Are we theeere yet?

For better or for worse, I have spent much of the last 10 days on public transport. Buses, minibuses, pickup trucks, shared taxis. Despite the discomfort and general sweatiness of such travel, I am enjoying it thoroughly, enjoying the chance to see a good portion of southern Africa - from Lusaka to Johannesburg, through Malawi and Mozambique - with the locals who travel these routes routinely.

Through the sweat, cramped muscles and inexhaustible waiting, I have met fascinating people and shared good conversations.

Traveling from Lilongwe to the coast of Lake Malawi, I sat next to a Senegalese businessman who has bought and sold most commodities you can name in as many different African countries. Though this man spoke barely a word of English, he routinely lambasted the conductor in rapid French and Portuguese for piling too many people on the bus. I enjoyed our hours of French conversation, which seemed to confuse the Malawians around us, and the unique perspectives he offered on Malawi.

Coming back from Mt. Mulanje to Blantyre, Malawi's business capital, Nathan and I rode in the back of a pickup truck, a common mode of transport known as matolas in Malawi. We bonded with a group of young Malawian men over a heated game of dice, conversations about religion (typical) and the teamwork required to try to cover ourselves and our belongings from sudden downpours of rain. When the truck left the highway to detour through back alleyways in a nondescript small town, we were told that this was to evade a police checkpoint that regulates matola transport, and we all laughed heartily.

Most recently, in a minibus from Zomba, the British colonial capital perched atop rolling hills and reminiscent of many hill stations I have visited throughout India, to Blantyre, I sat next to a young student finishing his Masters in international relations - similar to the program I plan to begin next fall. We spoke continuously about African politics and his intentions to continue his studies at McGill University in Montreal, making the hour and a half journey fly by in no time at all.

In my dozen or so journeys thus far, conversation has not always filled the hours. Often, I find myself sitting grumpily, cursing myself or other convenient scapegoats - the reckless driver or rude conductor, the scratchy, blown-out audio speakers blaring the same tune over and over again, or the elbowy and smelly man sitting next to me. Most bus rides involve varying periods of waiting until the bus fills up with people; these situations are particularly excruciating and are avoided at all costs. I got on one minibus that was nearly full and apparently ready to roll, proud of myself for avoiding the long fill-up period, only to find that the driver had hired his friends to act as passengers to project the appearance of a full bus and thus attract genuine passengers to get on board. As the minibus circulated town and picked up new passengers, these fake passengers would casually disembark and collect their small payments from the conductor.

The worst of such waiting periods, however, was relieved by an amazing coincidence. As I waited for over three hours for a mid-size bus to fill up in Lilongwe, I read a passage from Ryszard Kapuscinski's The Shadow of the Sun which encapsulated my frustration so perfectly that I couldn't help but relax and silently chuckle. Describing the process of waiting for a bus to fill up in 1958 Accra, Ghana, Kapuscinski wrote:

We climb onto the bus and sit down. At this point there is a risk of
culture clash, of collision and conflict. It will undoubtedly occur if the
passenger is a foreigner who doesn't know Africa. Someone like that will start looking around, squirming, inquiring, "When will the bus leave?"

"What do you mean, when?" the astonished driver will reply. "It will leave when we find enough people to fill it up."

Kapuscinski proceeded to describe his observed differences between African and European concepts of time, which, from my observations, ring true 50 years later and thousands of kilometres away. I cannot repress my Western anxieties completely, and I occasionally still feel grumpy and frustrated during travel, but my varied trips through southern Africa are slowly ingraining in me a new kind of contented resignation about time: "It will leave when we find enough people to fill it up." How this skill will translate to a time-oriented Western job market, I have yet to find out.

On that note, I'm off to catch a bus to the Mozambique border. I'll write from Mozambique, with five or so more bus rides to recount. Until then.

Christmas in Malawi

I'm at a hostel in Blantyre, Malawi, waiting... waiting... waiting for photos from my recent travels to upload. It looks like they never will, so you'll have to wait until I return to Lusaka on January 11th.

This is unfortunate, because I've been snapping away lately. I just returned from a hike up Mt. Mulanje in southern Malawi which blew away my expectations. The mountain is towering and powerful with rock cliffs and majestic peaks, surrounded by lush greenery and dense forest, and more waterfalls than I've ever seen in such a short time. On Christmas day, we hiked and climbed to the summit of Sapitwa, Mt. Mulanje's highest peak at 3,001 meters.

I spent four days on the mountain, finishing yesterday, Boxing Day. For Christmas, seven of us - two whom I was hiking with, and four more we met on the mountain - whipped together a delicious feast in the fireplace of one of the mountain huts. Not a conventional Christmas meal, but full of Christmas cheer and good company nonetheless.

Tomorrow, I embark on a three-day bus journey to the Mozambican coast, after about 10 days here in Malawi. I will write and post pictures when I get the chance. My favourite photo, the one I've been trying to upload for the last half hour, is of our group on top of Sapitwa peak on Christmas morning, wearing Santa Claus hats that another hiker brought along for the occasion. Soon!

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Next day update: two photos just loaded!

Meeting on Arms Trade Treaty

Last Tuesday, December 16, Dr. Bob and I hosted a workshop on disarmament, "Towards a Common Understanding of the Arms Trade Treaty in Zambia." The meeting was spearheaded by Joseph Dube, African representative of the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA). Along with Mr. Dube, the Deputy British High Commissioner, Paula Walsh, and the Director of teh Zambia Anti-Personnel Mine Action Centre, Sheila Mweemba, gave speeches. The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fashion Phiri, was in attendance.

Joseph Dube and others are pushing for legally binding international law to control the proliferation and use of small arms. Unlike landmines and cluster bombs, small arms (which include simple firearms) will never be outright banned. There will always be a just and humanitarian need for small arms - for military use, personal security, and so on. The Arms Trade Treaty that advocates are pushing for will establish common standards and institutions to control small arms, making sure that they are produced, bought, sold and used legally. There is controversy over the scope of such a treaty, and the treaty is in its infancy, but the movement is there.

