On Tuesday, I wrote about how Search for Common Ground organized a meeting between community leaders and journalists with the goal of better utilizing media to attain peace in Plateau State. On Wednesday, Search for Common Ground brought together 35 women community leaders and women journalists to discuss how we can increase women’s voices in the media. The goal: to give voice to those typically marginalized by conflict in order to attain a sustainable peace.
The two meetings raised similar issues. However, the character of the two groups could not have been more different. The men spoke of their exhaustion: ten years of conflict, neighborhoods and communities torn apart by violence, children raised on hatred and mistrust challenging their leaders, becoming more extreme, calling for more violence. The emotion was raw and powerful and helped more than anything to put a human face on this conflict.
I expected similar emotion from the women, and I had steeled myself for our meeting the next day. Indeed, one of the first women spoke about her role as a teacher, how she worked with children from some of the worst affected areas and their reactions to growing up in such violent circumstances. Many of the children, during an art therapy session, depicted houses on fire, knives, guns, a bomb. When she asked the child about the bomb, the simple response was, “That is what I will use to take revenge on the people that killed my uncle.” The impact on children was something the men had brought up the day before, but to hear mothers speak about their children gave the issue shape and clarity. There is a whole generation positioned on the razor’s edge of violence, and at times it seems like the slightest breeze could reignite the embers that are smoldering in Plateau State.
What surprised me, then, was the women’s reaction to the violence. Much more so than the men, the women dredged up the past and viewed it with an ugly, black hurt that colored the entire conversation. Rumors of “no go zones” and silent killings abounded, with women from indicted communities countering with their own horror stories about the opposing side. It was honestly shocking to hear women, so often considered the peace makers, speak with such anger and pain. In their voices I could hear the specter of the violence that has consumed these communities for so long and the danger that, in their anger, they may be the ones shaping their children’s views of the conflict.
During the break, I asked one of the journalists, a friend of mine who works for the government-owned television station, why the women spoke about peace with so much vengeance in their voices. She told me that for many of these women, this is the first forum they’ve been given to express their anger, their hurt, the trauma they’ve seen and experienced. The “white papers,” investigations conducted by state and federal government into the Jos violence, have often ignored women’s voices. The various peace committees that have been formed have never included women in positions of authority or opened the door for women to express their hurt. For many, this was the first chance to express that pain, even as it divided them into various accusatory camps.
One common refrain among the women was that the violence was the fault of men, that men committed the violence, men lead the violence. “Women we must tell our men to stop this violence.” In the past, I’ve agreed with this opinion, that war is men’s creation and men’s crime. However, juxtaposed with the hurt of these women, I can only recognize that we are all culpable in violent communal conflict such as this. Young men may commit the violence, but they are often under the exhortations of others. Violent conflict such as this is driven by fear, mistrust, and insecurity. Young men are often expected to take up the mantle of warrior, protector. Even if there are no direct calls for conflict, the pressure in most patriarchal societies is too great to ignore.
So I think we must throw away these gendered opinions of conflict and realize that we all have a stake in our communities. We shouldn’t assume that women are inherently always the victims in conflict, though women and children often suffer more than men. However, denying that women play a role in conflict, both as actors and as victims, denies them the anger and trauma inculcated by extreme violence. Denying them a voice in the peace process, a chance to work through that pain, can rob a community of a chance at sustainable peace. By recognizing our shared guilt, we recognize our shared humanity. Humans are fallible. We are imperfect creatures, and, recognizing that, we can begin to work together to pick up the pieces and rebuild.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
This Is My Home. They Will Bury Me Here.
“We don’t have any other country than Nigeria. Nigeria is our father, is our mother. We must embrace Nigeria.” The old man spoke with a tear in his eyes, which soon led to several, an outpouring of emotion for his home and the changes that have torn at his community over the past ten years.
I’m spending the next three months in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria, interning with Search for Common Ground (SFCG), an international NGO that focuses on addressing and transforming conflict in some of the world’s most dangerous places. In the past ten years, Jos has been rocked by ethno-religious violence pitting Christians against Muslims, engulfing whole communities in an area known as “The Home of Peace and Tourism.”
This is the first major activity that we’ve undertaken in my time here. The goal: unite religious and community leaders with media partners to promote peace in the region. To this end, today we brought together forty journalists and community leaders to discuss issues they’ve faced over the course of nearly a decade of violence. The man who spoke the above words captured everything at stake in this conflict and, for me, drove home the emotional, human side of violence.
