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Interview with Jay Ulfelder, Former Research Director at the Political Instability Task Force

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by David Comley

Jay Ufelder is an American Political Scientist specialising in democratisation, civil unrest, state collapse and forecasting. Currently a Consulting Researcher, he was previously the Research Director at the Political Instability Task Force – a US government funded initiative to explore the causes of political instability and ‘state failure’.[1]

Jay Ulfelder (2008)
Jay Ulfelder (2008)

  David Comley: Could you tell me about your background and how you reached this stage in your career?

Jay Ulfelder: I did my undergraduate at Duke University in North Carolina and was particularly interested in ‘nuclear annihilation’. This led me to focus on Soviet area studies including some language study in the USSR and I graduated in spring of 1991 just as the Soviet Union was collapsing. This caused me to shift my attention towards more generic issues of political instability and popular mobilisation which were affecting the region at the time.

I then undertook my graduate studies in Political Science at Stanford, focussing on ethnic and nationalist mobilisation in the Baltic republics during the Gorbachev era. From this, my interests broadened into democratisation and social moments. It was this point that I started to mix qualitative and quantitative research methods in my work.

Following graduation in , I moved back to Washington, DC with my wife,  and found work with a small consultancy which did work on government contracts. A lot of this focused on intelligence work and attempted to forecast various forms of political instability.

In 2001, I became involved with the US government-funded Political Instability Task Force  who were looking for a part-time research director. The focus of the task force was on forecasting and explaining a variety of forms of political instability, primarily using statistical models. This often involved using cross-national time-series data to try to think about where instances of civil wars, state collapse and coups etc. were going to happen. Interstate war has never really been a focus because it is so rare, but numerous other forms of political instability have been of interest to the task force at one time or another. This meant digging into the literature, working with models to help forecast these events and working with a lot of very interesting people in academia and government.

In 2011 I left to become a private consultant and I’m currently working full time under contract for the Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. We hope to soon be launching a public early-warning system for forecasting mass killing and genocide in countries around the world.

Does anything like this forecasting system already exist?

Although there are a few programs out there which generate warning reports, a lot of these are ad hoc and react mostly to incipient conflict. This new program will be more rigorous and systematic. It will also be public and freely available, unlike current programs which tend to be run internally by governments who do not make their findings available to the public or international organisations. It’s a very exciting project to be working on and I’m very much looking forward to having something to show for it! We’re looking at publicly launching the initial version in late March 2014.

I’d like to ask your insights on the challenging issues of political instability and state-building. Do you think academics and policy-makers have anything to gain by talking about ‘failed states’, and if not, why has the term become so pervasive in the academic and policy worlds?

I think the term ‘failed states’ has accumulated a lot of baggage which has made it less useful over time. It’s become associated with some specific ways of looking at political instability. In fact, the Political Instability Task Force used to be called the ‘State Failure Task Force’ and changed its name precisely for this reason. The value-laden connotations of what constituted ‘failure’ often got in the way of the substance of what the group was trying to work on. My view echoes that of Charles Call who talks about ‘state collapse’ rather than ‘state failure’, and specifically focuses on the collapse of an entity that is internationally recognised as a ‘sovereign government’. I think the term has stuck around because there are now various institutional investments in it. Although saying that, there are political ramifications if an ambassador were to say to president of another country ‘your state is about to fail’ due to the normative baggage that the term carries.

At the beginning of 2012 you wrote a blog post entitled ‘A Liberal Case Against Military Intervention’ which discussed the opportunity-cost of military intervention in Syria.[2] You argued that the resources required for a military intervention would save far more lives if used for humanitarian purposes. Was there ever a point in the conflict where a military intervention would have been preferable?

