Strife

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Spontaneity and consciousness in the Arab Spring

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By Leo Graham-Dullaert

We have been handed a cartoon of the Arab Spring. Despite the enormous advances
in the technical quality of reporting from areas of conflict, humans have not kept pace
with the machines. Even some of our best broadcasters have fallen prey to some of
our most basic human flaws; at best – laziness, at worst – prejudice. The cartoon we
have received is one of innocent well-meaning rebels fighting evil, faceless regimes.
Rubbish? Let me try and persuade you.

In trying to be a good student of the social sciences I want to be balanced, I want to
understand the dynamics of the conflicts for which we have received such consistent,
24/7, high-definition, battle-embedded footage. On the one hand I feel that I might
have achieved a quasi-cosy relationship with the Syrian rebel forces (witness the
undeniably enthralling coverage by French photojournalist Mani on Channel 4 News)
and an enduring rapport with the Libyan freedom-fighters. Meanwhile, I remain on
decidedly frosty, inhospitable terms with their establishment-propping counterparts. I
don’t really want to dash into polemic soap-box barracking over the bias in Western
media, but I would like some balance and some insight into this faceless “other side”.
I am fairly sure Bashar Al-Assad is not patrolling the streets alone, nor was Gaddafi
likely to be found harrying the frontlines in Misrata without support.

However, rather than simply complaining about the one-sided nature of the press
coverage, I wanted instead to make one specific complaint. The rise of Leninism
sparked a fierce debate between its followers and the Economists (along with
the Mensheviks and others) regarding the spontaneity and consciousness of the
revolutionary organisation. In essence, the latter believed that a revolution must arise
spontaneously (with certain economic conditions aligning), while the former believed
political consciousness must be led by the Party (i.e. the intellectuals, and funnily
enough perhaps Lenin himself) and that the workers themselves could not achieve
such political consciousness alone. And so it is along these lines that I feel I have
been presented with a certain caricature of the Arab Spring:

In the UN-peacekeepers’-blue corner we have the freedom fighting rebels, imbibed
with organically-grown, grassroots consciousness of their worthy cause. While in the
Stalinist-red corner we have the regime-backing sheep meekly led by a vicious elite;
this group of faceless foot soldiers being incapable of attaining any form of “self”
consciousness.

Perhaps there is some truth to this dichotomy, but I cannot believe it to be so vividly
black and white, or indeed blue and red. In any case, why are we so desperate to
create such a dichotomy? Are we saying that the public cannot handle a conflict that
does not feature a nice clean delineation between good guys and baddies? Heroes and
villains? Cowboys and Indians (I won’t speculate too much further on that one)? At
best we, or the press, are saying exactly that. At worst, perhaps these dichotomies
serve a more political purpose. Moreover the hypocrisy within these divisions of good
and evil is difficult to ignore. We have celebrated the rebellion within these far-flung
societies and demonised the regimes who seek to quell them. Yet on our own doorstep
we instantly branded our own Summer of Discontent in London last year as the
mindless actions of criminal youth. It seems to me a desperate state of affairs when
some of the most balanced analysis comes from a musician (even if he is an artistic
genius).

And so I ask a question familiar to this very debate – what is to be done? A
fairer representation of the seismic events we have witnessed would consider the
hitherto neglected deeper workings of each group of belligerents with which we
are concerned. Have these uprisings been truly spontaneous in their nature, or
has someone, somewhere, learned-of-Lenin, covertly imbued a certain political
consciousness? Equally, is there no element of self-conscious support for the various
regimes?

Britain, Rwanda, and the DRC: Using aid for diplomatic aims.

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By Katie Cornish

In July, the UN released an interim report alleging Rwandan government support to the M23 rebels
in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The UK, Rwanda’s largest bilateral donor, withheld scheduled
budget support, with Prime Minister Cameron setting out conditions for resumed aid. A few months
later, Andrew Mitchell released the funds on his final day as international development secretary, a
decision sparking much controversy. Two months later, Mitchell’s successor, Justine Greening, has
again suspended direct budget support to the Rwandan government.

On the surface, withholding aid from a government backing a rebel group guilty of raping women,
pillaging villages, and recruiting child soldiers seems obvious. If the Rwandan government has
resources to finance war in the DRC, then it must not need the UK’s budget support. But the decision
to withhold budget support may pack more than it appears, and relying on aid as a political carrot or
stick has the potential to be quite problematic for the aid effectiveness agenda.

In 2005, donors and recipient countries met in Paris to discuss aid effectiveness. The result was
the Paris Declaration, which highlighted five principles of ownership, alignment, harmonisation,
managing for results, and mutual accountability. The Paris Declaration was later followed up by
the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action, which renewed donor and recipient commitments to the Paris
Principles. At both forums, donors committed to using recipient government systems to deliver aid
wherever possible, directly supporting recipient development strategies and priorities.

