Number of results to display per page
Search Results
122. Accidental Activists: Using Facebook for Change - An Interview with Randi Zuckerberg
- Publication Date:
- 09-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
- Abstract:
- With millions of users across the world from places as diverse as Colombia, Kenya and Malaysia, Facebook has revolutionized social networking. Randi Zuckerberg, who works on marketing, politics, current events and nonprofit initiatives for Facebook, Inc., explains how 500 million friends are turning the online social network into people power and change for the better. This interview was conducted by Jose Santiago Vericat for the Journal of International Affairs.
- Political Geography:
- Kenya and Colombia
123. Debating Somali Identity in a British Tribunal: The Case of the BBC Somali Service
- Author:
- Abdi Ismail Samatar
- Publication Date:
- 12-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies
- Institution:
- Macalester College
- Abstract:
- The Somali Peace Conference sponsored by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), held in Kenya in 2003–05, was dominated by warlords and partisan mediators. It endorsed a political strategy whose objective has been to recreate Somalia as a clan-based federation. Advocates of this approach claim that such a dispensation will approximate the society's pre-colonial tradition and therefore has the best chance of restoring peace. An argument put forward in support of this agenda is that Somalia's former governments, particularly the military junta, misused public power by favoring and rewarding certain genealogical groups. Proponents contend that formally and openly using genealogical divisions as a basis for distributing public appointments and resources will prevent future clanist favoritism. This approach to political reconstruction mimics Ethiopia's seemingly novel political project, which divided the country into nine “ethnic provinces” in 1991. In the case of Ethiopia, the presumed rationale for this political strategy was to overcome past domination of the state by one ethnic group, rather than to revert to an old tradition. The imposition of Amharic culture and language on Oromos, Somalis, Afars, the people of the southern region, and other groups throughout the state—and the denial of their human rights—rationalized re-engineering the new order. The challenge for Ethiopia post-1991 has been how to undo past subjugation without reifying cultural differences politically. Dividing each country into administrative units based on ethnic belonging, the proponents argue, will promote democracy and produce a civic order in which no one ethnic group or clan dominates others.
- Political Geography:
- Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia
124. Sheikh Ali Hussein
- Author:
- Joe Darwin Palmer
- Publication Date:
- 12-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies
- Institution:
- Macalester College
- Abstract:
- East Africa: In 1966, the U.S. Agency for International Development built a residential school for the training of teachers in Somalia near the city of Afgoi on the Shabelle River, a dozen miles inland from the capital city, Mogadishu. The construction contract was given to a company in Nairobi, Kenya. There were no construction companies in Somalia or paved roads between Kenya and neighboring Somalia. Besides, anything of value would have already been stolen at gunpoint by bandits (shifta) so the necessary equipment—trucks, a bulldozer, a pavement roller, transmission wires, concrete poles, generators, stationary diesel engines, asphalt, toilets, plumbing, and so on—were sent by sea from Mombasa. There were no stores in Somalia: no grocery, no hardware, no McDonald's.
- Political Geography:
- Kenya, United States, Somalia, and East Africa
125. Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Author:
- Heike Larson
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Infidel is a heroic, inspiring story of a courageous woman who escapes the hell of a woman's life in the Muslim world and becomes an outspoken and blunt defender of the West. Ms. Hirsi Ali takes the reader on her own journey of discovery, and enables him to see, through concretes and by sharing her thought processes, how she arrived at the conclusion that Islam is a stagnant, tyrannical belief system and that the Enlightenment philosophy of the West is the proper system for human beings. In Part I, Ms. Hirsi Ali describes her childhood in Muslim Africa and the Middle East. With her father imprisoned for opposing Somalia's communist dictator Siad Barré and her mother often preoccupied with finding food for her family, young Ayaan and her siblings grew up listening to the ancient legends their grandmother told them-legends glorifying the Islamic values of honor, family clans, physical strength, and aggression. Born in 1969 in Somalia, Ms. Hirsi Ali moved frequently with her family to escape persecution and civil war, living in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya. At a colonially influenced Kenyan school, she discovered Western ideas, in the form of novels, "tales of freedom, adventure, of equality between girls and boys, trust and friendship. These were not like my grandmother's stark tales of the clan, with their messages of danger and suspicion. These stories were fun, they seemed real, and they spoke to me as the old legends never had" (p. 64). Forced into an arranged marriage, she was shipped to Germany to stay with distant family while awaiting a visa for Canada to join the husband she didn't know. At age twenty-two, alone and with nothing but a duffle bag of clothes and papers, she took a train to Holland to escape the dreary life of a Muslim wife-slave. "It was Friday, July 24, 1992, when I stepped on the train. Every year I think of it. I see it as my real birthday: the birth of me as a person, making decisions about my life on my own" (p. 188). In Part II, Ms. Hirsi Ali shares her wonder of arriving in modernity, and her relentless effort to create a productive, independent life for herself. After being granted asylum, she worked menial jobs, learned Dutch, became a Swahili translator, earned a vocational degree, and finally graduated with a degree in political science from one of Holland's most prestigious universities. An outspoken advocate of the rights of Muslim women, she was elected to the Dutch parliament in 2003, as a "one-issue politician"-she "wanted Holland to wake up and stop tolerating the oppression of Muslim women in its midst" and to "spark a debate among Muslims about reforming aspects of Islam so people could begin to question" (p. 295). She became a notorious critic of Islam, at one point daring to call the Prophet Muhammad a pervert for consummating marriage with one of his many wives when she was only nine years old. In 2004, she made a short film called Submission: Part 1 in which she depicted women mistreated under Islamic law raising their heads and refusing to submit any longer. Tragically, the film's producer, Theo van Gogh, was brutally murdered by an offended Muslim, who left on van Gogh's body a letter threatening Ms. Hirsi Ali with the same fate. Since 2004, Ms. Hirsi Ali has had to live under the constant watch of bodyguards, often going into hiding for months at a time. Although the straight facts of her life are in and of themselves admirable, Ms. Hirsi Ali's intellectual journey as presented in Infidel is truly awe inspiring. This journey begins in Africa in the disturbingly dark world of Islam-with its disdain for thought and reason, its self-sacrificial ethics, and its corrupt, tyrannical politics-and ends in the West with her having become an outspoken champion of reason and freedom.
