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21. Protecting Children in Armed Conflicts as a New Imperative of International Peace and Security

Author:
Tonderai W. Chikuhwa
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
One may say that there is no clearer mirror on the soul of who we are than the reflection of how we treat our children. The horrors that are being visited on children in more than thirty conflicts around the world today are a shadow over our collective conscience. The most conservative estimates suggest that in the past decade more than two million children have been killed in armed conflict. Three times that number have been seriously injured or permanently disabled. Millions of others have been forced to witness and even partake in terrible acts of violence. Hundreds of thousands of children continue to be exploited as child soldiers, and tens of thousands of girls are being subjected to rape and other forms of sexual violence. Abductions of children are a more common and widespread enterprise than ever before. And, since 2003, over fourteen million children have been forcibly displaced within and outside their home countries, and between 8,000 and 10,000 children are killed or maimed every year as a result of landmines.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and India

22. Response

Author:
Leigh Bercaw
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Last semester I walked to school through one of the toughest neighborhoods in the capital city of Madagascar. Every morning my friends and I passed the same gang of sleeping street-children—honestly the best word for it is puppy pile. They were a shivering, shifting heap of children, and they broke my heart. On the way home from school, they were awake and I was afraid of them. If I walked alone, they would surround me and steal everything in my pockets. They eventually pulled one of my friends to the ground and took her backpack. As a student of anthropology trained to approach multifaceted issues by looking first through the lens of the particular, these kids, for me, embody the complexity of the lives of children living in difficult situations. They inspire our compassion and move us through their vulnerability. Yet, they simultaneously remind us that they are agents in their own right.
Political Geography:
Tamil Nadu

23. Response

Author:
Jean-Pierre Karegeye
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
The movie Slumdog Millionaire (2008), adapted from Vikas Swarup's 2005 novel Q A, tells the story of Jamal Malik, a vulnerable orphan and street boy exposed to the misery of the world: extreme poverty, disease, lack of education, violence, murder, prostitution in Cherry Street, police brutality, and other misfortunes. Very painful images, but not without promise and determination, show Jamal at five years old, covered in excrement, succeed in reaching the Indian movie star, Amitabah, and receive an autograph. When Jamal starts playing and winning “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” Sergeant Srinivas and other policemen torture Jamal because they cannot understand how this vulnerable lost child is winning the game. Their conclusion: he must be cheating. The film places us into the dialectic of vulnerability and promise. What we can take from it is that the well-being of a child is not a private affair. It is linked to the order of the economic and the political, with these two words understood in their etymological sense. The fact of being on orphan evokes the oikos and miserable life in the streets, as well as the cops' response referring to the order of the polis. Jamal Malik's exceptional achievement raises the question of how is this possible? What is the correct answer among the four choices in the film: he cheated, he's lucky, he's a genius, it is destiny? There is a risk of celebrating the idea of heroism in Jamal Malik's character and forgetting the call to protect vulnerable children. Any promise is inscribed in a societal project that creates conditions of possibility for the protection and success of children. Tonderai Chikuhwa, senior advisor at the United Nations, discusses the Roundtable theme of “Children of the World: The Dialectic of Promise and Vulnerability” by focusing on particular situations of children involved in armed conflict and he evokes concrete actions/operations by the United Nations to protect such “child soldiers.” The well-being of children has been defined as a “categorical imperative” for the realization of planetary peace and security, which therefore calls for actions from the United Nations Security Council.
Topic:
Economics and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United Nations

24. Protecting India's Children: Vulnerabilities and Challenges

Author:
Asha Bajpai
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
India is a land of paradoxes. There is no other country in the world that embraces such an extraordinary profusion of ethnic groups, mutually incomprehensible languages, topography and climate, religions and cultural practices, and levels of economic development. This largest democracy in the world is also home to the largest number of children in the world. Children constitute more than 400 million of the one billion plus population of India. The country has twenty percent of the 0–4-year-old child population of the world.
Political Geography:
India

