where is kyoto?

Questions on Global Warming Article: Year 3, due 9/21/2002

1. Who are Richard and Alastair Fitter and how are they related? (father and son biologists)
2. Where is Kyoto and what is the Kyoto Treaty? (Japan, treaty to curb carbon emissions)
3. Identity 2 ways in which, according to the article, Global Warming impacts the environment. (polar ice melts, animal migration, altered plant leafing/flowering)

...REVIEW THE ARTICLE 1st!

"grow up: how to fix the peace corps"

robert strauss just published yet another article on "how to fix the peace corps" (American Interest, Jan/Feb 2010). this is something like his 3rd or 4th public piece on the topic. as always – though i'm sure not everyone in the peace corps community would agree – i found the article intelligent, insightful, scathing and well-written.

i agree with just about all of the main points strauss makes, though i'd take the edge out of the piece if i was writing it. but that's robert's style. it stings... just to make sure you're paying attention. for the most scathing peace corps critique, however, one still has to go back to ivan illich's 1968 "to hell with good intentions."

again, i don't agree with everything in strauss' article. but i do think his major suggestions for "re-imagining" the peace corps are right on point. that idea in and of itself, for the peace corps to re-imagine itself anew, is a compelling one.

here are nine of his main "fixes" for the peace corps (eight more suggestions can be found in the original piece):

1. tabling any discussion of enlarging the Peace Corps until it fixes the basics regarding administration, recruiting, country selection and volunteer placement;
   
2. reducing the number of political appointees from around thirty to two or three;
3. getting rid of the Peace Corps’s unique-in-government rule, which forces 85 percent of all American staff members out of the agency, along with whatever expertise they have gained, after a maximum of five years of employment;
4. exponentially increasing support to volunteers so that they are visited and supervised directly every six weeks rather than every six months, as is currently the norm under the best of conditions;
5. getting serious about doing meaningful, quantifiable work that makes a difference in standards of living overseas;
6. demanding a much higher standard of volunteer performance (and a much lower AWOL rate);
7. providing post-service benefits, comparable to the GI bill, so that more Americans would serve in the Peace Corps in the first place;
8. focusing on a limited number of technical fields that would give volunteers true expertise to offer; and
9. allowing terms of service shorter than the standard 24 months so that, again, more people could consider serving

all that said, i disagree with a point strauss makes in the article about peace corps' "unwritten 4th goal" (here are the first three PC goals). perhaps not total disagreement, but i'd state the point differently. strauss writes:

And forget the unwritten fourth goal of the Peace Corps being a place for young Americans to “expand their horizons.” Host countries aren’t interested in Americans who are searching for life’s meaning; they’re looking for people who can get stuff done. Americans who are lost, whether young or old, don’t often “find themselves” in developing countries.

i agree that inexperienced, unprofessional and immature volunteers aren't going to learn much about themselves or do much to help others. but i do think experienced, professional and mature volunteers learn a good deal about themselves through their peace corps experience.

and here's where i really emphasize my difference with robert's take... that if such volunteers aren't learning something about themselves, then there's something wrong. precisely b/c that would mean that they're not open to learning from others as others learn from them.

if they aren't open to that deep reflection and learning about another culture (or people or way of doing things) as they work together to "get stuff done," and to learning about themselves in the process, then something is very wrong.

i frame this in teaching-learning language, b/c i'm an educator. for robert strauss and others, it's about development. but there's international development and its focus on results (with facts and figures, monitoring and evaluation), and then there's internal or self-development that facts and figures can't capture. but that relationship, between "development agents" and "recipients," can. in both directions.

i suppose this comes down to what part of the relationship/results (or process/product) pairing one chooses to emphasize. robert strauss is emphasizing the importance of results for peace corps. a major point of neglect for an organization that thinks of itself as an agent of sustainable development.

on my part, i'd emphasize relationship for peace corps volunteers as agents of development. i wouldn't disparage that unwritten 4th goal, b/c the kind of cross-cultural learning implied by goals 2 and 3 isn't enough. americans need to learn more about themselves through more open, engaged, and unprejudiced relationship with other peoples.