He was a community leader, a Hausa, a Muslim. He had grown up with Christians and Muslims sharing the same space, going to the same schools, working alongside one another as neighbors and friends. From his childhood, he remembered his Christian playmates, and his community has successfully avoided violence in part because community leaders from both sides, Christian and Muslim, have remembered their common humanity and come together to protect one another in times of crisis.
But the strain on these men and women was palpable in his voice, and he perfectly articulated how he and other leaders were “tired.” Tired of the violence, but also exhausted from their attempts to hold back forces that are often outside of their control. The sad truth is that Nigeria suffers from horrible infrastructure, a failing health and education sector, an economy entirely reliant upon oil revenues, and corruption that is endemic to nearly every part of life. Youth unemployment is impossibly high, and it is often young, unemployed men who are the main protagonists in the violence. “It’s people instigating this issue. It’s a government effort, all the industries. No one is working a job. How many industries do we have in Jos, in Kaduna, in Bauchi? How many industries do we have that are working? Most of our children are graduates; when it comes to employment, sorry if you don’t know anybody. You don’t know how, where you will find employment.”1 This man articulated all of these issues in one fell swoop, painting a picture of a conflict far more complex than the simple Muslim/Christian dynamics represented in far too many media depictions of the Jos violence.
But even when these problems are all stacked up, one on top of another, in seemingly insurmountable opposition to any solution, these community leaders are still committed to peace. The stakes are too high to do anything but to continue to strive toward a solution. Thousands have died in Plateau State in the past decade. The violence has displaced hundreds of thousands and caused billions of naira in property damages. Many adolescents cannot remember a time in their lives in which Christians and Muslims trusted one another, let alone lived amongst one another as neighbors and friends. Many worry that these children, knowing nothing but trauma and fear, would carry hatred with them into their adult lives, further alienating any chance of a future peace.
The old man finished his speech in a voice fiery and defiant, his tears giving him the strength to remember a past in which Christians and Muslims were not separated by violence: “We’ve grown up together. We’ve schooled together. We’ve worked together…I was born in Bauchi, but I settled in Jos. They will bury me here. This is my home. Let us go back and tell our people, ‘We will defend our lives and everything for them.’”
For many, it is the loss of this past, a history of tolerance and mutual respect, which gives them reason to continue the struggle for a solution to the violence. Jos was once known as a cosmopolitan city that married various and diverse cultures from all over the country. Now it is known mostly as the front for a battle that could tear apart not only Plateau State, but all of Nigeria. However, with these dialogues, perhaps there is hope for a unified state and a sustainable peace. For the future of Jos, and for its past, I certainly hope so.
I’m spending the next three months in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria, interning with Search for Common Ground (SFCG), an international NGO that focuses on addressing and transforming conflict in some of the world’s most dangerous places. In the past ten years, Jos has been rocked by ethno-religious violence pitting Christians against Muslims, engulfing whole communities in an area known as “The Home of Peace and Tourism.”
This is the first major activity that we’ve undertaken in my time here. The goal: unite religious and community leaders with media partners to promote peace in the region. To this end, today we brought together forty journalists and community leaders to discuss issues they’ve faced over the course of nearly a decade of violence. The man who spoke the above words captured everything at stake in this conflict and, for me, drove home the emotional, human side of violence.
He was a community leader, a Hausa, a Muslim. He had grown up with Christians and Muslims sharing the same space, going to the same schools, working alongside one another as neighbors and friends. From his childhood, he remembered his Christian playmates, and his community has successfully avoided violence in part because community leaders from both sides, Christian and Muslim, have remembered their common humanity and come together to protect one another in times of crisis.
But the strain on these men and women was palpable in his voice, and he perfectly articulated how he and other leaders were “tired.” Tired of the violence, but also exhausted from their attempts to hold back forces that are often outside of their control. The sad truth is that Nigeria suffers from horrible infrastructure, a failing health and education sector, an economy entirely reliant upon oil revenues, and corruption that is endemic to nearly every part of life. Youth unemployment is impossibly high, and it is often young, unemployed men who are the main protagonists in the violence. “It’s people instigating this issue. It’s a government effort, all the industries. No one is working a job. How many industries do we have in Jos, in Kaduna, in Bauchi? How many industries do we have that are working? Most of our children are graduates; when it comes to employment, sorry if you don’t know anybody. You don’t know how, where you will find employment.”1 This man articulated all of these issues in one fell swoop, painting a picture of a conflict far more complex than the simple Muslim/Christian dynamics represented in far too many media depictions of the Jos violence.