My starting point was, and still is, that Syria is an extremely difficult case to grapple with. There is huge uncertainty over what the consequences of various kinds of action would be. Therefore I realise that it is much easier to comment as a blogger then as the policymaker who has to make the decisions. However, in cases where you are not sure that the costly action you are taking will result in the beneficial actions that you are seeking there is a high chance that the intervention will have substantial negative consequences. In these cases the best course of action would be not to intervene, and I think this is the case in Syria. Historically, interventions of a similar to scale to what would have had to have taken place in Syria, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, have not stopped violence from occurring. These interventions have interacted with local actors who have their own interests. Therefore an intervention in Syria would probably have just caused the conflict to escalate in a different way. For this reason, I stand by my original recommendation for Syria. But in response to your question ‘do the potential costs of intervention always outweigh the benefits?’ – No, definitely not. I think Central African Republic is a very good example of this right now, as the CAR’s government isn’t opposing foreign intervention. In my mind, this is a case where the potential benefits of a military intervention almost certainly outweigh the consequences and that France is acting appropriately to the crisis. I think Libya is a bit more ambiguous.

Given that policymakers must be running similar cost-benefit analyses all the time, why do you think the executives in the UK and US were so enthusiastic to intervene in Syria in September, if those resources could have been used much more effectively for humanitarian rather than military purposes?

I truly can’t understand that. It seemed like a moment where everyone became caught up in a particular idea for the wrong reasons. It then became attached to other objectives such as ‘tipping the balance towards regime change’. My belief is that it wouldn’t have happened even if the Russians hadn’t offered their alternative deal involving chemical weapons disposal. In the event, this ended up being a nice face-saving opportunity for those who had been most enthusiastic in backing the strikes. It just goes to show that politics is not a contraption that produces optimal outcomes for the parties involved.

What advice would you give to students who are thinking about going into policymaking or academia? Broadly speaking, what should we bear in mind when approaching the study of ‘conflict’?

In a couple of words, I would say ‘humility’ and ‘curiosity’. The biggest problem in policymaking right now seems to be overconfidence in our ability to fix things. We need to get away from seeing state-building and nation-building as solutions to these kinds of problems and acknowledge where previous efforts have failed, but this doesn’t mean giving up. Recent work has showed how certain interventions can be hugely useful for some people, in some contexts, some of the time. We should therefore be looking for successes at the margins rather than big, grand solutions. However it’s important to remember that your work can still marginally improve our ability to understand these things and this has the potential to make the world marginally less-bad.

 

NOTES
[1] Interview conducted 9th December 2013. Please note that this is an approximation of the interview rather than a transcript. Published with the kind permission of Jay Ulfelder.
[2] http://dartthrowingchimp.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/a-liberal-case-against-military-intervention-in-syria/

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David Comley is a postgraduate student at King’s College London, currently reading for the MA in Conflict, Security and Development.

An Uncivilised Clash of Civilisations

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by Thomas Colley

Menschenfresserin (by Leonhard Kern, 1650)
Menschenfresserin
Leonhard Kern, 1650

The BBC’s account of an incident of cannibalism in the Central African Republic conflict has shocked many in recent days. In this case, a Muslim victim of a Christian mob was cannibalised by Ouandja ‘Mad Dog’ Magloire in an act of revenge for the murder of three of his family members. At a time when the president of the CAR has just resigned, and the country stands at a crossroads, this post briefly examines the impact of this most gruesome act and its international media coverage.

Cannibalism represents one of the ultimate taboos of human behaviour. Humans are perfectly willing to feed their livestock reformulated feed made of the same animal, and then eat that animal, but the idea of consciously consuming a member of your own species is unthinkable to most. Few behaviours are considered more deviant.

Yet the motives for cannibalism are often misunderstood. In a number of cultures, cannibalism has been an important ritual practice, thought to confer powers upon the consumer, from intelligence and insight to invulnerability. Although it is not difficult to understand that such rational choice explanations for cannibalism are unacceptable to the overwhelming majority. Yet as obviously disturbing as cannibalism is, it is still a politicised concept. Colonial powers used accusations of cannibalism to indicate the primitive nature of people they wished to subjugate or ‘civilise’. Charles Taylor in Liberia and Jean-Bedel Bokassa in the CAR are but two leaders accused (though not found guilty) of participating and sanctioning cannibalism in recent decades.

