in Rome in June 1998 to finalize a treaty. On July 17, 1988, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted — 120 nations voted in favor of the adoption of the Rome Statute; seven nations, including the United States, Israel, China, Iraq and Qatar, voted against the treaty; and 21 nations abstained. In 2002, the court became fully operational.

According to its mandate, the ICC is intended to complement existing national judicial systems. The court only exercises its jurisdiction in cases where national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute crimes. The Office of the Prosecutor is responsible for conducting investigations and prosecutions. The prosecutor opens investigations after referrals from state parties or the UN Security Council. However, the prosecutor may also open an investigation, if they receive information meriting a judicial response from individuals or NGOs.

The first prosecutor of the ICC was Luis Moreno Ocampo, while the current prosecutor is Fatou Bensouda. The court’s headquarters are in The Hague, Netherlands.

Why is the ICC Relevant?

In recent years, the ICC has been accused of bias and neo-colonialism as all eight cases that the court has investigated have been African ones. Despite having a global mandate, African leaders have complained that the ICC places too much of an emphasis on Africa while ignoring other nations.

Due to the prosecution of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Vice President William Ruto for crimes committed during 2008’s post-election violence, the ICC has been subject to severe criticism over the last few years. Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed has accused the ICC of treating “[Africans] like toddlers,” while the Kenyan parliament passed a motion calling for the withdrawal of support for the ICC.

The Kenyan campaign against the ICC has received support from other African nations. In October 2013, the African Union (AU) convened a summit that condemned the ICC’s treatment of Africa. Following the summit, the AU called upon the ICC and the UN Security Council to delay the Kenyatta/Ruto case.

Now, a debate rages on over the court’s perceived bias and who should direct the fight for justice in Kenya.

A call for respect: how students can fight sexual misconduct

Originally published in the Yale Daily News on February 7, 2014

While this column is Yale-specific, it contains some strategies that could be adopted by students on all college campuses.

The new semi-annual report on sexual misconduct is out, with more reported cases — and more details — than ever. The language is dry, but the emotional weight of the incidents described is undeniable. After the uproar following the last report, we all know we’re supposed to respond. But how? What should students do with this new information? After the last report our community came together in crisis — now, how do we come together in growth?

The University can and must provide us with a solid infrastructure for response: forums for discussion, resources for support and tools for shaping positive culture. But in that last area it is students who ultimately have the largest influence; we mold and shape this culture based on our own experiences and ideals. Each of us must take responsibility in ensuring that everyone on this campus feels welcome, safe and respected. In prompting our peers to act against sexual misconduct, we too often say, “imagine if it was your sister, your brother or your friend.” But we cannot act only due to imagined bonds of friendship or kin. Rather, we should act because we are a community that aims to support its members. If we all adopt this philosophy, the aggregate potential for change is astounding.

Though the number of reported cases of sexual misconduct has risen to an all-time high, there are still likely many incidents that go unreported; as a community, we can address this ongoing problem.  The first step is to make sure we are all knowledgeable about campus resources such as the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct, the Title IX Coordinators and SHARE. Education regarding this array of campus resources likely contributed to the diversity of situations included in the latest report. As the University confronts cases that range from stalking to sexual harassment to assault, community members appear to have realized that any violation of their right to a safe environment warrants attention and appropriate action. It is particularly critical that students in Yale leadership positions learn about accessible resources, as they play a role in setting the tone for interactions on campus.

But simply educating our campus about available resources is not enough.  Study after study has found that survivors of sexual assault do not reach out for support or take action because they fear they will not be believed — they fear they will be abandoned by their friends and communities. Administrators have to send a strong message of support, but so do students. We need to make clear to our friends that we hold ourselves to the high standards that we so often discuss, that we are truly committed to treating each other with dignity and respect.

We can accomplish this goal and encourage more reporting by showing that sexual misconduct is not acceptable on this campus, that we as students will not tolerate this behavior. This can mean merely speaking more openly about the topic or actively taking efforts to create safe spaces. In the context of a student organization, that might mean more communication to establish everyone’s comfort level regarding group activities. At a party, it might mean providing an alternative to alcohol or striving to create an environment in which people can stand by their personal wishes for the night without pressure.

To really convey the depth of our support, we need to be active immediately when problems occur, not just afterwards. One of our most powerful tools of prevention is bystander intervention. One might imagine someone intervening as a knight in shining armor, but that’s not what typically occurs — instead, it’s usually a check-in with a friend, a well-placed joke or raised eyebrow, a willingness to step in and change the dynamic when we see pressure or disrespect. In some rare situations, that might involve calling in someone with more authority (another student, a master or dean, even the police), but we shouldn’t underestimate our own personal power to intervene.

By paying attention to the people and situations around us, we can address problems the moment they arise — and at the same time, make our high standards visible to all. The recent report, like the last, is a reminder that every member of our community can be a part of our effort to end sexual misconduct.