One cause for optimism, in my view, is the recent success of the cluster bomb campaign. While the two campaigns are different, to be sure, the world's success in banning cluster bombs, and landmines before them, breathed life into the disarmament campaign at large. In Zambia, we see Dr. Bob and Ms. Mweemba turning their energy to small arms without missing a beat. Indeed, Ms. Mweemba spoke specifically about lessons learned from the cluster bomb campaign, some of which were duly noted by Mr. Dube from IANSA - for example, the need for regions like Africa and Latin America, which contain many less powerful countries, to mobilize themselves and speak with one vice. In this way, African countries were quite influential in shaping the direction and scope of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

I am actually no longer in Lusaka, having left for my holiday travels a few days ago. I'm writing from a hostel in Blantyre, Malawi. More on that soon. For now, here are pictures from the meeting I uploaded before I left.

A survivor's return

I wrote this photo essay a few days ago. I'm still seeing if MAC or ICBL will publish it online, but for now...



At around 5:00pm on May 13, 1980, 16-year-old Yona Phiri stepped on a landmine while walking home from school. Exactly 28 years and 7 months later, Yona brought me to visit the location where this fateful event took place. The following are his words.

“After knocking off from school, I decided to use the rail track here. There was a road coming from that side joining the rail track. I wanted to use these rails to control my steps, because it’s a little faster than using the road. I was about to join the rail tracks, before I could get onto them, somewhere here.

At the time, the freedom fighters of Zimbabwe came here waiting for the train to Livingstone. It’s believed that landmines were left as they were going. Before I could reach this side, I stepped on something there. Upon lifting my leg, there was a deafening explosion. I was thrown into the air, and upon reaching the ground, there was smoke all over this place.

And then what I did was to run. I had to run with one leg while holding the leg which was injured to that corner where there’s a parked vehicle. Immediately my friends who saw me were all frightened. And since the explosion was too big, it was heard by the paramilitary camp nearby. They rushed to the scene to find out what had happened, and eventually found that I was lying there in a pool of blood.

Then one of my schoolmates rushed back to call the teachers, who came to find the policemen and paramilitary officers surrounding me there and arranged a vehicle immediately. I was picked up and taken to the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka. I call this a black spot because this is where the course of my life was changed. My dreams, my aspirations and all that I hoped to achieve were changed.

I was first taken from the black spot to Jack Compound where my place is, where my parents were called to come and see me. They found me lying in the Land Cruiser unconscious, and my mother wanted to start weeping, but she was stopped, “no, just get in the car, your son is dying.”

Unfortunately, the hospital personnel were on strike that day, so there was not much attention given to my case. They could cut the nerves and tie knots to try to stop the blood, but still this did not work. Finally, they said no, the leg is completely crushed, there is no other treatment we can do apart from amputating the limb, cutting it off. When I woke up, I was told, “you have lost your leg.” I couldn’t believe it. I tried to touch my left leg, I found that it was there, but the right one wasn’t there. Then I collapsed, I fell into a coma for three weeks, because I couldn’t believe it.

After some time I was revived by the doctors and helped by the psycho-social counselors to cope with the trauma, because it was something unbelievable. At the tender age of 16 years, having now a life of one leg. I don’t even know how to explain it, because it was totally beyond my acceptance. Because it was too early for me. After what I used to do with my friends, I could play football, I could run here and there, maybe we would go into one of these bushes to hunt birds with catapults. It took me time to accept it, to accept ownership, to accept that I was no longer able to play football, to do what my friends were able to do.

This is the story which happened to me, Yona Phiri, Zambian landmine survivor. This was on 23 May 1980 and it happened around 17:00 hours.”

Yona Phiri is now a certified welder with his own business in Lusaka. He has a wife and two daughters. Recently, he founded the Zambia Foundation for Landmine Survivors to advocate for the concerns of landmine survivors and persons with disabilities in Zambia.

Making change in Zambia

Disclaimer: this is my longest blog post ever! Fill up your coffee and get comfortable. It contains reflections on my work in Zambia.

Today, I confronted the age-old social-political question head-on: is it easier to effect social change through grassroots activism or political advocacy? After a heated discussion bordering on argument with my supervisor, Dr. Bob, I gained new respect for the latter position and the advocacy work Dr. Bob does.

For the last month, Dr. Bob has been attending conferences in Europe on landmines and cluster bombs. He had left me with a vague assignment to profile people with disabilities in Lusaka. I had access to a small grant to carry out the project.

When I began my interviews, I encountered problems. Without a clear idea of how the project would be used and to what ends, I was unable to justify the project to the participants. They would ask, how will this project benefit my life? How do I know you’re not simply using my story to host another ineffective workshop or publish research for your own benefit?

From early on, the nature of the project changed. In consultation with disabled activists, I decided to transform the project into a grassroots awareness-raising campaign. I would still interview disabled people but the goal would be to design and produce small black-and-white posters, each one expressing a single voice, and to photocopy these posters in the tens of thousands to be distributed strategically around the country. With the objective to raise awareness about disability, I felt better about interviewing people and recording their stories.

Dr. Bob returned this week to a nearly completed awareness-raising campaign: I had finished 15 out of 20 posters, each one including a photograph, personal testimony and an applicable clause from the brand-new Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We immediately began planning a launch for the campaign.

But today, our respective visions seemed at odds. Dr. Bob was underplaying my plan to photocopy the posters en masse and distribute them widely. Instead, he planned to use our limited funds to host a meeting for ministers and stakeholders to lobby for Zambia’s ratification of the Disability Rights Convention. Most of the money would go to the attendees as travel stipends.

It upset me that this money would be spent on well-to-do individuals when it could be put to photocopying more posters and broadening the scope of the campaign. At the height of our argument, I told him I didn’t want my project to end up as just another closed-door meeting. I told him the grassroots element was the reason people participated in the first place, and I’d be betraying them if I didn’t follow through.

Sparing you of the details (we spoke for over three hours), Dr. Bob made his position crystal clear. Grassroots activism, awareness raising, local initiatives – these are fine and good, but real change happens from above. Building allies in government and influencing policy brings about action.