The identification of a Muslim victim of a Christian mob killing represents a frame rarely seen in Western media coverage. Indeed one could speculate how different the coverage would be had it been the other way round. As the BBC notes, diplomats in the CAR blame some of the West’s media for fomenting conflict by presenting a ‘clash of civilisations’ between Muslims and Christians. It is understandable to see why, though the blame may be misplaced. The BBC cannibalism article talks of a crowd of Christians singing that they are going to kill Muslims. It is unlikely that those on the ground had their identities hardened from the outside by Western media coverage. At the same time, presenting a Muslim-Christian clash is arguably the best way to raise the profile of a conflict in a state that most in the West could barely name, let alone recognise on a map.

This brings us to the problems posed by media coverage of a brutal act of cannibalism at a time when the CAR needs more assistance than ever. On the one hand, ‘Mad Dog’ and the mob that helped him to stab the victim in the eye, beat him to death with rocks, set him on fire and hack off his legs, have given much needed publicity to the CAR when it desperately needs it. The problem is that such gruesome coverage risks distancing people from the conflict, relegating the CAR to yet another stereotypical example of African instability.  Rather than a conflict between rational actors with legitimate political, social and economic grievances, the conflict is reduced to an ‘uncivilised clash of civilisations’, with Muslim pitted against Christian, but this time fought by people somehow less civilised, as evidenced by their willingness to cannibalise each other. The misplaced idea that parts of Africa continue to represent Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and continue to participate in barbaric, uncivilised practices, will only be reinforced by such coverage.

The BBC article ends stating that the fact that the cannibal was cheered as a hero by some is not a good sign for the future of the CAR, effectively asking rhetorically what chance a state has got if its people are quite literally willing to eat each other? However, this misses the point. By focusing on the actions of one cannibal, and by implying that this behaviour is the sort of thing that happens in the CAR, it is easier for the wider world to distance itself from and dehumanise the conflict. If conflict in CAR involves behaviours beyond the realm of human understanding, then presumably there is little external powers could do to solve it.

The danger in presenting such an argument is to risk reinforcing it. That is not the intent here. With the resignation of President Djotodia only a few days ago, there is tentative optimism that steps to resolve the conflict in the CAR could follow. Others fear continuing sectarian violence. Certainly a cessation in hostilities would allow for much needed aid to reach the hundreds of thousands that need it (20% are reported to have already fled their homes), the millions of CAR citizens unjustly forgotten for so much of the conflict and the coverage thereof. At this febrile point in the life of the CAR, with the world watching and hopefully willing to help, it needs images of people that desperately need and deserve help. In this sense, reports of one act of cannibalism could not have come at a worse time.

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Thomas is a PhD student at King’s College London studying the use of strategic narratives in the War on Terror. Having lived and worked in Uganda for two years, he also has a keen interest in East African politics and conflict.

'Still violent, vulnerable and vital'. Pakistan's prospects for 2014

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by Zoha Waseem

Pakistan-Flag-Art-Desktop-W

In Pakistan’s 67th year of existence, living with violence in contested spaces appears to have become a norm. Since 2003, over 50,000 Pakistanis have been killed in terrorism-related violence. An estimated 5,366 people were killed last year alone; over half of them reportedly in urban violence in Karachi. In the beginning of 2013 the Pakistani army finally altered its stance on militancy and recognised that internal terrorism was the biggest threat to its national security. But the civilian government has yet to devise a strategy to tackle this monster. As the world enters 2014 it carries with it ghosts of conflicts past and Pakistan’s baggage is perhaps one of the heaviest. This is a brief analysis of developments that shaped the country in 2013 and what is in store for the year ahead.