but ivan illich's words still haunt us, in that regard: "The damage which volunteers do willy-nilly is too high a price for the belated insight that they shouldn't have been volunteers in the first place" (from To Hell with Good Intentions, 1968). i have two points to make about this. the first is cynical... maybe it is important for other people to learn how "lost" young americans can be, in spite of all the stuff we bring along with us!

my second response to illich's argument is that, in this day and age (though surely even in his), it isn't simply volunteers going abroad that "do damage." our american lifestyle does enough of that, without us even having to leave the comfort of our homes, cars, supermarkets, schools, suburbs, etc. i'm making a social, politico-economic and ecological argument here.

with that in mind, perhaps it is important for a generation of americans (not immature and inexperienced) to learn about themselves and their lifestyles... and about what it means for other people in the world, who can only dream about living that life. and what it means for a world that couldn't sustain it if well all did.

training americans to be change agents is what the peace corps is about. but you can't bring change if you're not open to it yourself. in fact, if you're not open to changing first. as i've written before, my notion of change starts inward and reverberates outward. in both directions. in my case, that means for both this young american and for his cameroonian friends and colleagues.

in local news...

8/13/2002:

• Mu'aath is a new abu [father of] "someone"
• a good friend here in Wum wants a 100,000cfa loan
• another friend (and loanee) is MIA in Nigeria (3 months now)
• Maggie is a little down and small sick
• Mohamad is always in his head somehow

okro soup and nuclear war

5/28/2002:
bought my tickets [to Mali] yesterday... June 6th through July 1st. TOT starts this morning, but i have a few more emails to send out to set up the trip.

...full moon out last night. found myself in Marche Mokolo (looking for sandals), so i walked over to Dairou's. they were making dinner... couscous du riz avec sauce du gumbo! [pounded rice with okra sauce]. very good.

met an RPCV from Guider, Dairou's hometown (in the North)... she's married to a Cameroonian, working in CAR. work is well with Dairou. good for him.

Pakistan and India are posturing for war. more later...

bball monster

 

5/19/2002:
sports on the VOA this morning... didn't realize that 1 year here translated into the NBA playoffs being in full swing back home. actually well past that, and into conference finals...

in the west: Lakers vs. Kings
in the east: Nets vs. Celtics

wow... Boudi [my nephew] must be glued to the TV and computer screen, driving Rama [my sister] crazy with superfluous stats: offensive rebounds, assist to turnover ratios and bench scoring :)

we call her auntie

5/18/2002:
this morning when i rode up to my principal's place to get her keys and get her to sign my annual leave she seemed quirkier than usual. kept going on about how she left school early on Friday b/c she had work to do. that she didn't have to stay at school all day / all week by herself. that she had responsibilities (school tasks) outside of school.

you see, i made it to school on Friday just before midday and passed her on the way. no one (none of the administrative staff) where at school and, thus, i couldn't fill my marks. that's what i just finished doing up here in her office. i assured her that i didn't expect her to always be at school, but at least one other admin member: SG [secretary general], DS [dean of students], VP [vice principal] or even the secretary.

she agreed. said something about all of them loitering up in Bamenda and something about how i should go back and write about her as a good administrator. never gave the comment a second thought... until later today. Paul hands me a newspaper (The Herald) and asks me to read what they've written about our "mother." i.e. our principal.

the article – part of a feature named the Unexpected – ripped her to shreds. so caustic. about how evil and mean-spirited this old witch who makes everyone call her "auntie" is. about the controversy surrounding admission of students through the backdoor. and even about personal issues like being greedy, having no children, living alone in a big empty house and trekking 4 miles to school everyday. ruthless.

worst part is there must've been an insider giving up info like that. the VP and another colleague looked, at best, apathetic and, at worst, amused. although scathing articles of this sort could easily hit our VP like that some day. EASILY.

anyway... i figure that's why our principal was all worked up this morning. chip on her shoulder and an axe to grind... her poor house-help! that young woman she has living with her. has to listen to her all night.

american democracy

5/15/2002:

"you got a problem with democracy?!"

response of the Cuban-American lobby [not sure which organization] representative to a BBC journalist's question about the lobby's (undue) influence on and driving of American foreign policy vis-a-vis Cuba.

awkward silence followed... then a tenuous chuckle from the British man. he and i probably both thinking "Lord! what a typically American response." why should the rich and powerful in one country be permitted to –

i won't finish the thought... not thinking clearly.

holy father in cameroon

BBC News | Africa | Pope visit raises Cameroon Hopes

Sky News | Vatican Plays Down Pope's Condom Comments

Articles of Faith | Quel chapeau! Cameroon welcomes Pope

NCT | Pope: Cameroon a model of interreligious tolerance

Encounter with Representatives of the Muslim Community of Cameroon, at the Apostolic Nunciature in Yaounde (March 19, 2009). Apostolic Voyage of the Holy Father, Benedict XVI, to Cameroon and Angola (March 17-13, 2009).