He acknowledges the dirty tricks and questionable ethics involved in politics. Throughout our conversation, he repeatedly reminded me that the only reason Zambians attend workshops, meetings or launches (they’re all the same in Zambia, he says) is to make money. He waved down numerous strangers in the hospital cafeteria where we sat who all confirmed this claim. For government officials, attending meetings is actually a major source of income, making any workshop/meeting/launch that doesn’t include personal stipends doomed to failure. (Dr. Bob attributes this situation to the wave of HIV/AIDS research over the last 10 years; before HIV/AIDS, believe it or not, people used to attend meetings for free... for free!)

Dr. Bob is an advocate. He makes things happen by knowing the right people and pushing in the right places. As if to prove his point, he interrupted me during our conversation to say hello to a lady walking by, the wife of the Minister of Health. All good advocates are part-politicians, he said.

My work here has largely been to provide Dr. Bob with concrete advocacy tools. I have not always seen tangible results from my work, but its utility is now clearer to me.

In September, I wrote a draft national program for small arms control, based on research and information Dr. Bob made available to me. My document has been tabled at Zambia’s National Focal Point on Small Arms and Light Weapons, and Dr. Bob is using it to pressure police and government officials to implement new policies and programs.

In October, I wrote a draft national program for civil society action on disability, tailoring the program to the Disability Rights Convention, which Zambia has signed but not yet ratified. Dr. Bob presented this document to Norwegian donors and is using it to mobilize support for a nationwide Norwegian-funded disability program.

Most recently, I interviewed people with disabilities and documented their voices in the form of small posters. Dr. Bob and I still plan to photocopy and widely distribute these posters to raise public awareness about disability, but this is not his foremost concern, and I now understand why.

Dr. Bob sees potential in the project to garner political support. Hosting a meeting/workshop/launch might seem like a waste of money, and there won’t appear to be immediate results, but it will influence the Minister of Foreign Affairs to ratify the Convention, thus making Zambia legally bound to its provisions. Dr. Bob will make his best effort to use my project to make political changes. It’s what he does best.

Of course, there is a role for grassroots activism. I like to think that activists and government form a symbiotic relationship, each keeping the other and the system in check. Dr. Bob’s role, an indispensable one, is to communicate between the two. He speaks both languages – that of the activist and that of the politician. He makes activist concerns sound important to policymakers, translating activist aspirations into real policy. In developing countries like Zambia, where the courts are inefficient and the government only mildly accountable, the importance of direct, high-level advocacy is amplified.

Dr. Bob said he didn’t want to tell me the raw details described above because they would depress me. I’m glad he did – even if they indeed depressed me. Because although it’s depressing to know how politics and development work, it’s better to know than not to know. I came out of this conversation – and, to a large extent, out of the first three months of my internship – with a renewed respect for the advocacy work that Dr. Bob does. For me, Dr. Bob demonstrates the potential for social change through strategic relationship building and personal politics. This may not be the best or the only way to effect change, but it is one way.


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Update: I wrote this post a few days ago. Since then, Dr. Bob has informally secured the British Council of Lusaka as the venue for a launch and exhibit of the disability project in January. The launch will include members of parliament and ministers. Bob also arranged unlimited free photocopying through his contacts, so we’ll only have to buy ink and paper. It looks like both aims – the grassroots awareness campaign and the lobbying – are compatible after all, at least in this case.

Farewell, Stephanie

Award-winning Globe and Mail correspondent Stephanie Nolen has just left her post as head of the paper's Africa Bureau. This farewell piece she wrote on her years of reporting throughout the continent is a thoughtful and honest reflection on the troubles Africa faces and the progress it has made. I appreciate Nolen's emphasis on covering the tragedies and the triumphs in Africa in equal measure. She is a reporter that us Canadians – and Montrealers, and King's College grads, depending – should be proud of. If you have the interest, the archives of her Africa blog are full of exciting and educational anecdotes from her travels.

MY VOICE posters

Here are a few posters for my awareness-raising campaign, "MY VOICE as a person with a disability." The rest of them (16 so far) can be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lcentury/sets/72157611032822061/

I am still very much open to criticism and suggestions. These posters will be distributed widely across Zambia to raise awareness about disability. They will also be used to pressure the Zambian government to ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We're hoping to present the posters in a gallery setting and organize a launch in January.

Disability politics

In two days, over two interviews, I gained brief exposure to the deep and complicated politics of the disability sector in Zambia. Who said a cause as urgent and worthy as the rights of persons with disabilities wasn't political?

On Sunday, a successful lawyer, well-established on the boards of various political agencies and non-governmental organizations, physically disabled since age four, agreed to participate in my awareness-raising project. We spoke on my veranda for the good part of three hours.

Among other things, he mentioned the weekly column on disability affairs he publishes in Zambia's most widely read newspaper, The Post, called "The Disability Desk." I was surprised and impressed by the reach of such a column and the level of publicity already enjoyed by disability advocates in Zambia. He told me about his latest column, which argues for the importation of seeing-eye dogs to help the blind in Zambia. Again, it surprised me that such issues were being discussed in the newspaper that half the people in the street seem to be reading at any given time.

The next day, I met up with a second prominent disabled person, a lifelong civil servant who lost his sight from cataracts in his early childhood. He has also served on various boards and even directed the precursor to Zambia's current government agency concerned with disability. He also agreed to participate in my project.

When I mentioned the man I interviewed the day before, his first reaction was to bring up the column about the seeing-eye dogs. Seeing-eye dogs are the last thing Zambia's blind need, he said. They're expensive to train. Blind people are poorer on average than other Zambians – where would the dogs stay? What would they eat? In a culture that doesn't value dogs as domestic pets, they would surely be abused – by people and by other dogs.

Similarly, while the former emphasized the importance of litigating rights, of suing those who breach the rights of persons with disabilities, the latter questioned this approach. While litigation might work in Canada or the U.S., he said, Zambia is a country of advocacy, of discussion. For example, $50,000 put towards strategic advocacy and lobbying goes much further in Zambia than $50,000 put towards litigation. With the money used for advocacy, one could even sit down with relevant ministers and influence policy directly.

These simple disagreements between two individuals represent the world of obstacles that the disability sector in Zambia faces. Added to a shortage of funds and political will, there is fragmentation among disabled people's organizations (DPOs) and controversy over who should represent the voices of disabled people. In my numerous interviews, I learned that both the government agency and the civil society umbrella concerned with disabled people are seen as largely ineffective, yet it is they who receive most donor funds.