Pakistan Goes to the Polls

Perhaps the greatest milestone last year was a smooth transition of power; the landmark elections of May 2013 celebrated the first completion of a democratic government’s tenure. While clouded by riots and rigging, it was a watershed moment for Pakistanis who came out in scores to campaign and vote, demonstrating the country’s resilient street power. Unfortunately, almost customarily, Pakistan voted in a previously tried and tested government, that of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Sharif’s third term in the position under Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) has succeeded in undermining the role of President Mamnoon Hussain, contrary to the authority previous president Asif Ali Zardari held. Sharif’s agenda focuses on three core elements: economy, energy and extremism. Sharif will have his hands full this term with Afghanistan, India, Iran, domestic militancy and rising sectarianism, economic instability, and volatile political eruptions in the province of Sindh.

The May elections also saw the rise of Imran Khan, Chairman of political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which has over the months witnessed diminishing popularity following Khan’s statements criticising drone strikes; blocking NATO supply routes; calling for negotiations with the terrorist group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP); creeping further to the right by allying with Jamaat-e-Islami, and attempting to vindicate Bangladeshi war criminal Abdul Quader Mullah. Eight months on, PTI has yet to deliver as Khan appears to be stuck in campaign gear. In 2014 Pakistanis will watch closely how his government performs in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (the northern province of Pakistan that borders the Federally Administrative Tribal Areas and Afghanistan, and has been home to both Afghan and Pakistani Taliban).

The months leading up to the election period coincided with the return of former president and army chief, Pervez Musharraf, from London. Now on trial for treason for imposing emergency rule in 2007, and trying to avoid the court on medical grounds, Musharraf faces death penalty or life imprisonment if convicted. While Musharraf maintains that the army is on his side, his prosecution could be demoralising for the entire institution – perhaps the strongest in Pakistan – and risk complicating the slowly mending civil-military relations.

Negotiating with the TTP

One of the most debated subjects in Pakistani media was the dialogue with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). When TTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in a drone strike in November, the government criticised the United States for hampering negotiations. Little importance was given to the fact that members of the TTP denied that these talks had begun. The killing of Hakimullah in a drone strike put the TTP under the leadership of Mullah Fazlullah, a militant notorious for lashing out over the radio against the Pakistani government, education, and anti-polio drives. Staunchly against negotiations, Fazlullah is said to be close to the Afghan Taliban, having taken shelter in the country following a military operation in Swat (2009), and his appointment may indicate warming relations between the Afghan and Pakistani Talibans.

The year ended with the government appointing chief of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islami, Sami-ul Haq, to initiate dialogue with the TTP. The group has three core demands: (i) withdraw the armed forces; (ii) implement TTP’s brand of Sharia; (iii) eradicate democracy. Sharif insists the TTP must disarm and accept the Pakistani constitution, but Sami-ul Haq is known to be supportive of TTP’s demands. Pakistan’s current strategy of negotiation – with the appointment of said middleman – already appears feeble.

Besides uncertainty over how or with whom to negotiate, Pakistan must remember previous violations of ceasefire agreements by the TTP. While these are beyond the ambit of this article, it suffices to say that continued targeting of civilians calls into question TTP’s sincerity for peace. The July jail break that led to the escape of 250 prisoners from Dera Ismail Khan (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa); the church attack in Peshawar that killed over 80 people followed by one in Qissa Khwani bazaar claiming 40 lives; the attacks on anti-polio drive workers across the country; the attacks on female students in Quetta; and the massacre of 10 foreign mountaineers in Nanga Parbat are but some reminders of the audacity of the group which, at this rate, is likely to continue operating with scant regard for the writ of the state.

Operation: Karachi

Karachi suffered from one of its deadliest years in history. 2013 started with waves of target killings, now almost the city’s trademark, including Parveen Rehman, a devoted social worker, and Zahra Shahid, vice-president of PTI. In August 2011, the Supreme Court took a suo motu notice of the increasing crime and violence in the city. It took two years before law enforcement agencies were finally instructed to crack down and begin an operation against criminals and terrorists. Over 14,000 suspects have been arrested since September, but violence continues unabated.

