Just another dent in the damage…

This week’s Channel 4 Dispatches focused on piecing together the horrific terrorist attacks that hit Mumbai last November. It is incredibly detailed in its tracking of the young terrorists’ movements and their communications with their ‘commanders’ in Pakistan, featuring original voice recordings of mobile interceptions, amateur video footage and CCTV, interviews with eye-witnesses and news coverage of the time.

It’s pretty difficult to watch given the inclusion of extremely graphic images depicting the carnage that left at least 173 dead and a further 308 injured but an excellent documentary nonetheless. They’ve done remarkably well in reconstructing the group’s movements across the city and collating detailed descriptions of the plot that took the city of Mumbai hostage for three days.

It makes me question what the Indian authorities were doing at the time during these intercepted telephone conversations, was there contact with Pakistani administration? Were they able to trace the calls to find any further information out about the ‘controllers’? What has been/is being done to identify the leaders of the mob and how will Lashkar-e-Taiba be held accountable? What is to come of the Kasab trial (the sole surviving terrorist caught by the Indian forces and currently held in custody) given that on May 6th he pleaded not guilty to 86 charges? Surely there is enough evidence here which says otherwise?

And finally was it really appropriate for the Dispatches team to end the documentary with the ‘controller’s’ message to the media? - ’this was just the trailer… wait for the rest of the film’.

There are 28 days left on the 4oD platform to catch-up or see Youtube’s five part break down:

• Part 1;
• Part 2;
• Part 3;
• Part 4;
• Part 5.

If you’re still not convinced though have a quick peek at this Channel 4 News report for a taster:

When I began thinking about dissertation topics over two years ago I was met by one particular unenthusiastic criticism due to my lack of knowledge regarding the Persian language. I don’t think she ever really understood my subject or why it was important… it was either that or she was too busy playing around in Second Life to give it more than a second thought (maybe that’s another reason why I hate Second Life so much). But rather than let it drop I developed my ideas and took them elsewhere.

It was during the run up to dissertation proposals that I was becoming increasingly aware of Internet censorship in Iran and the growth of the Iranian blogosphere and decided that I’d like to explore this academically with the hope of encouraging further research or laying the foundations for a PhD later in life. I don’t necessarily think I ever achieved that or ever will, purely because I ran out of steam. It was my own doing. You know when you wrap yourself up in something so intensely for a long period of time that once it’s done you never want to look at it again? It was like that. I got my distinction and that was enough. But I’m beginning to realise that it wasn’t the end, it was only the beginning. The story continues and maybe I should be trying to tell it, in my own words?

I started with the concept of Internet censorship – how it was being censored, who was censoring it and why – and wanted to explore strategies being developed to smash down the system, to stick it to the man, to carry on regardless. But this was before Google Translate (although limited it seems to be serving a basic purpose right now) and with no Persian translator I was forced to restrict my exploration to a minority of weblogs written by Iranians in English. I specifically looked at weblogs because they were accessible and easy to document and analyse. All the data collection would be my own doing and analysed with my own criteria. But what exactly was I trying to find out? How would I use weblogs as an example of anti-censorship or more over a strategy to bypass censorship?

Having an idea about what you want your outcome to be always seems to cloud what you need to do to get there, to prove it let’s say. I wanted to look at the writing styles across a sample of Iranian weblogs to assess how people were saying things without really saying them – to look at the poetic metaphors Iranians so often use to describe all manners of life, love, feelings and even politics. To see whether the deep-rooted cultural norm of separating the private and public spheres applied to anonymous weblogs. But what would I compare these writing styles to? I decided that in order to assess how Internet filtering impacting Iranian weblogs written inside Iran I’d need to sample Iranian weblogs written in the diaspora. Those written by the displaced, the deposed or even the die-hards who might be more likely to evade self-censorship given the lack of Internet filtering in the more moderate west.

And so I did and if you’re interested in actually reading the thing it’s available online. It’s called Looking for Freedom: An Exploration of the Iranian Blogosphere (and it’s also available in Google Scholar with a couple of spelling errors – doh). I also kept a wiki going whilst doing my research but I’m afraid my updates have lapsed a little. Some of the work I did here has come spilling back to me this week and become ever more relevant… given how Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, proxy services and weblogs are currently being used in the aftermath of Iran’s distuted election.

…And The Economist learns a few lessons:

Remember Ahmad Batebi?

Google have been providing their useful Google Translate service for quite a while now but today seems to be a rather special day… They’ve finally released a support for Persian, something I think is much more appropriate than colouring the Google logo green for a day – simply because this is it far more useful to the current online ‘revolution’. It means I can not only translate useful sources such as BBC Persian but also all those Persian blogs I so wanted to read during my dissertation hell.