Back in October, I worked with Dr. Bob to draft a national civil society programme on disability. I modeled it on various studies already conducted on Zambia, as well as international norms and case studies. Yesterday, I learned that Dr. Bob pitched this programme to major Norwegian donors while in Oslo for the signing of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and received a highly favourable response. The gist of their approach and mine is to seek out smaller organizations and build up their capacity, rather than lazily channeling funds through the larger umbrellas. It looks like the Norwegians are serious in the long term, and plan to invest heavily to build up a stronger foundation of disabled people's organizations.

This is exciting! In the meantime, I have been working on a more modest project and avoiding politics at all cost. I'll post my posters in a few days.

"The development set"

This poem was published in 1976. It could have been written in 2006. (I found it at wronging rights; they found it at Owen abroad.)

The Development Set
by Ross Coggins

Excuse me, friends, I must catch my jet
I’m off to join the Development Set;
My bags are packed, and I’ve had all my shots
I have traveller’s checks and pills for the trots!

The Development Set is bright and noble
Our thoughts are deep and our vision global;
Although we move with the better classes
Our thoughts are always with the masses.

In Sheraton Hotels in scattered nations
We damn multi-national corporations;
injustice seems easy to protest
In such seething hotbeds of social rest.

We discuss malnutrition over steaks
And plan hunger talks during coffee breaks.
Whether Asian floods or African drought,
We face each issue with open mouth.

We bring in consultants whose circumlocution
Raises difficulties for every solution –
Thus guaranteeing continued good eating
By showing the need for another meeting.

The language of the Development Set
Stretches the English alphabet;
We use swell words like “epigenetic”
“Micro”, “macro”, and “logarithmetic”

It pleasures us to be esoteric –
It’s so intellectually atmospheric!
And although establishments may be unmoved,
Our vocabularies are much improved.

When the talk gets deep and you’re feeling numb,
You can keep your shame to a minimum:
To show that you, too, are intelligent
Smugly ask, “Is it really development?”

Or say, “That’s fine in practice, but don’t you see:
It doesn’t work out in theory!”
A few may find this incomprehensible,
But most will admire you as deep and sensible.

Development set homes are extremely chic,
Full of carvings, curios, and draped with batik.
Eye-level photographs subtly assure
That your host is at home with the great and the poor.

Enough of these verses - on with the mission!
Our task is as broad as the human condition!
Just pray god the biblical promise is true:
The poor ye shall always have with you.

“Adult Education and Development” September 1976

But now we have participatory, inclusive and community-based development, you say. Problem solved!

In fact, these labels can be as harmful as the ones of yore. (I discussed this in a shortened version of my undergraduate thesis.)

Why am I in development, you ask? For the batiks, of course! And the warm fuzzy feeling too.

Alright, to be serious (the poem is as serious as it is funny), it's essential that development workers come to terms, or at least grapple, with these issues. The assumption that doing something is better than doing nothing is bogus. Development – like colonialism and evangalism before it – quite often does more harm than good.

In the midst of my first on-the-ground development experience (working with UNHCR last year was more bureaucratic), I am encountering some of these ethical issues for the first time. There's no easy answer.

Jew-ish Louis

By all accounts, Zambians are very religious people. From mid-week lunchtime fellowships to "I Love Jesus" caps sold in abundance at the markets to the 24-hour GOD television network, Christianity is a way of life for most people here.

It's one of the first questions foreigners are typically asked in conversation with Zambian men and women: which church do you go to?

The simplest answer, which I provide when I'm in a hurry or not in the mood for deep discussion, is to follow my mother's religious tradition, and tell people I'm Anglican. Without exception, this response evokes instant understanding, and the conversation continues elsewhere.

Occasionally, with more time on my hands and greater interest in the given conversation, I follow my father's side, and tell people I'm Jewish. This is normally met with mild surprise followed by a mixture of curiosity and understanding ("I'm a monotheist too!"). I've had a couple extensive conversations about key differences between Christian and Jewish belief.

With close friends and lots of time to spare, I choose option three: I'm stuck in the middle. Like many Canadians, I am hyphenated and confused. To the total surprise of most people I say this to, I am not particularly religious. I am interested in religion (which is the truth), but I wasn't raised with it; I don't have a single go-to or fall-back religion; and as much as I might like the comfort and personal conviction of religious faith, I am quite happy living in curiosity, at least for now. In a Jesus-loving a country like Zambia, none of this really makes any sense.

The other day, while interviewing two deaf women and a deaf man for my disability project, communicating in writing because the interpreter was busy, I was asked the time-honoured question.

"My mother is Anglican. But my father is Jewish," I daringly wrote in reply.

All three burst out in laughter.

"They love each other," I wrote. "Strange?"

"Yes but you are perfect Jewish."

I never did figure out what that meant. In any event, religion has provided some of my most fruitful and engaging conversations in Zambia. The times that I've broached my truthful response – nuanced and peculiar religious limbo, as opposed to straight-up Anglicanism or Judaism – the ensuing discussion, though long, has never become hostile. In Zambia, there's almost no situation that can't be alleviated, no tension that can't be resolved, with a friendly, heartfelt smile.

Thug life

Some eerie graffiti on the road to the mortuary at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia.

(I don't mean anything deep or symbolic by this photo. That small hut is not where deceased Africans are piled up, as my Zambian housemate sardonically suggested, and that road indeed leads to the mortuary at a vast and efficient urban hospital. It's simply a comic juxtaposition my camera couldn't help but capturing.)

A whole new Mumbai

News of shootings and hostage crises in Mumbai shocked the world, and rightfully so. USA Today writes that the gunmen delivered "an unmistakable message: This U.S.-friendly democracy of 1.2 billion people has joined the front lines of the global war on terrorism" (via Slate). BBC summarizes the turn of events here.

This terrifies me. The Mumbai I know from traveling there in March and April couldn't have felt further away from the regularized terrorism of the Middle East and elsewhere. Though defined by tensions of rich and poor, new and old, Mumbai is (was) a vibrant, multicultural and foremost safe metropolis.

What's more, the violence did not occur out of the sight of tourists and expats, as is so often the case elsewhere.