Alongside 3,000 civilians killed in violence in Karachi (compared to 143 in Islamabad), more than 172 police officers were targeted last year (1 every 2 days), making it the worst year for city police fatalities. Assassinations of police officials have continued into 2014, with the recent suicide attack on SSP (Crime Investigation Department) Chaudhry Aslam, a distinguished officer recognised for his counter-terrorism efforts in Karachi, especially against the TTP. The group retaliated in broad daylight, theatrically demonstrating their increasing presence in the city.

The previous summer saw Altaf Hussain (chief of Karachi’s leading ethnic political party, Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM)) under fire from the British media after Scotland Yard took notice of his money laundering activities, his alleged involvement in the murder of Imran Farooq (a senior member of the MQM in London), and for inciting violence in Karachi. Presently, media reports are again hinting that Hussain’s recent statements may cause Scotland Yard to investigate the case this year. Should this happen, and if Karachi is disturbed by developments in London that demoralise MQM activists, Islamabad may pressure the British to temporarily take a softer approach to Hussain in order to gain time to stabilise Karachi and allow the on-going operation to continue. This will be a particularly sensitive subject in the first half of 2014, ahead of the local body elections due to take place.

Escalating Sectarian Strife

Pakistan further suffered the loss of 500 civilians to sectarian violence, 96 percent of whom were Shia Muslims. Systematic killings of the Shia Hazara minority continued (over 125 were killed in 2012, whereas the first two months of 2013 saw more than 200 Harazas targeted). Responsibilities for these attacks have been claimed by both the TTP and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (both pro-Sunni, anti-Shia groups). Sectarian minorities (including Ahmedis) in Balochistan and elsewhere, blame the federal government for its lack of dedication to the plight of minorities.

Of Foes and Friends

Drone attacks remained a crucial aspect of Pakistan’s rocky courtship with the US. In response to the droning out of Maulvi Nazir and then Mehsud (senior TTP commanders), PTI rashly responded by blocking NATO supply routes to Afghanistan via Pakistan, hurting not only civilians for whom the supplies were intended, but also other NATO countries not responsible for drones. Sharif received no justification on this subject during his sit-down with Obama in Washington DC in October, 2013. Sources on the ground suggest the attacks will continue this year, though perhaps with reduced frequency post-NATO withdrawal, and that supply routes will remain open through backdoor diplomacy. Despite feelings of betrayal and subordination, Islamabad will continue relying on the US for financial support.

Backdoor diplomacy also appears to be the preferred tactic on the question of Afghanistan. Pakistani media is relatively quiet on how the state intends to deal with Afghanistan ahead of coming elections. Analysis suggests that the Pakistani establishment remains divided: some within the establishment will back the Afghan Taliban, whereas other will seek to resist it. Regardless, the complete disregard by the Taliban for the Durand Line suggests Pakistan’s porous border will remain tense and open to militant activities.

Pakistan’s policy vis-à-vis Afghanistan will be considered with India in mind. Pakistanis still feel uncertain about Narendra Modi, the leading prime ministerial candidate in India’s upcoming elections, and his agenda for Islamabad. Sharif’s campaign emphasised bettering relations with India, opening dialogue, and ending visa restrictions. But Modi has thus far hinted towards a hard-line approach in dealing with its nuclear neighbour. With Kashmir and Afghanistan still circling the room like two giant elephants, the tense relationship and dialogue will remain vulnerable to breaches and violations. There were 400 cease-fire violations on the line of control in the disputed territory of Kashmir and the much-awaited Director General Military Operations (DGMO) meetings took off in December 2013 to discuss these violations. The fact that the DGMOs met for the first time since the 1999 Kargil War is a positive development. Nevertheless, it is likely that while talks and meetings continue, behind-the-door arms build-ups, border skirmishes, and indirect support for low-scale conflicts on opposing sides, will continue with all guards geared for defence.