So what does this have to do with Britain’s decision to withhold budget support from Rwanda?
There are a few key elements of the aid effectiveness agenda that the decision contradicts. First and
foremost is a commitment to mutual accountability. Under the Paris Declaration, donors commit to
“provide timely, transparent and comprehensive information on aid flows so as to enable partner
authorities to present comprehensive budget reports to their legislatures and citizens.” Not only did
the British government provide very little notice that aid would be withheld, in a matter of months
that decision was both retracted and reinstated. Treating aid like a tap that can be turned on and off
poses obvious challenges for effective budgeting and planning.

Secondly, the decision contradicts principles of alignment. Under the Paris Declaration, donors
agree to “draw conditions, whenever possible, from a partner’s national development strategy or
its annual review of progress in implementing this strategy.” Alongside this, additional conditions
require sound justification and should be coordinated amongst donors to the extent possible. Using
aid as a political bargaining chip contradicts commitment to agreed-upon conditions, risking an aid
culture where recipients must cater to ever-changing donor conditions. Furthermore, using aid as a
political stick may very well be ineffective when there is a lack of consensus amongst donors, as is
the case with the response to Rwanda.

Finally, the decision challenges the principle of ownership, whereby donors agree to “respect
partner country leadership and help strengthen their capacity to exercise it.” Principles of aid
effectiveness suggest that development should not be imposed by the West, but rather that
developing countries should own their development process. Once an agreement has been made
between donors and a recipient country, the recipient’s obligations are limited to the likes of demonstrating accountability for donor funds, establishing sound development strategies, and
working to strengthen institutions. If donors are truly committed to this value, than these should
be the only conditions imposed and donors should refrain from using aid to interfere in national or
regional politics.

This entry does not intend to condone the actions of the Rwandan government, but rather highlight
the dilemmas that policy makers are confronted with when it comes to the delivery of effective
aid. If one believes that aid should be completely benevolent and separate from politics, then they
must be prepared for these types of contradictions. On the one hand, donors face pressure to
achieve sustainable development results and good value for money through aid effectiveness. On
the other hand, they are encouraged by constituents and rights groups to use aid to send highly
political messages to support peace. But the reality is the two cannot often coexist. Aid cannot be a
bargaining chip for diplomacy and an effective tool for sustainable development.

At the end of the day, donors will have to make tough decisions regarding the use of aid. Should aid
be used as a diplomatic tool for peace in the DRC, at the risk of disrupting services and development
for the poor in Rwanda? Politicizing aid inherently requires donors to take chances. Should the
Rwandan government respond positively to pressures from the UK and others, it may yield positive
results for Rwandans and Congolese alike. Should it fail, the poor and vulnerable in Rwanda and
DRC may suffer. Donors can either approach aid with as much neutrality as possible, or take
responsibility for the short and long term consequences of politicizing aid. With a basket of both
hard and soft diplomatic tools available to donor governments, does aid have to be one of them?

The invisible men: wartime sexual violence against males

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By Justyna Maciejczak
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In January 2009 Jean Paul – son of a wealthy Congolese businessman – was abducted by one of many
rebel groups operating in the territory of DRC. On the first night of his captivity he was raped 11
times. The rapes continued over the next few days. On the ninth day Jean Paul managed to escape
his oppressors and shared his dreadful story with the rest of the world (for more on this story, read
the article ‘The Rape of Men’, The Guardian, 17 July 2011).

What happened to Jean Paul constitutes a part of a bigger picture depicting the problem of sexual
abuses committed against men during war. The actual scale of this phenomenon remains unknown.
As Sandesh Sivakumaran notes:

“Although the evidence is largely anecdotal, it is likely that male sexual abuse in armed conflict is
more prevalent than we currently think, for the lack of hard numbers is due to the under-reporting of
the practice and the fact that it is not picked up by others rather than because the practice itself does
not exist.”

What we know about the sexual violence targeting men is that it is relatively widespread, as it occurs
in numerous conflicts taking place in different parts of the world. Chile, Guatemala, Argentina,
Greece, Northern Ireland, Chechnya, Turkey, Iraq, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Sudan, the Central
African Republic, Burundi, Uganda , Rwanda – these are only some of the countries where the sexual
abuses against men took place. One study revealed that in the former Yugoslavia 80% of males held at the concentration camp in Sarajevo reported that they had been raped during their confinement.