Café Leopold is practically a right of passage for Western tourists visiting Mumbai and well-to-do Bombayites alike. The backpacker's bible The Lonely Planet writes, "Drawn like moths to a Kingfisher flame, most tourists end up at this Mumbai traveller's institution at one time or another." Jess, Rebecca and I ate there numerous times. It was there that I met up with an old high school friend, choosing the most obvious meeting point we knew.

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, another site of shootings, also known as Victoria Terminus, is one of Mumbai's central landmarks and a symbol of British colonial splendour. The architecture, pictured above in March, is vast and exquisite. The Penn Station of Mumbai, CST is filled at all hours with thousands of people from all walks of life.

Though I didn't make it to Mumbai's Chabad House, you can imagine the demographic there. Innumerable Israeli tourists visit India each year, along with Jews young and old from around the world. And the Taj Mahal Hotel, a stone's through from where we stayed but well beyond our student budgets, symbolizes the super-wealthy elite of Mumbai, hosting movie stars and millionnaire businessmen nightly.

All of this took place in and around Colaba, arguably India's most conspicuous tourist hub, where Jess, Rebecca and I spent much of our time. I remember our discussions about crime in Mumbai; I was confused by the feeling of total personal safety I had there, night and day, especially having just come from crime-ridden Nairobi, Kenya.

It's why this news has hit me especially hard. I don't mean to harp on the presence of Westerners there; it shouldn't take dead Westerners to elicit the compassion of the media and its viewers about a crime. Yet I am a Westerner and – for better or for worse, probably worse – the shootings ring truer for me because of it. Perhaps my descriptions above will have a similar effect for some of you.

Who is blind?

I have begun interviews for an awareness-raising project on persons with disabilities in Zambia. It will involve around 20 small black-and-white posters photocopied in the thousands and distributed around Lusaka and Zambia – at hospitals, churches, government buildings, NGOs, and so on. Each poster will express the voice of a single disabled person: "MY VOICE as a person with a disability."

More on the project later. For now, here is an excerpt from one of my interviews. Peter Chibesa Bwale (pictured above) lost his sight at 14 and now, at 28, teaches computers and Braille to other blind people. He is also an active musician and actor. The following is his word-for-word reply to my question, what would you like other Zambians to know about persons with disabilities, through this project? I used a voice recorder, and the text is unedited.

To the people out there, disability is not inability.
Disability comes next after a human being.
When I was born, I was not born a disability.
I was born a child, and then you noticed a disability after I was born.
Who is blind? If you look at me and only see blindness when I am a human being?
Don’t handle me like a liability.
Don’t interpret my rights by replacing them with charity.
Give me what is mine rightly.
Let me not fight for it, for it is mine.
Don’t underrate me or my abilities.
Give me what I need for me to succeed.
Teach me how to fish.
I do not want to be given fish, for tomorrow is for those who prepare for it.
Thank you.

Feature article

Full-page spread in the Saturday, November 22, 2008 edition of the Times of Zambia:


Zambia leads way in cluster bombs ban

By LOUIS CENTURY

“When Zambia spoke, 34 African countries had spoken,” says Ms. Sheila Mweemba, director of the Zambia Mine Action Centre, under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

She is referring to Zambia’s role as African representative in the global campaign to ban cluster bombs, known as the Oslo Process.

Cluster bombs, also known as cluster munitions, get their name because they contain “clusters” of dozens to hundreds of smaller “bomblets” or “submunitions” which are scattered over large areas.

Many of these bomblets fail to explode on impact, thus becoming landmines and destroying civilian lives long after the end of a conflict.

Beginning in February 2007, countries from around the world have been pushing for a legally binding treaty banning the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster bombs.

On December 3, 2008, in Oslo, Norway, over 100 countries are expected to sign the groundbreaking Convention on Cluster Munitions. Zambia will sign the treaty.

What few Zambians know is that Zambian men and women played crucial roles in making this treaty possible.

Why Zambia?

Apart from an isolated incident during the Zimbabwean liberation struggle, Zambians have not been affected by cluster bombs.

But Zambians have felt the impact of landmines laid by foreign armies on their territory. And Zambians have witnessed the impact of violent conflict in their neighbouring countries.

Ms. Mweemba explains: “For us, we have seen what anti-personnel mines have done, and cluster munitions can do far worse. So why wait until it becomes a problem?”

In recent years, we have seen a rise in the use of cluster bombs around the world.

In Iraq in 2003 and Kosovo in 1999, cluster bombs dropped by the United States and Britain killed more civilians than any other weapon system.

In Lebanon in 2006, 4 million submunitions were dropped by Israel. An average of 25 percent of them failed to explode, creating roughly 1 million potential landmines in the tiny southern part of the country.

Ethiopia and Eritrea used cluster bombs against each other in 1998.

Ms. Mweemba reminds us that the countries worst hit by cluster bombs often lack the capacity to remove the bombs and help the victims.

Like Zambia, they tend to be developing countries whose economies rely on foreign aid. They are almost never producers of cluster bombs.

“The people who are selling these weapons are not using them in their own backyards. They always inevitably end up in ours. And we don’t have the capacity to clean up.”

Contaminated land prevents development – including agriculture, mining and tourism – because people are unable to walk the land in fear of explosions.

The countries where cluster bombs were used may seem distant from peaceful Zambia.

So long as cluster bombs remain in production and use, Ms. Mweemba counters, Zambians are potentially at risk.

Speaking for Africa

Facing opposition from powerful weapon-producing countries like the United States and China, African countries banded together under Zambia’s leadership in support of a total ban on cluster bombs.

In March to April of this year, Zambia hosted the first ever Africa-wide conference to ban cluster bombs, in Livingstone.

As Dr. Robert Mtonga, a Zambian medical doctor and Africa spokesperson for the international Cluster Munition Coalition, said during the conference, “Too often Africa’s voice is pushed to the margins in international decision making. But in banning cluster bombs worldwide, a common African voice will speak volumes and win the day.”

South Africa and Egypt have both produced and exported cluster munitions. At least 14 African countries stockpile cluster munitions, including Zambia’s neighbours Angola and Zimbabwe, as well as nearby South Africa and Uganda.