My Dear Friends,

Grateful for this opportunity to meet representatives of the Muslim community in Cameroon, I express my heartfelt thanks to Mr Amadou Bello for his kind words of greeting extended to me on your behalf. Our encounter is a vivid sign of the desire we share with all people of good will - in Cameroon, throughout Africa and across the globe - to seek opportunities to exchange ideas about how religion makes an essential contribution to our understanding of culture and the world, and to the peaceful coexistence of all the members of the human family. Initiatives in Cameroon, such as the Association Camerounaise pour le Dialogue Interreligieux, illustrate how such dialogue enhances mutual understanding and assists in the building up of a stable and just political order.

Cameroon is home to thousands of Christians and Muslims, who often live, work and worship in the same neighborhood. Both believe in one, merciful God who on the last day will judge mankind (cf. Lumen Gentium, 16). Together they bear witness to the fundamental values of family, social responsibility, obedience to God’s law and loving concern for the sick and suffering. By patterning their lives on these virtues and teaching them to the young, Christians and Muslims not only show how they foster the full development of the human person, but also how they forge bonds of solidarity with one’s neighbors and advance the common good.

My friends, I believe a particularly urgent task of religion today is to unveil the vast potential of human reason, which is itself God’s gift and which is elevated by revelation and faith. Belief in the one God, far from stunting our capacity to understand ourselves and the world, broadens it. Far from setting us against the world, it commits us to it. We are called to help others see the subtle traces and mysterious presence of God in the world which he has marvelously created and continually sustains with his ineffable and all-embracing love. Although his infinite glory can never be directly grasped by our finite minds in this life, we nonetheless catch glimpses of it in the beauty that surrounds us. When men and women allow the magnificent order of the world and the splendor of human dignity to illumine their minds, they discover that what is "reasonable" extends far beyond what mathematics can calculate, logic can deduce and scientific experimentation can demonstrate; it includes the goodness and innate attractiveness of upright and ethical living made known to us in the very language of creation.

This insight prompts us to seek all that is right and just, to step outside the restricted sphere of our own self-interest and act for the good of others. Genuine religion thus widens the horizon of human understanding and stands at the base of any authentically human culture. It rejects all forms of violence and totalitarianism: not only on principles of faith, but also of right reason. Indeed, religion and reason mutually reinforce one another since religion is purified and structured by reason, and reason’s full potential is unleashed by revelation and faith.

I therefore encourage you, my dear Muslim friends, to imbue society with the values that emerge from this perspective and elevate human culture, as we work together to build a civilization of love. May the enthusiastic cooperation of Muslims, Catholics and other Christians in Cameroon be a beacon to other African nations of the enormous potential of an interreligious commitment to peace, justice and the common good!

With these sentiments, I once again express my gratitude for this auspicious occasion to meet you during my visit to Cameroon. I thank Almighty God for the blessings he has bestowed upon you and your fellow citizens, and I pray that the links that bind Christians and Muslims in their profound reverence for the one God will continue to grow stronger, so that they will reflect more clearly the wisdom of the Almighty, who enlightens the hearts of all mankind.

hollow land

Indeed, beyond their physical reality, the territories of Israel/Palestine have constituted a schematic description of a conceptual system whose properties have been used to understand other geopolitical problems. The ‘Intifada’ unfolding in Iraq is a part of an imaginary geography that Makram Khoury-Machool called the ‘Palestinization of Iraq’. Yet, if the Iraqi resistance is perceived to have been ‘Palestinized’, the American military has been ‘Israelized’.

Furthermore, both the American and Israeli militaries have adopted counter-insurgency tactics that increasingly resemble the guerrilla methods of their enemies.