But even when these problems are all stacked up, one on top of another, in seemingly insurmountable opposition to any solution, these community leaders are still committed to peace. The stakes are too high to do anything but to continue to strive toward a solution. Thousands have died in Plateau State in the past decade. The violence has displaced hundreds of thousands and caused billions of naira in property damages. Many adolescents cannot remember a time in their lives in which Christians and Muslims trusted one another, let alone lived amongst one another as neighbors and friends. Many worry that these children, knowing nothing but trauma and fear, would carry hatred with them into their adult lives, further alienating any chance of a future peace.
The old man finished his speech in a voice fiery and defiant, his tears giving him the strength to remember a past in which Christians and Muslims were not separated by violence: “We’ve grown up together. We’ve schooled together. We’ve worked together…I was born in Bauchi, but I settled in Jos. They will bury me here. This is my home. Let us go back and tell our people, ‘We will defend our lives and everything for them.’”
For many, it is the loss of this past, a history of tolerance and mutual respect, which gives them reason to continue the struggle for a solution to the violence. Jos was once known as a cosmopolitan city that married various and diverse cultures from all over the country. Now it is known mostly as the front for a battle that could tear apart not only Plateau State, but all of Nigeria. However, with these dialogues, perhaps there is hope for a unified state and a sustainable peace. For the future of Jos, and for its past, I certainly hope so.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Death on an Imagined Afternoon
I’m standing in a dimly lit hallway, big, blue plastic bucket in hand, staring at a heating element, which looks as if it’s been ripped from an electric kettle and jammed into a giant metal bowl full of boiling water.
This is how I’m going to die: not with a bang, but with ten thousand volts running through my body as I flop around on the floor, upset about thirty gallons of scalding death, and soil myself all in one swift motion.
That’s the image that’s just flashed through my mind. Now what was it that John, the night manager, had told me? “Oh, you want hot water? Okay, first you must take de bohket, go to the end of de hall. There’s a bowl of water. Off de switch,” he turns to the light switch, “You understand? Off de switch,” turning the light off, “off de switch, take water, fill de bowl again, and on de switch.” He turns the light back on. “Don’t forget to off de switch.”
Off de switch. I’m a little reluctant to do even that. Will I flip the breaker when I electrocute myself? Or is this an old-school system where they’ve just saved money on fuses by jamming pennies into a fuse box instead? The difference is crucial: I’ll either lie dead in my own filth until the cleaning lady comes by in the morning, or I’ll flop around like a fish until the penny jammed in the fuse box shoots out and implants itself in some innocent nun’s head. THESE ARE THE THOUGHTS THAT ARE RUNNING THROUGH MY HEAD. Maybe I just shouldn’t bathe.
One of the things I like most about Nigeria is that I’ve lost the sense of security that seems to pervade all of life in the United States. It really makes you appreciate life when you’re constantly sure you might die at any given moment. Even Niger felt different. At least there I couldn’t see the billions of parasites that were going to slowly eat me from the inside out.
Another example: I tried to walk to work exactly one time in the two weeks I’ve lived here. It’s a straight path along a major highway filled with crazy amounts of traffic and smog, and it takes about half an hour. One attempt left me with lungs blacker than a Chinese coal miner’s. Can’t believe I used to enjoy the smell of car exhaust as a kid.
Don’t focus on that last sentence too hard.
So now I take an okada (motorcycle taxi) to and from work every day. I first thought the guys who wear helmets are probably the safest drivers. After several trips, I’m pretty sure they’re just thinking, “Well if we crash, at least I don’t have to worry about my head caving in. Hold on white man!” Okada drivers fall into three types: the crazy, the suicidal, and the “hey, let’s slalom through oncoming traffic!” Ironically, I’ve found that the bikes that are most beat to hell are usually the safest. They can’t really go much faster than a golf cart, and I’m fine with that as long as we’re not rammed by a petrol truck out on a little romp.
So although the probability of certain death reaches 1 the longer I take the okadas or pull hot water to bathe, I’ll keep doing it. In part because of necessity, but also, I think I’ve learned that the continual fear of death really makes you appreciate all that life has to offer even if that means a high likelihood that someone will eventually peel your face off the tarmac with a spatula.
This is how I’m going to die: not with a bang, but with ten thousand volts running through my body as I flop around on the floor, upset about thirty gallons of scalding death, and soil myself all in one swift motion.
That’s the image that’s just flashed through my mind. Now what was it that John, the night manager, had told me? “Oh, you want hot water? Okay, first you must take de bohket, go to the end of de hall. There’s a bowl of water. Off de switch,” he turns to the light switch, “You understand? Off de switch,” turning the light off, “off de switch, take water, fill de bowl again, and on de switch.” He turns the light back on. “Don’t forget to off de switch.”