While most African countries supported a total ban on cluster bombs, South Africa adamantly opposed such a ban.

In negotiations, South African representatives pushed for a watered down treaty that would make exceptions for certain types of cluster bombs.

Along with other producing countries, South Africa argued that cluster bombs with reliable detonation rates and self-destruct mechanisms for duds should be excused from the ban.

The Zambian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kabinga Pande, made Zambia and Africa’s position very clear: “Africa is going for a total ban because all cluster munitions cause unacceptable harm... No matter how wise or foolish a bomb is, it will remain a threat to civilians.”

For one, there has never been a cluster bomb without unacceptable failure rates. Secondly, even if such technology existed, cluster bombs are indiscriminate by nature.

By scattering over large areas, they are unable to distinguish between military and civilian targets, which is one of the basic requirements of the laws of war.

Starting in Livingstone, Mr. Pande, Ms. Mweemba, Dr. Mtonga and other Zambians began the process of unifying African countries around the idea of a total ban on cluster bombs. “No exceptions, no excuses.”

Negotiating the ban

When countries gathered to negotiate the treaty in Dublin, Ireland in May, 2008, Zambia continued its role as coordinator of African countries.

Under Zambia’s leadership, Africa went to Dublin speaking with one voice. With 34 African countries endorsing the treaty at that time, Africa was the largest regional block. Their voice did not – could not – go unheard.

When certain countries called for transition periods, Africa rejected them. Ms. Mweemba rhetorically asked, “What’s the point of banning a weapon and then using it for 10 or 15 more years?”

When certain countries called for rigid definitions of cluster bombs that would excuse certain types from the ban, Africa rejected such definitions.

In the end, compromises were required by all sides. In exchange for removing transition periods, Africa conceded some space on definitions.

The final treaty contains a definition of cluster bombs that excludes certain specific types – submunitions must not number more than 10 for each cluster bomb or weigh more than 4 kilogrammes each, for example.

Yet the definition is broad enough that most cluster bombs in the world, including those produced by South Africa, are covered by the ban.

For many, the most important part of the new treaty is its provisions on victim assistance.

Mr. Yona Phiri, survivor of a landmine that was laid by Zimbabwean liberation fighters in Zambia decades ago, holds this opinion:

“It is essential that this treaty include survivor assistance provisions for governments to take ownership of their survivor populations. Because unlike me, the majority of victims receive no support.

“They are isolated and sitigmatized. Their communities are missing out on their talents and their potential. We are an asset not a liability.”

Improving on the Mine Ban Treaty which banned anti-personnel landmines 10 years ago, the Convention on Cluster Munitions requires states to help victims in specific and legally binding ways.

For Zambia, where there are no cluster bomb victims, this will mean providing assistance to landmine survivors and other persons with disabilities.

The treaty states that countries “shall not discriminate… between cluster munition victims and those who have suffered injuries or disabilities from other causes.”

When Zambia signs and ratifies the treaty, the Zambian government will be legally obligated to provide support to landmine victims and disabled persons.

This includes medical care, rehabilitation and psychological support, and socio-economic inclusion.

Moving forward

One month ago, 42 Zambian civil society leaders convened at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka to plan for the domestication of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Among the doctors, activists, journalists, police and others in attendance, there was the sense that banning cluster bombs was only just the beginning.

Zambians still have to make the treaty a reality by ensuring support for landmine victims and disabled persons, setting an example for other countries.

Most importantly, banning cluster bombs represents one small victory in the larger disarmament campaign.

“The success of the Oslo Process brings the world one step closer to our foremost goal of global peace and disarmament,” said Dr. Mtonga, who convened the meeting of Zambian stakeholders.

Next in line is tackling small arms and nuclear weapons, which Dr. Mtonga and other Zambians are already actively engaged in.

In these larger tasks, there is no doubt that Zambia will remain a global leader.

When asked how Zambia would respond to a country that wanted to attack it, Ms. Mweemba replied, “I’d sit down and talk about it.”

Zambia is a peaceful country with a peaceful history. As Ms. Mweemba said, Zambia believes in dialogue before turning to weapons.

“But even if we did turn to weapons,” she said, “cluster munitions would not be our weapon of choice.”

Thanks in part to Zambia’s efforts, using cluster bombs will no longer be an option – for any country.

Louis Century works for the Zambian Campaign to Ban Landmines in Lusaka.

Sleeping bombs: Security blankets

My mother, Barbara Todd, and I have been planning Sleeping bombs: Security blankets for several weeks. The project will utilize the connections I have with Mines Action Canada interns and other disarmament campaigners around the world. Here is the project summary:

This is a proposal for funds to support the production of a collaborative artwork addressing the issue of landmines and cluster bombs in an innovative and thought-provoking way. Sleeping bombs: Security blankets will be a joint project between Barbara Todd and Louis Century. The artwork will express the complex and interconnected nature of global conflict and its impact on human lives.

The artwork will consist of fifteen small quilts, each representing a single survivor’s story. Textiles will be collected from the home areas of the survivors – textiles that are culturally specific, locally produced and personally meaningful to each survivor. With these textiles as a backdrop, other textiles that are representative of the producing country of the weapon that injured the survivor will be overlaid. This second fabric will depict the particular model of landmine or cluster bomb that caused the injury.

Below each quilt, the survivor’s narrative will be more literally portrayed, using photography, testimonials and physical artifacts. Through these various media the survivor’s story will be told: how and when he or she was injured, how the injury affects his or her life, as well as information about the weapon in the quilt and the fabrics used.

The project will offer both a general understanding of the global nature of arms production, trade and use, as well as an honest and intimate glimpse into the subjective personal experience of individual survivors. Instead of representing a simplistic victim-aggressor narrative or commodifying the textiles of a given culture, the artwork will express the complicated and at times paradoxical narrative of military violence and civilian impact, using the diversity and complexity of textiles as a parallel narrative.

The age-old significance of textiles as protectors – used for sleep, care and warmth, the very antithesis of military violence – adds potency to these representations. The particular nature of landmines and cluster bombs – that they lay latent and explode unexpectedly, as if sleeping only to be awakened by a farmer’s foot or a child’s hand – will be evoked through the textiles.

