Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Health Care as a Negative Right



Last night I saw Sicko, Michael Moore's latest expose about the state of health care in the United States. To look beyond Moore's black-and-white view of health care (socialized good, privatized bad), one can and should ask what kind of human right health care is. If it's a negative right, then the government's only responsibility is they can't prevent us from obtaining it. If it's a positive right, then the government is required to provide it to all. Without using these terms per se, much of the debate on health care in the United States depends on what kind of right you see it as. Republicans fighting the Clinton health care reform in the '90s repeatedly spoke of "government interference" in hospitals, which essentially implies that governmental control would prevent people from receiving care. In other words, it would infringe upon our negative right against government interference. Those for socialized health care, on the other hand, believe our rights are already being denied, as it is the government's duty to provide it's citizens with medical attention when needed.

Moore clearly takes the latter view, as evident by his glorification of Canada, France, and even Cuba. That does not mean, however, that one who sees health care as a negative right has nothing to gain from the movie. The dozen or so people denied treatment Moore interviewed show that people can be left choiceless when it comes to their medical care and the laws of our nation fail to protect them. Goodbye negative right. So even if Michael Moore's tactics (trying to take a boatload of sick Americans to Guantanamo Bay, for instance), leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, our government's failure to provide even the most basic human right to its citizens should leave a worse one.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Summer Internship

Thanks to support from the Center, I have had the opportunity this summer to live in Washington, DC, and intern at the U.S. Department of State. I am working in the Bureau of African Affairs, which I selected because of my interest in Africa and issues relevent to the continent, such as economic development, public health, and human rights. The Bureau placed me on its Economic Policy Staff, the office that conducts all of the U.S. government's economic relations with sub-Saharan Africa. This placement has turned out to be a great way for me to combine my interests in economic development, foreign aid, and international trade.
Now halfway through my internship, my work thus far has revolved around the African Growth Opportunities Act (AGOA), a trade policy passed by Congress in 2000. AGOA provides trade preferences to nations that are progressing in political, economic, and human rights reforms, allowing eligible countries to export duty-free products to the U.S. Since AOGA went into effect, U.S. imports from sub-Saharan African nations have increased by over 150%, which has allowed for increased economic growth in much of Africa.
So far, I have been able to learn a lot about how the U.S. conducts aid policies in developing countries, and I am looking forward to learning more about AGOA and other development programs in the coming weeks!

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Peace Movement in Colombia

Marianne Pearl interviews activist Mayerly Sanchez about the Children's Movement for Peace in Colombia.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Thus far my internship with the Student Movement for Real Change (SMRC) has been the experience of a lifetime. My internship began about 3 weeks ago in Washington, D.C. where I assisted the Executive Director with final preparations for the summer project that we have worked on together for the past year. Students for Students 2007 was created to uplift the rural communities in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa. There are 18 U.S. students here, including 3 staff members. We spent the first week in meetings in Cape Town and Johannesburg with political officials including the Consulate General, Helen La Lime, and Special Advisor to the Ministor of Housing, Saths Moodley, and arrived to the village this past Saturday. As Project Director I worked extensively on coordinating the project's logistics with the SMRC contacts on the ground in South Africa and designing the project's structure in the three villages.
Although the whole group is living in homestays in Utha Village, we are split into three working groups in separate villages. Each group is responsible for organizing, creating, and managing their own two week Experiential Education "Camp" and assisting the South African youth with service projects to benefit the community. Our second two weeks in the villages we will work with teachers and offer separate English lessons as well as some entrepreneurial education. As a team leader I manage my group at Sampson Primary School in Makrepeni Village everyday by ensuring camp runs smoothly. With over 100 kids who barely speak English, it has been a little chaotic the first few days.
We spent our first day completing a "community assessment" of sorts whereby we walked around in several groups with translators and spoke with families about what they believe their greatest needs to be and also recorded some demographics. The majority of families in Makrepeni have to walk 2 or 3 miles to access a water tap in another village (that does not work all the time) and the nearest health clinic is a four hour walk. Unemployment is also a major problem. Although some people said they had no needs and were quite happy, the highest complaint regarded the clinic and the unemployment situation which is incredibly high in this part of the country.
We spend mornings with students from ages 4-14 and the afternoons with the older youth (between 15-20) that come to participate in small roundtable discussions with us. The activities we deployed have been fun and educational and we feel we have actually engaged the students, which can be quite difficult considering the language barrier and many other challenges. Our discussion with the older youth has been the most informative part. The groups are finally opening up to us about serious problems in the community with HIV/AIDS, infidelity, sexual violence, unemployment, lack of motivation to attend school and many other issues. It is exciting to work with them to conquer these issues.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Human Rights in Cuba: Improving Under Raul?

Fewer political prisoners in Cuba
from BBC

An independent Cuban human rights group says there are fewer political prisoners in the country since Raul Castro took over as interim leader.

The group says up to 70 political prisoners have been freed in the past year, continuing a trend.

But it says the government in Havana still systematically violates the human rights of its citizens.

International inspection of its overcrowded prisons and labour camps is not allowed, the group's report said.

The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said political prisoners still represented an "alarming" percentage of the Cuban population and that human rights violations were still widespread.

'Police state'

"Still in force is a police state whose nature is reflected in almost every aspect of national life," the report said.

Freedom of expression and association, and the right to form trade unions or political organizations, is still suppressed and criminalized under a penal code.

The commission, whose reports are regularly used by international groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, is illegal in Cuba but tolerated by the communist state.