25. Response

Author:
Hanna Zimnitskaya
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Professor Asha Bajpai’s essay, “Children in India: Law, Policy and Practice,” commences by stating that India is the largest democracy in the world, and that by virtue of this title, one of the country’s main preoccupations is to remediate the law, policy, and practice related to the protection of children’s rights. However, her discourse overlooks an essential component of a flourishing democracy: participation. A nation is democratic to the extent to which all of its citizens are involved. As Amartya Sen points out, “if people are involved in making their own decisions and running their own lives, their actions are more likely to result...in achievement of their well-being freedoms.”
Topic:
Law
Political Geography:
India

26. Response

Author:
Erik Larson
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Professor Asha Bajpai's essay engages a multitude of issues that influence the well-being of people under eighteen years of age in India. It argues that legal and policy interventions in India can improve protection of children's rights. Her essay makes a number of contributions. First, the detail about the myriad influences on the status of 400 million young people in India provides a wealth of information about the real situations that influence people's life chances. Second, the focus on India provides insight about a case that is critically important for substantive and theoretical reasons. India is an emerging economic power, the world's largest democracy, and a diverse society; understanding the influences on children in India enables us to draw lessons that may apply elsewhere. Additionally, as I will briefly explain later, in some respects, India is an outlier in models that predict the pace of legal change. As such, understanding more about the country can build theoretical knowledge about how global developments influence national legal changes. Third, Bajpai's article provides details about a variety of legal processes that seek to improve the realization of children's rights. Analysis of how these legal processes have played out can yield insights about the prospects for legal change. Finally, uniting each of these contributions, the paper demonstrates a passionate commitment to the issues of the status of children.
Political Geography:
India

27. Table of Contents

Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
No abstract is available.
Topic:
Globalization
Political Geography:
Europe

28. Between "Autistic" Courts and Mob Justice: Theorizing the Call for More "Democratic" International Criminal Justice

Author:
Marlies Glasius
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
In the last few years, the literature on international criminal courts has shifted from legal enthusiasm over the exciting new frontiers in legal and institutional development to a more critical debate in which anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, and many interdisciplinary scholars also participate. There are three interrelated lines of critique, pursued to different degrees by different authors. The first is a general questioning of whether the exclusive focus on punitive “trial” justice is in fact helpful for the victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity and the wider societies that have suffered from such atrocities. The second points out that in ongoing conflicts, the pursuit of such justice may get in the way of the pursuit of peace through negotiations. The third concerns the “remoteness” of these courts from the lived realities of the populations affected by the crimes they prosecute.
Topic:
Crime and War
Political Geography:
Yugoslavia and Cambodia

29. Queers and Muslims: The Dutch Case

Author:
Gert Hekma
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
For about a decade, antagonisms have been mounting between Muslim and gay men. In particular, when El Moumni spoke out against homosexuality in 2001, many politicians and gays reacted angrily. White Dutch got the feeling that Muslims did not respect or accept gays, lesbians, and women in general because of their supposedly homophobic and sexist views. That a disproportional part of the anti-gay violence can be attributed to male Moroccan youngsters has become another ground upon which to attack Muslims. Pim Fortuyn, the right- wing leader who was murdered in 2002, exploited the anti-homosexuality stance of a large portion of the Muslim religious leaders and the queer bashing attributed to ethnic minority youth, using it as a stick to beat the Muslims for their backwardness. They should not be able to sufficiently integrate in a Dutch society that is defined, in the eyes of the right wing, by its longstanding support for the emancipation of women, gays, and lesbians. Although the issue of gay-Muslim relations is continuously discussed in Dutch society and politics, the political answers have been unconvincing up until now. Rhetoric has been more important than doing something. In this article, I will first discuss the early history of the gay-Muslim debate, then the subsequent rise of antagonism since the interventions by El Moumni and Fortuyn, and finally the contemporary social and political answers on the issue.
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Algeria, Netherlands, and Tunisia

30. The Dutch Golden Age and Globalization: History and Heritage, Legacies and Contestations

Author:
Joop de Jong
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
In 1579, seven of the seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands unenthusiastically declared their independence from the Habsburg King of Spain, to form the United Provinces, also known as the Union or the Dutch Republic. The new country achieved full international recognition in 1648, even though many states recognized its sovereignty much earlier.
Topic:
History
Political Geography:
Spain, Netherlands, and Dutch