When the wall around the American Green Zone in Baghdad looks as if it had been built from left-over components of the West Bank Wall;

when ‘temporary closures’ are imposed on entire Iraqi towns and villages and reinforced with earth dykes and barbed wire;

when larger regions are carved up by road blocks and checkpoints;

when the homes of suspected terrorists are destroyed, and ‘targeted assassinations’ are introduced into a new global militarized geography

...it is because the separate conflicts now generally collected under the heading of the ‘war on terror’ are the backdrop to the formation of complex ‘institutional ecologies’ that allow the exchange of technologies, mechanisms, doctrines, and spatial strategies between various militaries and the organizations that they confront, as well as between the civilian and the military domains.

Eyal Weizman. Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation (Verso, London, 2007), p. 10.

this is what i'm presently reading... can't help but make the connections b/w current events in Gaza, my recent posts on Israeli incursions into the Occupied Territories almost 7 years ago, and the links the author makes in the excerpt above (and i allude to in the previous post) b/w American and Israeli approaches to the 'War on Terror.'

note: i've broken up the excerpt for easier reading... it's all one long paragraph in the book.

the hypocrisy of we

3/4/2002:
palestine keeps getting worse. afghanistan is still going. the philippines, georgia, iraq and yemen are next. listening to the BBC this evening [2002, Review of the Year] i didn’t know what to think. what is there to think? one just feels in cases like these. and [we] Americans (the administration, at least, but the public to the extent that [we] don’t protest) seem unable to do either; think or feel, that is. only for [our]selves.

and [we] send troops around the globe reflecting that... an ethnocentric egoism blind to how others are affected or may ultimately react. and [we] send volunteers around the globe talking about peace and understanding. i cannot believe i got a letter from George W telling me what an important job i’m doing. the hypocrisy disgusts me. makes me sick. ashamed that i’m out here. as an American... that i’d even begin to defend American values, ideals or culture... let alone represent them.

i was so disgusted as i listened to yet another self-righteous, myopic “ugly American” political viewpoint that it made me want to leave. head right to Yaounde and tear up my passport in front of anyone high enough to do something about it. to send me home. to take this label off of me. where do they get off? ...and how do i utter we anymore without buying into that same hypocrisy?

the Peace Corps... are you kidding me?!

Africa

2/5/2002:
wicked sh%t happens here in Africa... was listening to that True Love, True Crime series on Network Africa/BBC this morning. can’t say all the entries aren’t a little melodramatic, even exaggerated. but still... the ones about rebel soldiers killing infants and chopping off people’s arms are all too real. and all too often corroborated by the news itself.

rebel soldiers in Sudan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, Congo, Ivory Coast... and the list goes on and on. just depends on the relative stability or instability of African nations at that particular time and no African nation seems immune. i’m sure all have suffered through these same stories of faction fighting, tribal warfare and general lawlessness.

what a mix in some of these countries... religions, tribes, races and, of course, political ideology (or power struggle to put it simply). that’s what it ends up being, but always under the guise or split along the lines of differences in people. people.

Tony Blair said that Africa is the scar on the conscience of the world. indeed... Africa has a lot of people to blame for its present situation. but will they fix it? can they fix it? my brain is not totally in gear here... need to stop...

about ISA

this is me, mohamad. 2008. i wanted to interrupt for a bit. a little hindsight i'd like to share. about something that came up in passing in my previous post, but should be addressed. it's about ISA, my old school.

honestly, i hesitated in hyperlinking to ISA's wikipedia page. even mentioning the school entirely. but i did. it's not that i think the wikipedia page is biased. though most everything about the school in the news, from 2001 through today, has been (see the "Controversy" or "References" sections in ISA's wikipedia entry). not just biased... but xenophobic, at best. and, at worst, racist. i guess that's why i wasn't sure if i wanted to go there.

in fact, i wasn't even sure if it was an important part of this story... of my being in cameroon. of peace and freedom. and of presence. but it actually is. much of this is about how "an Arab Muslim boy who grew up in America came to understand himself (and the world) more fully in Central Africa," right? well, ISA is a big part of how this Arab Muslim boy grew up in America.

it's interesting to note, if it hasn't already become an obvious theme, that one of my struggles in cameroon was coming to terms with my American identity. i remember thinking, during training in Babadjou, that i'd never felt as American in my life as i did in cameroon. somehow i'd taken that for granted growing up in America, even in my cross-cultural bubble of a school (see our curriculum)... and even through 4 years of college and a couple years of work in the US. it wasn't until i really had to deal with a 3rd culture in my life – cameroonian – that this became most apparent.