However, I think it’s important to say that this is a machine translation and of course it’s not perfect. But it’s a start and it means it can be developed and evolve into a practical solution for the spread of information. And, with respect to the theme of my dissertation it may in fact be used as another strategy to overcome online censorship, through enabling Iranians to translate English into Persian.

Facebook are also in on the action and the launch of Apple’s latest iPhone software has introduced support for the Persian script – Read more about this on Is This Ta’arof?.

Last time I got hooked on Monitter was during the Mumbai attacks last November when my need for real time information got so intense that it became difficult to deattach my eyes from the computer screen. This time it’s the Iran elections (#iranelections) that have really got me. Sat here feeling so overwhelmed and helpless I really have found the evidence needed to prove the usefulness of Twitter.

Twitter has in fact been so useful to Iranians tweeting the ‘revolution’ that scheduled maintenance was put back a day to keep communication open. My only criticism over the last couple of days is the difficulty to sieve through the millions of uninformative re-tweets and misinformation to actually get to the heart of what I want to know – what is happening right now!

Below are some links I’ve found useful over the last couple of days:

• For some great Twitter feeds see: persiankiwi/StopAhmadi/mousavi1388 and Change for Iran;
• For good Twitter round-up tools see: Twazzup and PicFog for images;
• For a round up of the larger context of the Iranian elections see: Revolutionary Flowerpot;
• For a collection of some amazing photographs see: Mousavi1388/TheStyx/Boston’s Big Picture and The Guardian;
• For some general Fisking see: Iran Erupts/Ahamdinejad whips crowd/Iran’s day of destiny and Fear has gone;
• For a bit about elections and democracy see: Christopher Hitchens;
• For some rally footage the best place was always going to be YouTube: BBC Persian/a brave female Iranian kicks police and 15th June crowds;
• For some Guardian Analysis see: election statistics and shots fired;
• For some live tweeting I kept up with Andrew Sullivan’s commentary at: The Daily Dish;
• For some expert analysis from Gary Sick and Karim Sadjadpour see: PBS;
• As always Channel 4 News have been right on! See: Lindsey Hilsum’s blog (she is the international editor for Channel 4 News and is currently reporting from Iran) esp. ‘A day in Iran…‘;
• Good blogs include: For a democratic secular Iran (he was also on Channel 4 News and the BBC)/The Huffington Post and The Lede blog;
• And also see the Channel 4 news broadcasts including nation in turmoil and violence at protest.

Read Write Web has a really interesting post about a Twitter experiment in which a University of Texas History Professor, Monica Rankin, uses Twitter in a classroom environment to discuss the class topics.

Rankin uses a weekly hashtag to organize comments, questions and feedback posted by students to Twitter during class. Some of the students have downloaded Tweetdeck to their computers, others post by SMS or by writing questions on a piece of paper. Rankin then projects a giant image of live Tweets in the front of the class for discussion and suggests that students refer back to the messages later when studying. The Professor’s results so far have been mixed but it is clear that more students are participating in classroom discussions than they used to.

I think this is a fantastic way of generating bigger discussions and it gives students the opportunity to refer back to what was said and continue to contribute after the session. This then builds up a really useful study aid for when students need to compile coursework or prepare for exams. As a rather quiet student I think I’d have been much more vocal on something like Twitter as I find it much easy to get my written point across than my vocal one.

At my organisation we have introduced an Echo 360 system in which lectures get recorded and published within a student’s virtual learning environment alongside all the teaching materials used in class to ‘rewind, relive and reconnect with the classroom experience’. Twitter could in fact be another great way for us to do this and something I would definitely encourage academics to get involved with.

Waltz with Bashir is both an incredible screen animation and graphic novel depicting Ari Folman’s quest to rediscover his lost memories from the massacre of Palestinians in Beirut during 1982.

One night at a bar, an old friend tells director Ari about a recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs. Every night, the same number of beasts. The two men conclude that there’s a connection between the dream and their Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early eighties. Ari is surprised that he can’t remember a thing about that period of his life anymore.

Intrigued by this riddle, he decides to meet and interview old friends and comrades around the world. He needs to discover the truth about that time and about himself. As Ari delves deeper and deeper into mystery, his memory begins to creep up in surreal images…

The Sabra and Shatila massacres are central to the plot development, which culminates in the unlocking of Ari’s lost memories about the horrific mass slaughter of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians carried out by the Lebanese Forces Christian militia group, following the assassination of Phalangist leader and president-elect Bashir Gemayel. It’s beautifully drawn and beautifully shot without losing the realism of the deeply disturbing subject matter or the difficulty Ari himself has in confronting his painful past.