If you're interested, email me and I'll send you the full proposal. Though the budget is substantial, our short-term priority is to obtain the funds needed to acquire materials and collect stories before the MAC interns return to Ottawa in January – just $1,000 or $2,000. If you have any advice on funding, let us know!

Here are some previous works by Barbara Todd, for those unfamiliar with her. You might also check out this earlier entry.

Security Blanket: A Child's Quilt (32 Missiles, 1 Bomb), 1988-89, Collection of the Canada Council Art Bank.

Barbara Todd: Security Blankets, Installation view at the Oakville Galleries, Oakville, Ontario, 1993.

Pelt, 1996, from A Bed is a Boat, Galerie Oboro, Montreal, 1996.

Jardin de guérison (Healing garden), Sacred Heart Hospital, Montreal, 2008.

Some postmodern continent-hopping

Last night, I watched the latest James Bond film, only it wasn’t what you think.

I watched a Chinese-produced copy – dubbed into Chinese from the original English, atrociously subtitled back into English, and sold in downtown Lusaka, Zambia, all before the film’s release date here.

Watching Britain’s beloved hero jabber away in Chinese, straining my mind to understand the hilariously nonsensical English subtitles, sitting in my Lusaka living room, I felt immersed in a wholly postmodern experience.

It isn’t the first of such experiences I’ve had in Zambia.

On Saturday, my housemate Aaron and I spent the afternoon exploring Lusaka’s expansive markets – Kamwala, COMESA, Soweto and City – perusing for new-old clothes and other nick-nacks.

The clothing market in Lusaka, as in the rest of Africa, consists largely of Chinese-produced garments bought by Western consumers, donated or abandoned to second-hand shops like Value Village and the Salvation Army, and ultimately – after even these shops give up trying to sell them – shipped as cargo to one of Africa’s ocean ports, from where they are transported to Lusaka and countless other urban markets across the continent.

It’s why you shouldn’t be surprised to come across Tim Horton’s caps or Oakville Bantam ‘AA’ Hockey jackets (for my Canadian friends) or other obscure Western novelties in the remotest corners of Africa.

For a creative and photo-filled account of the lifespan of various little girls’ dresses, click here. For a great piece of reporting that follows the actual journey of a single blouse – from Leicestershire, England to Chipata, Zambia – click here.

This process hasn’t escaped academic interest. An old professor of mine reviewed Salaula: the world of secondhand clothing and Zambia, which argues that Africans actively appropriate second-hand Western clothes in a process of identity construction.

I buy the argument, although I still regret the dwindling of traditional, locally produced garments.

This stall pictured below sold Zambian- and Congolese-produced chitenges, worn as wraparound skirts and baby slings by women (generally accompanying their Gap or Fruit Of The Loom shirts). The patterns and printing techniques are fascinating. I plan to bring many home to my mother, who is a textile artist, hopefully for the purpose of a large-scale collaborative artwork – more on that later!

The trials of a new Zambian NGO

On Wednesday, after a long and drawn-out process, the Zambia Foundation for Landmine Survivors (ZAFLAS) was formally registered with the Registrar of Societies. Pictured above, founding chairman Yona Phiri smiles with his long sought-after certificate.

Attempts to register ZAFLAS date back to months before I even arrived in Zambia. Yona and his colleagues were frustrated by a total lack of government support given to landmine survivors or disabled persons more generally. Just to receive official status as a landmine survivor, Yona fought patiently and persistently for several years, visiting and revisiting government and police officials who expressed no interest in his plight – indeed, who were concerned that granting Yona status would open the floodgates for new requests and end up burdening state resources.

Remarkably, and with support from friends like my supervisor Dr. Bob, Yona was formally recognized as a landmine survivor, although to this day he remains the only one in the country with such status. Lack of will and resources have prevented the government agency concerned with landmines from conducting a national survey of victims. Despite Zambia’s ratification of the Mine Ban Treaty, there has been little action on demining and even less on survivor assistance.

Yona is not the only landmine survivor in Zambia. There are hundreds more, though no one really knows how many. Yona set up ZAFLAS to find out. Among other things, his goals are to register new landmine survivors and give them a voice in his organization.

Shortly after I arrived in Zambia, I met Yona and other founding members (and wrote about it here). I admired their cause, and saw the value in establishing a civil society organization to complement and keep in check the work of the governmental Zambia Mine Action Centre. Their obstacle at the time was the million Kwacha (around US$300) fee required to register with the Registrar of Societies. I set out to raise what they still lacked of this amount through small donations from family and friends.

Over the last two months, I have worked with ZAFLAS to get them registered, and witnessed the formidable hurdles that prevent grassroots NGOs from starting up in Zambia.

In addition to the registration fee, Yona and his colleagues were confronted by countless unexpected obstacles – police checks, city council approval, endorsement letters, and on and on, each with additional costs ($30 here, $50 there). Every new requirement meant a day or more of bus and taxi fares; many founding members are disabled, making transportation difficult and costly. With anticipation of a small grant from Mines Action Canada – which was confirmed last week! – and contributions from family and friends, I was able to support ZAFLAS financially to the end. Without my privileged flow of funds, I cannot imagine how Yona would have raised the registration fee, to say nothing of the hundreds more dollars in additional fees and transportation costs.

One could perhaps argue that this obstacle course of a registration process ensures the integrity of organizations that finally do register. By necessitating sacrifices and investments from the get-go, the number of half-hearted, inefficient organizations is reduced. I am confident that ZAFLAS will not be one of these failure cases, in part because of how hard they’ve worked already.

On the other hand, without my serendipitous arrival, ZAFLAS would not exist as it does now. Do the roundabout requirements for registration actually reward hard work, or just deep pockets and timely connections? Yona met me partly because of his previous dedication – in fighting for his rights as a disabled person and landmine survivor, Yona made contacts with the people who eventually put us in touch. Yet it’s quite plausible that we would never have met, and the Zambia Foundation for Landmine Survivors, despite the remarkable dedication of its members and worthiness of its cause, would still not be registered.