Off de switch. I’m a little reluctant to do even that. Will I flip the breaker when I electrocute myself? Or is this an old-school system where they’ve just saved money on fuses by jamming pennies into a fuse box instead? The difference is crucial: I’ll either lie dead in my own filth until the cleaning lady comes by in the morning, or I’ll flop around like a fish until the penny jammed in the fuse box shoots out and implants itself in some innocent nun’s head. THESE ARE THE THOUGHTS THAT ARE RUNNING THROUGH MY HEAD. Maybe I just shouldn’t bathe.
One of the things I like most about Nigeria is that I’ve lost the sense of security that seems to pervade all of life in the United States. It really makes you appreciate life when you’re constantly sure you might die at any given moment. Even Niger felt different. At least there I couldn’t see the billions of parasites that were going to slowly eat me from the inside out.
Another example: I tried to walk to work exactly one time in the two weeks I’ve lived here. It’s a straight path along a major highway filled with crazy amounts of traffic and smog, and it takes about half an hour. One attempt left me with lungs blacker than a Chinese coal miner’s. Can’t believe I used to enjoy the smell of car exhaust as a kid.
Don’t focus on that last sentence too hard.
So now I take an okada (motorcycle taxi) to and from work every day. I first thought the guys who wear helmets are probably the safest drivers. After several trips, I’m pretty sure they’re just thinking, “Well if we crash, at least I don’t have to worry about my head caving in. Hold on white man!” Okada drivers fall into three types: the crazy, the suicidal, and the “hey, let’s slalom through oncoming traffic!” Ironically, I’ve found that the bikes that are most beat to hell are usually the safest. They can’t really go much faster than a golf cart, and I’m fine with that as long as we’re not rammed by a petrol truck out on a little romp.
So although the probability of certain death reaches 1 the longer I take the okadas or pull hot water to bathe, I’ll keep doing it. In part because of necessity, but also, I think I’ve learned that the continual fear of death really makes you appreciate all that life has to offer even if that means a high likelihood that someone will eventually peel your face off the tarmac with a spatula.
Monday, June 20, 2011
...And I Can't Stop Smiling
Jos, Nigeria. Capital of Plateau State in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, the geographic region that unites/divides the Christian South from the Muslim North. Over the past decade, Jos has seen interreligious/interethnic violence that has claimed over 3000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands more. Most recently, a series of bombings on Christmas Eve killed 80 and set off a cycle of violence which spread to neighboring states and throughout the country. Plateau State, in many ways, has come to represent the volatile relationship between Nigeria’s diverse ethnic and religious groups that threatens peace throughout the country.
It is in this turbulent landscape that I will be working for the next ten weeks. I will be conducting an assessment on the violence in Jos to advise the local government on policy considerations and to inform Search for Common Ground’s upcoming project linking religious leaders, civil society activists, and journalists for a series of radio roundtables and media projects aimed at building peace within local communities.
Now that I’ve given a short overview, I have to admit: I have no idea what I’m doing here. Let me rephrase that: when I get right down to it, a significant part of me believes that I shouldn’t be here. I came from small-town, rural Indiana. I got lucky with Peace Corps. Farm kids aren’t supposed to get the chance to do some of the things that I was able to do, and if by some chance they do, it’s more than likely a one-off opportunity that won’t happen again.
Maybe I got lucky. I feel a bit like a fraud, or that I’m faking my way through things because I don’t know anyone else with my background who’s gotten the same opportunities that I have. Some people would probably call it hard work, but I don’t think I work any harder or am any more talented than a lot of other people I know. In fact, most of the time, I think I’m pretty lazy.
But that doesn’t stop me from feeling blessed by coming back to this part of the world. There’s just something about the red clay, the open-air bars, the heat of a raw, tropical sun, the dirt, the smoke, the chaos, all of it that takes something away from me. I don’t know if being here lifts some type of burden from my shoulders or if it simply gives me some internal buoyancy, but I feel lighter nonetheless. Everything is new and familiar at the same time. I feel closer to some sort of raw energy, some basic core of humanity that I don’t feel as strongly in the States. My home is a place that’s much more insulated and safe. It’s comforting and stifling at the same time, like a blanket wrapped too tight. Don’t get me wrong: I love my hometown. It will always be a part of me, but for now, I feel, perhaps like some prodigal son, the need to leave and return.