- Topic:
- Government and War
- Political Geography:
- Kenya, Africa, Canada, and Germany
126. Ethnic Party Bans in East Africa from a Comparative Perspective
- Author:
- Anika Moroff
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- Since 1990 the banning of ethnic and other identity-based parties has become the norm in sub-Saharan Africa. This article focuses on Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda as three East African countries that have opted for different ways of dealing with such parties. Using case studies, it traces the origins of the party bans in Tanzania and Uganda and explores the reasons for the absence of a ban in Kenya. The analysis shows that the laws on particularistic parties have actually been implemented by the appropriate institutions. However, these laws have only marginally influenced the character of the political parties in the three countries: A comparison of regional voting patterns suggests that bans on particularistic parties have not ensured the emergence of aggregative parties with a national following in Tanzania and Uganda. In Kenya on the other hand, where such a ban was nonexistent until 2008, parties have not proven to be more regional.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Ethnic Conflict, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Uganda, Kenya, Africa, and Tanzania
127. A Breakthrough in Justice? Accountability for Post-Election Violence in Kenya
- Author:
- Chandra Lekha Sriram and Stephen Brown
- Publication Date:
- 08-2010
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Centre on Human Rights in Conflict
- Abstract:
- The International Criminal Court (ICC) provides the most promising, and potentially only, venue for accountability for those most responsible for serious post-election violence in Kenya.
- Topic:
- Conflict Prevention, Democratization, and International Law
- Political Geography:
- Kenya and Africa
128. Heckle and Chide: Results of a Randomized Road Safety Intervention in Kenya
- Author:
- James Habyarimana and William Jack
- Publication Date:
- 04-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- In economies with weak enforcement of traffic regulations, drivers who adopt excessively risky behavior impose externalities on other vehicles, and on their own passengers. In light of the difficulties of correcting inter-vehicle externalities associated with weak third-party enforcement, this paper evaluates an intervention that aims instead to correct the intra-vehicle externality between a driver and his passengers, who face a collective action problem when deciding whether to exert social pressure on the driver if their safety is compromised. We report the results of a field experiment aimed at solving this collective action problem, which empowers passengers to take action. Evocative messages encouraging passengers to speak up were placed inside a random sample of over 1,000 long-distance Kenyan minibuses, or matatus, serving both as a focal point for, and to reduce the cost of, passenger action. Independent insurance claims data were collected for the treatment group and a control group before and after the intervention. Our results indicate that insurance claims fell by a half to two-thirds, from an annual rate of about 10 percent without the intervention, and that claims involving injury or death fell by at least 50 percent. Results of a driver survey eight months into the intervention suggest passenger heckling was a contributing factor to the improvement in safety.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Political Economy, and Third World
- Political Geography:
- Kenya and Africa
129. A Case Study of Aid Effectiveness in Kenya: Volatility and Fragmentation of Foreign Aid, with a Focus on Health
- Author:
- Francis M. Mwega
- Publication Date:
- 01-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Brookings Institution
- Abstract:
- In September 2000, 149 heads of state and government endorsed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). With this endorsement they set themselves eight goals to be reached by 2015 (from the 1990 base), foremost of which is to halve the proportion of the world's people who were absolutely poor. The MDGs provide a departure from past approaches in addressing poverty. By focusing attention on a core set of interrelated goals and measurable targets, it is now easier to track progress and measure the impact of development interventions.
- Topic:
- Development and Humanitarian Aid
- Political Geography:
- Kenya and Africa
130. "Who is the Real Tariq Ramadan?"
- Author:
- Christopher DeVito
- Publication Date:
- 04-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- al Nakhlah
- Institution:
- The Fletcher School, Tufts University
- Abstract:
- Anyone following the debate about Islam in Europe over the last decade has undoubtedly heard of Tariq Ramadan. They have also surely heard the question: 'who is the real Tariq Ramadan?' His detractors have described him as 'a wolf in sheep's clothing.' Those who see promise in the project he has undertaken have called him a Muslim Martin Luther. Popular accounts, portray him as either the head of a fifth column intent on transforming Europe into Eurabia, or someone whose effort to establish an authentically European Islam offers the promise of heading off impending cultural strife. In these respects he has become a symbol for people's hopes and fears. He is a bogeyman for those who see Europe's Muslims as a threat to the continent's enlightenment and Christian heritage. To others he is a symbol of hope; a hope that Muslims can one day fully assume their rightful place in European cultural and civic life without watering down their faith. So the question remains: who is Tariq Ramadan? The purpose of what follows will be to explore the thought of Tariq Ramadan, his status as a symbol of both European Islam and Muslims, and how what he represents may fit within a liberal political order. The exploration of political liberalism aligns closely to the conception of political philosopher John Rawls, along with an interpretation of Rawls offered by Andrew F. March as applied to Ramadan and his project.
- Topic:
- Islam
- Political Geography:
- Kenya