According to the survey conducted in the 1980s in El Salvador, 76% of male political prisoners had
been victims of sexual torture. One of the recent studies conducted in Eastern DRC, which was
published in August 2010, sheds light on the scale of sexual abuses taking place in this region. The
rate of sexual violence reported by men was nearly 24%. These numbers, however, show us only a
small part of the problem as the vast majority of abuses remains unreported.

The male victims prefer to hide their secret from the world for various reasons. In many societies
admitting to being raped equals to social stigma. A man who was a victim of sexual abuse loses his
honour and masculinity in the eyes of his family and neighbours. He is no longer a respected member
of community, as he proved to be weak. If he cannot defend himself, how will he protect his family,
let alone the village? Many men, who decide to reveal their dark secret, may face dire consequences
of their confession. They risk being left by their wives and families, rejected by community or even
persecuted as homosexuals. There are not many incentives to encourage men to come forward and
tell their stories.

More importantly, even if men want to seek help, there are too many obstacles blocking their way
to full rehabilitation. In fact, it seems that no one is really interested in their plight. Local doctors
often ignore physical and mental symptoms which indicate that a patient had been a victim of sexual
abuse. Sometimes, even if the truth is revealed, there is no medical and psychological support
offered for male victims, as many rehabilitation programmes, run by medical institutions and NGO’s,
deny victim status to men. These institutions recognize women and girls as victims of sexual violence
and offer them treatment and therapy. Meanwhile, men, branded as perpetrators, but hardly ever as
victims, are being left on their own.

This one-sided approach towards conflict-related sexual violence, which draws a clear-cut lines
between victims (females) and perpetrators (males), does harm and injustice to both men and
women. As Lara Stemple points out:

“Ignoring male rape not only neglects men, it also harms women by reinforcing a viewpoint that
equates ‘female’ with ‘victim’, thus hampering our ability to see women as strong and empowered.
In the same way, silence about male victims reinforces unhealthy expectations about men and their
supposed invulnerability.”

In Eastern DRC 41% women and 10% of men who were victims of sexual violence said that the
perpetrators were females. This finding challenges our traditional perception concerning the
relationship between sexual violence and gender. At some point the victim has become the
oppressor and the oppressor turned into victim.

The “hoplite revolution”

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By Ioannis Nioutsikos

The 300 movie certainly cannot be considered as an accurate depiction of ancient warfare. However, if we look past the zombie-like Persian warriors whose eyes glowed in the dark, and were armed with samurai swords, there is one historical fact that even this absurd film could not overlook: the Ancient Greek phalanx way of fighting. In this article I present the concept of the so-called “Hoplite Revolution”, or, in other words, how a change in the conduct of war fosters the creation of a new political structure.

The first depictions of warfare in Ancient Greece come from the Homeric epics, especially Iliad. The center of political organization in the Homeric Age was the oikos [house], defensible strongholds governed by a basileus [king]. The conduct of war was based upon the ability of the basileus to mobilize his followers. The extremely high cost of purchasing a panoplia [the metal body armour], however, meant that only a few wealthy could afford it and created an armed aristocratic elite. The method of fighting in the Homeric Age was the heroic mode: one-to-one clashes between the elite leaders of each side, in which their mass armies of common people played a secondary role.

From the 8th Century BC the social model started to shift from the small oikos to the city – state of polis. This had become possible through the advances in cultivation technology that led to a significant increase of population. The density allowed more parts of land to be cultivated, creating a middle-class of farmers who owned their land, sharing the identity of belonging to the same polis. Their decent wealth and the new iron forging techniques made them capable of acquiring their own metal weapons and panoplia, in order to defend their fields from other polis.

These developments in the social, political and economic fields transformed the conduct of war radically. War ceased to be the task of an elite, and every land-owner was admitted as hoplite. The battle was not characterized anymore by personal duels, but was fought by the phalanx: dense formations of hoplites equipped with bronze armour, clashing into open field.

Greek hoplite and Persian warrior fighting each other. Depiction in ancientkylix. 5th c. B.C. National Archaeological Museum of Athens (CreativeCommons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Greek-Persian-2.jpg)
Greek hoplite and Persian warrior fighting each other. Depiction in ancient
kylix. 5th c. B.C. National Archaeological Museum of Athens (Creative
Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Greek-Persian-2.jpg)

The phalanx was the army’s main fighting force. It was constituted of heavy armored infantry, equipped with a large round shield, a spear and a short sword. The most important piece of equipment was the shield; not only did it protect the one carrying it, but its large size provided protection to the fighter on his left as well. Thus, the key behind the phalanx‘s success was discipline. If the hoplites stuck together, their formation was impossible to be penetrated by archers, cavalry or chariots. Fighting was strictly regulated; no one, even the aristocrats and kings, was allowed to break the ordered formation and put the group in jeopardy.