in some ways, i was more like a cameroonian than an american... especially if those cameroonians happened to be muslim. but even if they weren't, many of my cameroonian friends and colleagues noticed these similarities. particularly when my very arab mother came to visit. but both they and i also noticed that, in many more ways, i was unlike them (and my mother, for that matter) and more like my american compatriots. this was my arab muslim american hybrid identity. contrapuntal, as Edward Said so melodically put it.

but back to ISA... the cultural bubble where – though they didn't teach us music, much to my younger brother Offendum's offense – one or two of the independent melodic lines of my contrapuntal perspective (the arab muslim, that is) were nurtured. the only thing that was (is?) really wrong with ISA, as far as i was concerned, was that it didn't explicitly teach this arab muslim boy that he was also growing up american. because he was.

so i had to wait to learn that – i mean really learn that – in cameroon. in many ways, and in hindsight, i'm thankful for that delay. thankful b/c now i get to tell this story... and b/c i'm really happy with where this story is taking me. so i give thanks.

9/11... how is everyone?

...i’m not sure what to say??? i feel compelled to write b/c it’s tuesday night. now, i know it’s not a must that we write every tuesday. i am thinking of you all, though. wondering how your 1st days at school went. what subjects you’re teaching. how many hours. indeed, how well you’ve settled in so far.

i can picture us—well, not “picture" b/c it’s not so much seeing as much as sensing—all over these 3 provinces [NW, SW and West], each up to their respective quelque chose, if you will. i’m also wondering how you all are reacting to the news. i was tuned to the radio ALL afternoon. but there’s only so much one can take.

i don’t want to hear anymore. i don’t want to turn on the radio... but i know i will have to soon. i was, and still am, confused and concerned... shocked and disturbed, of course. i am having a hard time imagining the scale at which all this is happening back home. the poor people.

there were chills up and down my spine every time i heard an “eye-witness” report/testimony. there were so emotional. and the melodramatic BBC anchors didn’t help... “a terrorist attack on America.” God, i hope everyone back home is well... for all of us. the strangest thing for me here is that this really isn’t news to anyone but me... so i’m thinking of you all.

aho!
Mohamad
9/11/2001
Wum

in the boondocks

the afghanistan posts below triggered a couple responses from friends/readers about their own reactions and emotions during the events of that time. indeed, even the memories from that many years ago are still emotionally charged.

ellen made reference to The Boondocks comic strip and "The Adventures of Flagee and Ribbon" in her comment on one of the posts. i had no idea that Aaron McGruder, the artist/author behind the boondocks, had taken such a stance. here are some articles on the issue as it unfolded:

-a short essay with images of the cartoons, both the boondocks and adventures of flagee and ribbon.

-respectful disagreement and disapproval from the editors of the Daily Mississippian.

-finally, an article in the Nation recapping the whole issue in early January of '02. here's an excerpt from the article quoting one of the boondocks characters (huey freeman) saying thanksgiving prayer that november:

"Ahem... In this time of war against Osama bin Laden and the oppressive Taliban regime, we are thankful that OUR leader isn't the spoiled son of a powerful politician from a wealthy oil family who is supported by religious fundamentalists, operates through clandestine organizations, has no respect for the democratic electoral process, bombs innocents, and uses war to deny people their civil liberties. Amen."

afghanistan attacked #2

10/9/2001:
listening to the BBC again this morning. more of the same. seems Bin Laden has given interviews on Jazeerah satellite TV. it’s based in Qatar. one Arab commentator, in that great thick/heavy accent of ours goes “the Americans want to kick butt, but i don’t think there is any butt to kick there.” referring to the lack of any real substantial (or as the US would like to make them out to be) military targets, especially the now infamous “terrorist training camps.”

on the American end they’re calling this an operation of “bombs and bread.” on account of the food rations they’re also dropping on Afghanistan. to which International Aid organizations respond saying it’s blatant propaganda. just token gestures to keep everyone on their side. and across the Muslim world (Palestine, Afghanistan, Indonesia, etc.) people are in the streets rioting. protesting American action. in Gaza a couple of people were killed by the government troops dispersing the crowd. what to say?