Pakistan is also faced with a strict deadline of completing the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline by the end of 2014, which is crucial for Sharif’s desire to address the energy crisis. Though dedicated to the project, Islamabad feels the heat of US pressure and threats of sanctions should it continue. Iran has already suspended the loan for Pakistan’s side of the pipeline, and if unable to follow through with the deal, Pakistan will face severe financial repercussions as well as risk jeopardising ties with Tehran.

The Year of Appointments

2013 was also a year of new appointments in Pakistan. The retirement of former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was met with mixed feelings. Once renowned for judicial activism and recognised as the face of the Lawyer’s Movement, Chaudhry soon became notorious for judicial dictatorship and addressing personal vendettas. The decline of judicial activism welcomed the appointment of Tasadduq Hussain Jilani who, in a remarkable contrast to Chaudhry, is mild-tempered, nicknamed ‘the gentleman judge’, and indifferent to the media.

Former chief of army staff Ashfaq Kayani also stepped down in 2013. The antithesis to Musharraf, he was respected for keeping the military outside of the civilian government’s domain, tolerating extreme criticisms in the media, and recognising the threat posed by domestic terrorism. His successor, Raheel Sharif, has been hand-picked by Nawaz Sharif (no relation), with indifference towards merit-based selection (Raheel Sharif was third in line). Raheel is close to the PM, but Pakistani history indicates that a selection that does not respect seniority or merit does not bode well for Pakistani politicians. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto appointed Zia-ul-Haq who hanged him; Nawaz Sharif previously appointed Musharraf who overthrow his government in a coup. Both were low in seniority.

Pakistan will have a full plate in 2014 with too many hungry appetites. Power struggles in the centre between government and opposition will continue trickling down to provincial and local levels, gathering arms and soldiers as they ripple on. Like in Afghanistan, where the future is up for grabs, in Pakistan, power and space will be contested through violence and chaos. This is unlikely to present a picture much different from the previous year.

 

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Zoha Waseem is a PhD researcher in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. You can follower her on Twitter @ZohaWaseem.

Getting into character: Guantanamo Bay and Shakespeare

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by Alister Wedderburn

Embleme
Emblem 13 from H.G. [Henry Goodyere?],
‘The Mirrour of Maiestie, or The Badges of Honor Conceitedly
Emblazoned’
(London: 1618)
One of the first actions of the domineering drill sergeant in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket is to give noms de guerre to his new recruits: Joker, Cowboy, Gomer Pyle. These are the labels by which we know the characters throughout the film; whoever they were before they tumbled into Parris Island is irrelevant. Over the last few months, a curious real-life example of military rechristening has come to light: medical staff at Guantanamo Bay are given the names of Shakespearean characters.[1]

 One can easily spot the rather invidious reasons why this might be militarily desirable. Identifying personnel with fictional characters creates the possibility of a permissive detachment from self, and also makes it difficult to externally ascribe responsibility to misdeeds or illegalities. Joe Bloggs can be called to the dock, but not Joseph, Petruchio’s waiting-man in The Taming of the Shrew.

 It’s more difficult to understand why the reasoning behind these aliases has to be systematic at all, and still more why Shakespeare’s plays are considered the most suitable source from which to draw. The critical and interpretive silt that has accumulated about his work for the past four hundred years is far too rich and fertile to allow for simplistic readings of the sort necessary for appropriation of this kind. The hubris of appropriating it anyway paints another layer of makeup on the Ubu Roi-like creature that Gitmo seems to play within Western political discourse, and offers a gift to anyone hoping to understand a little more about its self-regulated games of identity.