The ancient societies were “timocratic”. Political rights were linked to one’s military and economic ability. As the polis started to depend more to a large number of hoplites for its defence, it had to merit them political rights of citizenship. Or as Aristotle noted, “But when cities increased and the heavy armed grew in strength, more had a share in the government, and this is the reason why the states which we call constitutional governments have been hitherto called democracies.” This diffusion of political power is called the “hoplite revolution” or “reform” since it is more likely to have occurred gradually.

Nowadays, many scholars have ceased to consider the “hoplite revolution” as the sole factor explaining the transition to democracy. Some even argue that the sense of equality existed into the very birth of the polis. Despite these views, the Hoplite Revolution theory still retains some value in explaining how the method of warfare can instigate changes in the political field.

Indeed, in the case of Athens, the equality in the phalanx became the impetus for a more egalitarian society with more people gaining political integration. With the reforms of Cleisthenes, this equality was standardized, and the citizen-soldier became the backbone of the Athenian democracy. Kurt Raaflaub actually believes that the hoplite influence was stronger in Sparta, where the citizen – hoplites were recognized as homoioi [peers] and their voice ought to be heard at the assembly called Apella. Despite being an oligarchic polis, the constant threat by the helots dictated the structure of the society in a communal basis. Thus, in Thermopylae Xerxes faced not only a stronger military formation but also a coherent group of free men defending their polis.

Images of war at their most raw

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By: Aaron Paul Taylor

VBS, an arm of the VICE media group, have a new internet TV series called Syria, Ground Zero, a run of short reportage films shot by the maverick war photographer Robert King. In the lineage of the ‘Bang Bang Club’ of conflict photojournalists of the 1990s, Mr King is one of the few Westerners whose images have made it out of Syrian conflict zones this year. After a couple of months buried in books, articles and case studies, with war and civil conflict becoming ever more abstract concepts, the harrowing first episode served as a wake up call.

I am a student of war, and sometimes I feel slightly uncomfortable with the nature of my studies. Numbers of ‘battle deaths’, ‘civilian casualties’, and ‘IDPs’ can become just figure in a table alongside GINI coefficients and GNP per capita. What these numbers represent becomes lost. It can feel weird to ‘really enjoy’ a lecture on poverty and violence. I am equally uncomfortable listening to the braying wisecracks of a visiting desk warrior glossing over ISAF losses in Afghanistan. In short, there is a risk of conflict becoming an academic puzzle, something to be clever about. Extremes of suffering faced by those involved and affected are not readily conveyed in textbooks and journals.

Of course, organised violence must be analysed objectively, uncoloured by visceral reactions to the horror of what we are examining. A cold gaze can aid a reasoned judgment. Equally, I know that many involved in the study of conflict need no sermon from me about remembering what violence really looks like, sounds like, smells like; I have met many students and academics who have, unlike me, lived through, worked in, or fought in wars.

For those unfamiliar with the brand, Vice is an influential, controversy-courting free lifestyle magazine, chronicling general urban entropy for aspiring hipsters in cities around the world. Though its house style is a studied mix of tastelessness, cynicism and cruelty that I grew to find objectionable many years ago, occasional pieces of its Immersionist correspondence have been groundbreaking and deeply affecting. This is especially true of some of its VBS online video content. The films The Vice Guide to Liberia, Inside Afghanistan, Heavy Metal in Baghdad and North Korean Labor Camps have offered snapshots into places and happenings not available elsewhere in the mainstream media.

Syria, Ground Zero, however, has none of the grim levity of the above films. Its first episode, Assad’s Child Victims is from a Free Syrian Army field hospital in al-Qusayr. It opens with a warning that viewer discretion is advised due to the extreme nature of the footage. They should go further. The gory images of severely injured children and of men dying as the camera rolls left me very upset. You need to be sure why you are watching this, and I am not necessarily recommending that you do. There are moral implications, and as my mother used to say, you can’t unwatch it. Minors and the dead cannot consent to you watching this footage of them. You can read Mr King’s account of his experience in al-Qusayr here.

Granted, uncensored images from any emergency ward in the world would make for distressing viewing, but the constant sound of ordnance and machine gun fire adds to its sense of chaos and tragedy. A rocket attack on the hospital itself injures many as Mr King is filming.

We at times need reminding, when musing on the effects of conflict – on reduced state capacity, retarded economic development and so on – what the immediate consequences of war can look like. You may or may not choose to comply with the entreaty of the bloodied surgeon in this film who, standing over an infant with organs exposed on the operating table, implores: “Please, look at this child.”