afghanistan attacked

10/8/2001:
i’m sitting here at my desk in my bedroom and i’m listening to the BBC reporting on “a 2nd night of attacks on Afghanistan.” in and around both Kabul and Kandahar. US led and with Great Britain's cooperation. no civilian casualties reported from Western point of view, a couple dozen according to Afghanistan. this is an attack on Bin Laden’s people and camps. also an attack on the Taliban now and will end with the installation of a “more moderate, representative government” there.

this is disconcerting b/c it has the potential to morph just as easily into a “War on Islamic Fundamentalism” everywhere. the US is already declaring that they may have to extend this war on terrorism past Afghanistan. a war, they say, that may take years. i’m tired though... i wont’ go there. just wanted to document the fact that the attacks began last night, 10/7/2001. according to our CD we are now in “bicycle” of our EAP [Emergency Action Plan]. standfast that is. we have a meeting with the CD in Bamenda about all this on Friday.

dessert

9/29/2001:
i can’t stop eating. the time b/w my meals is ever decreasing. i wonder if it’s the lack of meat? or worms?... the food-food is good. i’m enjoying cooking and eating, but sometimes it’s all just a formality before dessert.

not like that’s some extravagant course here... PB & honey, a banana, tea/coca/milk. that’s “dessert.” i’ve stopped eating Mambo bars. my daily addiction during training. i’m sure they can be found. just not craving them.

OK... i’m going to visit Mu’aath’s village today. we leave in an hour or 2. meet the folks. see the fields. chill. eat. back by 2pm, insha’Allah.

one last point... yesterday (9/28/2001) seems to be the 1st anniversary of this current intifada. i thought it was 9/9/2000 that it all began, but i was wrong. heard it on the BBC news.

more malta

9/24/2001:
OK, malta is growing on me. just had a couple at Flo’s off-license. they’re better/easier on an almost empty but stable stomach. may actually taste good soon. more a meal than a drink, really. and my only option in terms of appeasing the generous folk who keep offering me drinks.

the Prefet (or Sous-prefet?... a nice man from the West) bought me one. and the VP of GTHS. then i went to the back and ate with James (Flo’s husband) in the parlor. watched some CRTV (Cameroon Radio and Television). talked a little Anglophone politics. TV was interesting... saw President Bush and all the major players on “our” side for the 1st time in a long time. Powell, Rumsfeld, etc.

also saw a side of Cameroon i’m not used to seeing... sometimes i forget it even exists. privileged, posh, Westernized “Yaoundites” on the news. civil servants at seminars, officials at meetings, students in clean schools with computers... all very well dressed, nice cars, choice shots of the city. that ain’t the Cameroon i know! and yet it is Cameroon. James had a few things to say about that.

i’ll end with a point about pests. ants in the kitchen. a roach in the bedroom. termites in the parlor. slug in the bathroom. really making it difficult just to be patient and be at peace here in my abode. makes me think about “Moontiger" [a powerful and probably extremely unhealthy asian-bran insecticide], too. but i’m won’t go there.

unrest in cameroon last month

you may or may not have heard about the riots in cameroon late last month. it certainly made the news. but unless you were digging a little deeper than just headlines and a few brief paragraphs, you probably wouldn't have gathered much:

BBC News | Africa | Cameroon Head Blames Opposition (2/28/2008)

it seems like a taxi strike on increased fuel prices in douala sparked more general rioting (and, in some cases, looting) in cities like yaounde, bamenda and kumba... the riots being attributed to everything from frustration with cost of living increases, attempts at altering the constitution to extend the president's term in office, to youth copycatting the violence in kenya.

IRIN, the Integrated Regional Information Network (part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), has a series of 3 brief articles that are worth reading on the situation:

-Douala Burns as Taxi Strike Turns into General Rioting (2/25/2008)
-Unrest Spreads to Yaounde Even After Taxi Strike Ends (2/27/2008)
-Not Quite Back to Normal (3/6/2008)

there are a number of more detailed articles posted on the US-based Friends of Cameroon website. and an interesting blog post on Peace Corps Cameroon's response to the rioting (to evacuate or not?) from a volunteer currently serving in the country: CONSOLIDATION Vacation, by Tim Hartman.