 Dominic Dromgoole and Clive Stafford Smith give us a dramatis personae:[2]

 Senior Medical Officer … . . Leonato (Much Ado about Nothing)
Force-Feeding Doctor … . . Varro (Julius Caesar)
Behavioural Health Doctor … . . Cordelia (King Lear)
Behavioural Health Doctor … . . Cressida (Troilus and Cressida)
Psychiatrist … . . Helena (All’s Well That Ends Well / A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
Medical Corpsman … . . Silius (Antony and Cleopatra)
Nurse … . . Valeria (Coriolanus)
Nurse … . . Lucentio (The Taming of the Shrew)
Nurse … . . Lucio (Measure for Measure)

 Dromgoole and Stafford Smith argue that the US military’s literary criticism is way off: none of these characters are suitable avatars for Guantanamo medics. They’re right. Yet considerable thought will undoubtedly have gone into the choice of plays to plunder and names to lift – one can’t imagine an Edmund or a Iago, a Chiron or a Timon stalking the cells and corridors of the Gitmo infirmary.

 Presuming this discretion, one wonders which names were discarded in the discussion process, and why. It isn’t hard to see why Claudius or Lady Macbeth might have been rejected, but there is one demographic of characters notably absent from the roll-call: Shakespeare’s plays contain four named doctors, none of which make the cut.

 We know that medically-inclined characters were considered: the psychiatrist’s pseudonym is Helena from All’s Well That Ends Well; the daughter of a doctor and a woman herself capable of a herbal form of healing. Figures of this ilk – for all the shortcomings Dromgoole and Stafford Smith point out – are surely the most obvious aliases for a medical professional. The exclusion of the four doctors perhaps, therefore, suggests that to the Gitmo medical unit, these characters represent attributes that they do not wish to encourage in their staff.

 Of the four doctor-characters, one is identifiable as being obviously undesirable as a reference point for a medic. Caius is a doctor in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and there are suggestions (‘Monseur Mockwater’ [sic]) that he is something of a quack. In the farcical climax, he marries a costumed boy whom he believes to be the woman he lusts after. Undignified, libidinous, the butt of jokes and of dubious medical pedigree, it is little wonder that no-one at Guantanamo took his name.

 However, the other three present images superficially more akin to their modern counterparts. Cornelius is the doctor of the king’s court in Cymbeline. He is conscientious, and willing to disobey the queen: when she orders him to give her poison, ostensibly to experiment on ‘such creatures as/ We count not worth the hanging’, he correctly suspects foul play and instead gives her a draught designed to bring on a deep sleep that resembles death, but will not induce it. Cornelius is ill-at-ease with the possibility that his medical and medicinal skill might be misused for political ends, and he is willing to act independently – even if only to a limited extent – in order to ensure his principles are not compromised: ‘She is fool’d/ With a most false effect; and I the truer,/ So to be false with her’.

 Doctor Butts is the king’s personal doctor in Henry VIII. He has a small role limited to a handful of lines, but his role is not insignificant: he is a witness to injustice, as he stumbles upon the exclusion of Cranmer from the King’s Council; he brings Henry to see the scene himself. Henry says they shall watch the council in secret, but together: ‘Let ‘em alone, and draw the curtain close:/ We shall hear more anon’. Butts therefore continues his role of witness even after having informed his superior, elevating his relation of events from mere tittle-tattle into something rather more noble and valued; a whistle-blower of sorts.

 Cerimon is a physician in Pericles who revives Thaisa, Pericles’ wife, when she washes up ashore having been thrown overboard in a storm. Though presumed dead by Pericles and his shipmates, Cerimon knows better: ‘Death may usurp on nature many hours,/ And yet the fire of life kindle again/ The o’erpressed spirits’. Cerimon’s medical work is predicated upon an empathy with the suffering death brings, both to those who die and those who mourn: ‘If thou livest, Pericles, thou hast a heart/ That even cracks with woe!’ He is a doctor who professes to take pleasure in the study of illness and remedy, and who is thereby able to revive patients supposed dead by those without his specialist training.

 Why were these characters overlooked? First, a caveat. Although the notion that these names would have been considered as potential aliases in Gitmo is credible, whether they were or not, and to what extent, is uncertain. However, it remains possible to tentatively hypothesise that a possible reason the names of these three figures were discarded is because they each display characteristics that are considered undesirable for health workers in an illegal detention centre. Cornelius, Butts and Cerimon all exhibit qualities that one imagines would be prized by mainstream medics: an unwillingness for medicine to become a political tool, a readiness to expose injustice when witnessed and an empathy towards those suffering both physically and emotionally. It is not difficult to imagine why such qualities might be viewed with suspicion in the closed circle of military medicine that is Guantanamo Bay.