Regardless of how it happened, I’m happy ZAFLAS is now registered. In supporting the organization financially, I was careful to reflect on issues of financial dependency that were drilled into me over four years of academic study. Yona and I often spoke about trying to avoid dependency relationships, knowing that my limited funds would only take ZAFLAS so far. Yona works hard to instill the concept of personal sacrifice in fellow members. To make sure that members feel a stake in the organization, Yona is strict about collecting the measly membership fees, even though they’ll seem inconsequential after ZAFLAS receives its first grant.

Now that ZAFLAS is registered, their struggle has only just begun. It may seem like they’re in over their heads – in a cut-throat development world of computers and Internet, ZAFLAS has neither knowledge of computers nor the resources to learn. What they do have is an inspiring leader and a diverse team supporting him. Fortunately, there are prospects for collaborations between ZAFLAS and bigger organizations – both the Zambia Mine Action Centre and major Norwegian disability stakeholders are planning projects we hope ZAFLAS can play a part in.

I am confident and excited about the coming months. While I realize more than ever that development can be a nasty game of money and cold calculation, it doesn’t have to be that way. I hope for the sake of disabled people all over Zambia that Yona’s new organization is successful.

1:38 of your time

Watch this video.

Sign the People's Treaty: http://www.minesactioncanada.org/peoples_treaty/index.cfm.

Help ban cluster bombs!

To learn more, check out this six-minute Human Rights Watch video or visit the Cluster Munition Coalition website. You have three weeks until the signing conference in Oslo, where governments from around the world will put the groundbreaking ban in writing. Will your government sign the ban? Until Oslo, every one of your signatures helps!

Where were you?

I am so happy and excited I can barely write a full sentence. As my father just said, it still feels like a dream.

I'll keep this short, and ask a question we'll be asking for generations to come: "Where were you when Barack Obama was elected president of the United States?"

My answer: O'Hagan's Irish Pub, Lusaka, Zambia.


Actually, by 6:00am Zambia time when the official announcement was made, I was slouched half-awake on my living room sofa, weeping hopelessly in my tired state. (No pictures of that, I'm afraid.)

Anyone else? Where were you?

November 4, 2008

If your excitement about the coming day, like mine, is running wildly out of control, here are three readings to channel your energy and stay cool:

• An NYT article from ten days ago on Obama’s management style, to assure you of his composed leadership abilities.
• The transcript of his famous race speech, "A More Perfect Union," to remind you of why you first loved this man.
• The transcript of Montreal’s own Masked Avengers’ prank call with Sarah Palin, for comedic relief.

For visual effect, I couldn’t help but also post this brilliant Los Angeles graffiti art, from the French Libération newspaper [Dans la banlieue de Los Angeles, on vote déjà...Obama]:


Happy November 4th everybody!

Monitoring the Zambian election

Through a random expat acquaintance – a Czech guy I met at a BBQ two months ago and ran into at the mall last week – I landed a volunteering gig to help monitor last week’s election.

This was an exciting opportunity for me – to witness the inner workings of a fledgling African democracy, and partake in election monitoring, an activity that has always intrigued me. For all the emphasis that is put on the importance of fair elections, grasping the actual process, in all its complexity and scope, isn’t straightforward.

The Foundation for Democratic Processes (FODEP) was one of the primary monitors of last Thursday’s vote, which it deemed free and fair. The organization hired 922 monitors to be placed in every voting booth in every polling station across the country, including 150 supervisors, one per constituency.

FODEP teamed up with the Washington-based National Democratic Institute (NDI) to implement a procedure called Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT), whereby monitors across the country observe the vote counting process at the constituency level and transmit the numbers, via their supervisors, to NDI. As the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) tallied its results, NDI and FODEP simultaneously tallied theirs, and could then confirm or reject the official announcement.

After a day-long training session, I was assigned the task of working in the FODEP “command centre” in Lusaka. My job, performed in two all-night shifts from 9:30pm to 5:30am, beginning the night the polls closed, was to proactively contact FODEP supervisors across Zambia and collect their results. Along with a dozen or so other phone operators, I dialed supervisors’ numbers into the early hours of the morning, carefully documenting their observed vote tallies for each polling station, as well as qualitative observations made according to a multiple-choice form.

The experience, though arduous, was rewarding. I was blown away by the sheer scale of the project. NDI staff from the U.S. and elsewhere worked around the clock for several days analyzing results and overseeing our work. Using piles of new mobile phones, state-of-the-art computers and a thousand personnel, a civil society organization was able to follow a national election and arrive at a result independently of the government process.

I struggled with phone reception, communication barriers and other technical issues. But Zambian spelling is thoroughly phonetic, meaning I could spell most words simply by slowly repeating them out loud. My non-Zambian status didn’t go unnoticed – one supervisor called the centre and asked for the white man she’d been speaking to; several of my fellow volunteers approached me with queries, assuming I was part of NDI’s international staff.

All in all, however, the prevalence of the English language and cell phones made possible a remarkable process that would have been inconceivable a decade ago. Some say there were problems with the vote – opposition leader Michael Sata has pledged to take the ECZ to court over rigging. You can call me naïve, but having participated in FODEP’s grassroots monitoring process, I fail to see how substantial rigging could have taken place.

Tomorrow, an election thirty times bigger and infinitely more significant globally will take place. It consoles me to know that in the United States, like in Zambia, election monitors will help to keep the process in check [OSCE begins monitoring of US elections].

The Zambian poll in pictures

As described in my previous entry, countless trucks filled with Michael Sata supporters barreled down Independence Avenue on election eve.

This was by no means as crammed as they got.

The flowery and well-kempt boulevard of Independence Avenue, nearby the president's house, offers an outside glimpse of the perks of being president.

Rupiah Banda posters like these were hard to miss.

Election day, declared a national holiday, was calm, with some streets nearly empty.

A polling station in Kabwata, near my Woodlands home. Though I was able to walk around inside the station, picture-taking was prohibited.

The FODEP command centre in the early hours of the morning on Friday. This is where I stayed up for two consecutive night shifts collecting results from election monitors around the country.

Banda supporters celebrate at a gas station across the street from where their leader was being sworn in as president.

Banda posters above a typically colourful downtown Lusaka shop. I wonder how long it'll take for shops and businesses to take down the old Mwanawasa portraits and replace them with Banda ones.