There are a number of clips to watch on Youtube but given the book will only take you an hour to read (tops) there’s no excuse. And seriously the film is well worth it. But remember ‘behind those beautiful drawings and animation there were real people, they were slaughtered, they were killed. There were kids there, there were women there, there was thousands of people there’. Gives you something to think about eh?

The Facts:

More than 90,000 are believed to have been killed during conflict with a further 200,000 thought to have died from conflict related causes (estimates of the total death toll thus far ranges between 300,000 – 450,000);

A further 2.7 million people are said to be displaced living in camps for refugees or internally displaced people (IDPs), squatting in shacks, living with relatives or sheltering in the bush. Few others have fled further afield claiming asylum;

90% of Darfur’s villages have been destroyed;

3.6 million people are dependent on international humanitarian aid.

The Cause:

Low-level conflict has simmered in Darfur for years, characterised primarily by disputes between nomadic and sedentary groups, because of increased competition for resources – grazing grounds for cattle and livestock.

Nomads were accustomed to move south during the dry season after the harvest to graze their herds on the fields of sedentary farmers; this provided food for the animals of the nomads and manured the fields of the farmers. This system, which was always delicately balanced, began to break down as a result of increased population, desertification and changes in lifestyle.

Farming groups began to herd their own animals and wanted to stop nomads from grazing on their lands. At the same time, nomads tended to leave part of their group farming during the rainy season and increasingly wanted land to farm on.

Clashes between farming groups and nomads were regular, as was the use of traditional reconciliation mechanisms. If someone was killed, for example, it was customary for the group or family which had caused the killing to pay diya (blood money) to the group or family of the person killed.

Timeline:

February 2003: Angry at what they perceived to be a lack in government protection against village attacks and the marginalisation of Darfur the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) take up arms. The government of Sudan responded by exploting the existing tensions in the region, supporting the militias from largely Arabic-speaking nomadic groups;

July 2003: Janjaweed militia with support from the government begin offensive attacks murdering, raping and driving people out of their homes;

March 2004: Mukesh Kapila (the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan) called Darfur the “world’s greatest humanitarian crisis”;

April 2004: An African Union-brokered ceasefire is signed in N’Djamena (Chad’s capital) but later repeatedly violated by all sides;

July 2004: UN Security Council gives Khartoum 20 days to disarm the Janjaweed, bring its leaders to justice and allow humanitarian assistance… but with no enforcement the conflict continues;

September 2004: George W Bush declares the Darfur crisis ‘genocide’;

October 2004: The AU expands its mandate to protect civilians and sends in a peacekeeping force of 7,000 troops;

January 2005: Government attacks on civilians decrease, partly due to the majority of targeted villages already being destroyed and their inhabitants displaced;

31 January 2005: The UN releases a 176-page report saying that while there were mass murders and rapes of Darfurian civilians, they could not label the atrocities as “genocide” because “genocidal intent appears to be missing”;

March 2005: The UN Security Council refers the war crimes committed in Darfur to the International Criminal Court for investigation;

December 2005: Chad declares itself ‘in a state of war’ with Sudan following violent clashes along the Darfur-Chad border;

May 2006: The Darfur Peace Agreement, brokered by the AU is signed by the Government of Sudan and a faction of the SLA rebel group. All the other rebel leaders including the JEM reject the deal, claiming it doesn’t address key issues such as power sharing and disarmament of the Janjaweed. Fighting continues on all sides;

August 2006: UN Security Council passes resolution 1706, calling for a 23,000-strong UN-led peacekeeping force in Darfur by January 2007. But the resolution ‘invites the consent’ of the government, and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir states ‘there will not be any international military intervention in Darfur as long as I’m in power’;

September 2006: The first ‘Global Day for Darfur’ is held by campaigners around the world;

November 2006: The government agrees in principle to allow a ‘hybrid’ force into Darfur with enhanced UN support for AU forces. The government subsequently adds many restrictions to delay the hybrid force becoming operational;

December 2006: The conflict is increasingly spilling over into Chad, as Chadian rebels supported by the government of Sudan clash with Darfurian rebels supported by the government of Chad. Tens of thousands of Chadians are displaced. Militia attacks on refugee camps in Chad increase, displacing some Darfurians for the third time;

February 2007: The International Criminal Court (ICC) indicts two people – Sudanese Minister for Humanitartian Affairs, Ahmad Muhammad Harun, and Janjaweed commander Ali Kushayb – for crimes against humanity in Darfur. This is the first time someone who is currently in government has been indicted by the ICC. Khartoum declares that it will not co-operate and instead will try Kushayb in its own ’special criminal court’ – a clear attempt to pre-empt independent prosecution. Some Jajaweed leaders, concerned they may also be tried by the government, start switching allegiance to the rebels;