 

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 NOTES

[1] http://www.aljazeera.com/humanrights/2013/05/201352071456510564.html;http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/guantanamo-bay-is-kafka-on-the-caribbean; http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/25/3306327/guantanamo-guards-take-names-from.html
[2] London Review of Books, 7 November 2013 (accessible at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n21/dominic-dromgoole/short-cuts)

 

2013: A Year in Review

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2013 has been a year rife with political changes, social upheaval, natural disasters, and of course conflict. A snapshot of some key events of the last year may offer grim prospects for 2014, or alternatively a sense of hope for changes we may yet see and the progress that has been made.

Syria was arguably the most popular news story of 2014. From a regime that was once predicted a matter of weeks before collapse, the tables have now seemingly turned and there may yet be a place for Bashar al-Assad at the table amongst the humanitarian disaster. The shocking increase of foreign fighters have brought a Western face to the conflict, and returning fighters who were once more associated with Afghan jihadists fighting Soviet invaders are now returning to our own backyards. As Iraq reaches heights of violence not seen in the last five years, it risks becoming a forgotten land overshadowed by other focus in the region.

The Westgate attack in Nairobi underscored the danger that al-Shabaab poses well outside Somalia’s borders and served as a reminder of the many groups that have perhaps received less attention than they should, and leave us wondering where the next threat will originate from. The increased attacks by Boko Haram in Nigeria remain a challenging group to fully understand from those outside the border, but a very real threat to those it affects. Coupled with an active al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrib (AQIM) which had been terrorizing swaths of Northern Mali and many neighbouring countries, destabilizing groups challenge the progress of some of Africa’s most fragile states. Small successes such as the peace agreement signed between the M23 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its government may lead the way to ending one of Africa’s cruellest conflicts, while ethnic killings in South Sudan may offer a new one.

Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines left millions homeless and challenged a government’s response to the needs of its people. Events such as Rana Plaza clothing factory collapse served as a reminder of the growing interconnectedness of us all when labels often found on our own backs were showing up alongside the victims. India’s horrific rape epidemic dominated the news cycle as a country’s women challenged the public space which they felt endangered in and their determination to take it back. Edward Snowden’s release of thousands of classified documents showed how our space is not as private and sacred as we once thought and made us question how far we are willing to allow our own privacy to be sacrificed in the name of security.

The election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has opened doors where distrust often lied and may lead to a new kind of relationship between Iran and the West than that of stand-offs and ideological clashes. The removal of democratically-elected President Mohamed Morsi in Egypt show how many countries swept up in the Arab Spring are still trying to carve out their own internal relationships and identity, and exhibit the clashes this process is fraught with.

The passing of some of the political leaders of our time leave us reflecting on how an idea, or a will, can have so great an impact on the world around us. Nelson Mandela showed how peaceful transition is possible in a country built on inequality. Britain’s Iron Lady and first female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher changed the face of modern Britain and approach to free market. The oft controversial Hugo Chavez was a figure both praised and loathed by his people and the role he envisioned for Venezuala will continue to impact the future of the country for many years to come.

For Strife Blog, it has been a year full of growth and expansion. A new committee has taken the reigns from the founders and is finding its place amongst a new generation of King’s and other international scholars. Strife has solidified its place in the academic landscape with the publication of its second journal, and increased its views to an average of 50,000/year from 150 countries. We have also seen our authors picked up by international news media and broadcast around the world. As our world continues to change, and the political events of the day ebb and peak, we look forward to growing and continuing to provide thoughtful, unique insights on how we view and address conflict in our world, in all its shapes and forms.

From all of us at Strife, we wish you peace and prosperity in 2014. Keep questioning, keep analysing and most importantly, keep writing.