With Peace Corps, I always felt that I would one day return to Indiana. My life in Niger always seemed very ephemeral. I would not be living in a village for the rest of my life. I would have to leave it and return home. Now, however, I feel as if I’m on a path that will take me far from the place where I was born. I don’t know where this path leads, if or when it will return. But I haven’t forgotten my home. I’m sure I will continue to be filled with a sense of wonder. How did I get here? Who am I fooling, and why haven’t they seen through me yet? It’s a sense of not belonging to this world of international travel and new experiences solely because of my background, not that I’m disadvantaged or hindered in any way, but because I am so thoroughly average. It may be difficult to understand, but I think it stems from a feeling that when there are literally millions of others like you, you’re forced to confront and build who you are and what you want in life, and that is a very scary proposition. Not only are you responsible for your own success but also for your own failure, an insecurity bred from not knowing how much it will hurt when you inevitably fall.
So for me, I am left with only one choice. I will keep moving forward, because even if I sometimes feel like a fraud, there are moments where I can’t help but feel the purest beauty of life, a seeming unity with everything around me, when gravity and time stop and some unknown energy seems to flow through every part of my body. It’s difficult for me to put into words, and it sounds admittedly overly emotional or melodramatic. But really, there’s nothing like sitting under the open sky, a full moon, a stereo system crashing music from Nigerian pop to high life to local Berom hip hop, a fish caught, killed, and grilled all within the last few hours, melting into the background while those around you joke, laugh, and each in their own way celebrate existence. Despite any doubts I may carry with me, I can’t stop smiling. I just can’t stop smiling.
It is in this turbulent landscape that I will be working for the next ten weeks. I will be conducting an assessment on the violence in Jos to advise the local government on policy considerations and to inform Search for Common Ground’s upcoming project linking religious leaders, civil society activists, and journalists for a series of radio roundtables and media projects aimed at building peace within local communities.
Now that I’ve given a short overview, I have to admit: I have no idea what I’m doing here. Let me rephrase that: when I get right down to it, a significant part of me believes that I shouldn’t be here. I came from small-town, rural Indiana. I got lucky with Peace Corps. Farm kids aren’t supposed to get the chance to do some of the things that I was able to do, and if by some chance they do, it’s more than likely a one-off opportunity that won’t happen again.
Maybe I got lucky. I feel a bit like a fraud, or that I’m faking my way through things because I don’t know anyone else with my background who’s gotten the same opportunities that I have. Some people would probably call it hard work, but I don’t think I work any harder or am any more talented than a lot of other people I know. In fact, most of the time, I think I’m pretty lazy.
But that doesn’t stop me from feeling blessed by coming back to this part of the world. There’s just something about the red clay, the open-air bars, the heat of a raw, tropical sun, the dirt, the smoke, the chaos, all of it that takes something away from me. I don’t know if being here lifts some type of burden from my shoulders or if it simply gives me some internal buoyancy, but I feel lighter nonetheless. Everything is new and familiar at the same time. I feel closer to some sort of raw energy, some basic core of humanity that I don’t feel as strongly in the States. My home is a place that’s much more insulated and safe. It’s comforting and stifling at the same time, like a blanket wrapped too tight. Don’t get me wrong: I love my hometown. It will always be a part of me, but for now, I feel, perhaps like some prodigal son, the need to leave and return.
With Peace Corps, I always felt that I would one day return to Indiana. My life in Niger always seemed very ephemeral. I would not be living in a village for the rest of my life. I would have to leave it and return home. Now, however, I feel as if I’m on a path that will take me far from the place where I was born. I don’t know where this path leads, if or when it will return. But I haven’t forgotten my home. I’m sure I will continue to be filled with a sense of wonder. How did I get here? Who am I fooling, and why haven’t they seen through me yet? It’s a sense of not belonging to this world of international travel and new experiences solely because of my background, not that I’m disadvantaged or hindered in any way, but because I am so thoroughly average. It may be difficult to understand, but I think it stems from a feeling that when there are literally millions of others like you, you’re forced to confront and build who you are and what you want in life, and that is a very scary proposition. Not only are you responsible for your own success but also for your own failure, an insecurity bred from not knowing how much it will hurt when you inevitably fall.
So for me, I am left with only one choice. I will keep moving forward, because even if I sometimes feel like a fraud, there are moments where I can’t help but feel the purest beauty of life, a seeming unity with everything around me, when gravity and time stop and some unknown energy seems to flow through every part of my body. It’s difficult for me to put into words, and it sounds admittedly overly emotional or melodramatic. But really, there’s nothing like sitting under the open sky, a full moon, a stereo system crashing music from Nigerian pop to high life to local Berom hip hop, a fish caught, killed, and grilled all within the last few hours, melting into the background while those around you joke, laugh, and each in their own way celebrate existence. Despite any doubts I may carry with me, I can’t stop smiling. I just can’t stop smiling.
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