April 2007: Under pressure from China, Khartoum removes its opposition to 3,000 UN peacekeepers entering Darfur as part of the ‘hybrid’ force;

September 2007: 12 African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) peacekeepers, whose mandate is to protect civilians, were killed in Haskanita, apparently by forces from armed opposition groups;

May 2008: Unprecedented assault by the JEM on Khartoum;

14 July 2008: The ICC serves a warrant (issued March 4 2009) for the arrest of Omar al-Bashir outlining five counts of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes in Darfur (a further three for genocide were dropped due to insufficient evidence of a specific intent to destroy ethnic groups in Darfur);

November 2008: President Bashir announces a ceasefire;

November 2008: The ICC calls for arrest of three rebel commanders;

February 2009: A ceasefire is agreed by the JEM with a committment to end conflict with the Sudan Government in three months;

March 2009: The ICC’s arrest warrant for Bashir is filed but is unlikely to make any difference as the ICC does not have a police force and the warrant will be delivered to Sudan’s government, who are not likely to execute it.

Sources: Amnesty International, New Internationalist, BBC etc.

This is not the end.

I’ve recently finished reading a book about a translator, a tribesman in Darfur caught up in the violence when his village was destroyed by helicopter gunships in 2003, when ‘the Sudanese government-backed militias came to murder, rape and burn’ and drive the tribesmen from their lands. The Translator, his name Daoud Hari, is a Zaghawi who grew up ‘racing camels across the desert, attending colourful weddings and, when his work was done, playing games under the moonlight’ who survived not only the decimation of his village but also a harrowing journey to Chad, six illegal border crossings (each with their own tale of rape and murder), abduction, torture and imprisonment.

It’s difficult to call it a good book, yet it’s probably one of the best books I’ve read in a while. A book that makes you stop and think about life and whether there is something more the better off jokers like me should or could be doing to try and make the world a better place for those of us less fortunate… for those suffering the consequences of a modern genocide let’s say! After putting the book down the world has turned a somewhat shitty shade of brown and left a part of my mind in a permanent state of sadness. I dug out an old copy of the New Internationalist from a lapsed subscription – Darfur: Don’t look away (401 June 2007) – remembering it’s opening:

‘God how grim’, is the most common reaction I’ve been getting when I tell people I’m doing a magazine on Darfur. Often followed by: ‘It’s just so awful – but there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do…’ This feeling of powerlessness in the face of extreme human suffering is unpleasant and upsetting [you're not wrong]; so we’re inclined to look away.

But we shouldn’t be! This is what the UN are calling ‘the world’s worst humanitarian crisis’, we shouldn’t be looking away, we should be tackling this head on – pushing for effective peacekeeping forces with a mandate to protect the people. Sounds good on paper eh? But how do we do this? Well, I’m not so sure but I do know that Amnesty International is always a good starting place for anyone looking for current information or wanting to take action.

So back to the book. After losing his brother, Ahmed, one of the village defenders left behind to slow the attack and helping to push his people (those with no animals who could hide and make a temporary life) into the mountains, burying the newly dead along the way Daoud arrived in Chad and got to work moving around the refugee camps helping in any way necessary. In Chad refugees are welcomed by the government but restricted from working – even for free – and so this is how Daoud came to be Suleyman Abakar Moussa of Chad and how he was able to begin using his knowledge of both English and Arabic to work as a translator for journalists and NGOs documenting this occurrence of state-sponsored ethnic cleansing.

Essentially this book is a memoir of one man’s horrific journey through life using language skills as a weapon against war. It’s a tale of his survival aimed to tell the story of those lost and of those still fighting and of those left waiting for peace, for those wanting to return to their homeland free from fear. It is written for those wanting to learn more about the people of Darfur and the cause of their conflict, for those wanting to know what happened to young children like Amma, stabbed through the stomach with a Janjaweed’s bayonet, thrust into the air and then left to die a slow painful death under her Abba’s tear drenched eyes. It is for all of us wanting to find hope behind the horror stories embedded in Darfur’s long and complex history who want to help rebuild their communities in whichever way we can. And lastly it’s for those of us wanting to spread the word and speak out or rather ‘whine and kick and scream until everyone has everything they need’.

Here are a couple of really interesting videos by Erin, a stroke victim at 29 in recovery. In the first video you hear her explaining her ‘Alien Hand Syndrome’ and watch as she tries to control her left hand’s activity with her right. Two years later she is still partially sighted and struggling to gain control of her fingers for touch typing but as you’ll see, despite her doctor’s predictions she’s back driving and coping remarkably well!

Update:

Speaking of Aliens, here’s a rather bizzare story from The Sun – Man, 30, gives ‘birth’ to his twin.