The group was also critical of United States sanctions against Cuba for causing hardship to the Cuban people and providing the government with a justification for its economic failures.

Raul Castro has been acting president since his brother, Fidel, fell ill and underwent intestinal surgery last year.

Children and education in Dakar and St. Petersburg

As I have sent out to many professors and friends, this past semester I was in St. Petersburg, Russia and the semester before that in Dakar, Senegal. In both cities I had an internship working with children. Below I will paste what I wrote to friends and family in October 2006 about my experience at the school in Dakar and also my internship in St. Petersburg.

Dakar, Senegal:
I wanted to write about a school that I visited this morning with another CIEE student, Kendle. Kendle’s internship is related to education. For the past four weeks she has been teaching English to kids in secondary school. I don’t think she has ever taught before but for these kids it’s a good start. I later learned that there are 14 teachers for about 200 students. The teachers do get training, but I’m not sure how much. In any case, today Kendle taught the lower school kids. Because of the holidays, there were no teachers or something of that sort. Kendle had 25 students, which were mixed ages. I would say half were 1-3rd grade and the other half 5-7th grade age. She was teaching them “Hello, My name is (blank). What is your name? Nice to meet you.” And then “head shoulders knees and toes.” It was so chaotic. And maybe b/c I did summerbridge (a teaching program for college students in the United States; now known as Breakthrough Collaborative) I felt like I needed more of a structure. But then I realized, that today was under special circumstances b/c of the class combination. And also… how useful is English to these students? It was very overwhelming. The school is not public or private but ‘social.’ It’s for students who can’t afford public schools (here [in Senegal] they aren’t free) or failed out of public school or came from the villages and don’t have a birth certificate. It is the only one in Dakar and was founded and is run by someone who was in a koranique school until he was about 14. He taught himself English and French on the street. And began attending French school, which his father paid for, when he was 14. Then when he was 21, in secondary school, he had to stop b/c of strikes. And now… what he does is amazing. He had classes for all subjects all throughout the day, so that all kids, those who go to koranique school during the day, or who have to work to help their families, or adults, can come and learn to read and write, or math, etc. The school was in a poor neighborhood downtown. The buildings that surround it are hard to describe. They are like trailers but not really – cement building with tin metal roofs. The first time I saw them I was shocked b/c I hadn’t seen poverty here yet and it really is here; somehow we are just able to ignore it. Surprising though for a third world country… I think it’s the same in the states, especially in SF where there are SO many homeless people…

July 9, 2007
Reading that entry now, I realize that with my first impressions, I gave the school a bit too much credit. For the remainder of my time in Senegal I volunteered at that school twice a week. The director that I described above asked me to work with the little kids b/c of my smile and energy. We mostly did numbers and vowels in French, coloring, and learning how to write. The most frustrating feeling was watching their regular teacher sit back. One day I had to leave early and I asked her if she thought she could finish up with the coloring activity. A look of panic appeared on her face. I was so surprised. She was their teacher. Where was her energy? And when did watching kids (only 12 of them, each about 4 years old) color become so difficult? I felt like I was wasting my time. The kid were enjoying me being there and I do hope it had some impact but my goal was to present some of my ideas (or others') to the regular teacher so that she can utilize those techniques later, after I left. Everyone knew I wasn't going to be there long. I just felt like my efforts ended up being effective short-term instead of long-term. There is really no way for me to find out what is going on there now, but sadly I imagine little has changed.

St. Petersburg, Russia:
I stayed in St. Petersburg a month after my program end date to complete an internship I had attempted to begin in February. I worked for Doctors to Children, a branch of the US’s Doctors of the World. The organization has several projects ranging from working with babies rejected from HIV-positive mothers, or babies whose mothers are at rehab during the day, or at-risk children living in a social apartment, or at-risk children with families at a drop-in center, which also serves homeless (in Russian “street”) children. I worked at the social apartment as an English tutor with several different boys around the age of 16. I also worked at the drop-in center with the street children and the children with families but still considered “at-risk.” What I learned from this experience was that nothing is for sure. An event may be arranged (for example I helped to arrange field trips to museums around the city [there are 221 museums in St. Petersburg, including apartment/museums of famous Russian authors, not just Pushkin]) but the peple at the center told me to not rely on the sign-up list b/c the amount that actually do come is never equal to the amount that signed up. That was so weird for me – that lack of structure, at least compared to what I was used to at Breakthrough Collaborative last summer with lesson plans turned in every week, a schedule for the kids to follow, etc. I tried to introduce some games and logic activities and "word of the day" in Russian and English. I did so right before I left so I’m not sure if anything went into effect. I will have to call to find out. It’s sad leaving an organization where the help is needed, wanted, and appreciated. When I came back a second time the people at the drop-in center were so grateful. I explained to them that this was an internship I had set up for myself and that I would be coming every day. Still, there are no volunteers in Russia. No one does anything for free b/c everyone needs and wants money. I have never felt SO truly appreciated for something. Here, in the States, we’re paid for what we do so it’s expected. Even when I volunteer, I’m thanked for my time and energy, etc, but that’s expected, too. I think it’s good that volunteering is something that Americans (we?) are raised with be it for the resume or “wanting to change the world,” but I have to admit, I liked how my time and ideas were acknowledged. Most of all though, I hope that that center and others like it gets more volunteers, especially Russians, who can inspire the kids to stay off the streets, not drink beer to the extent that they do (especially at age 12 or younger), and not sniff glue or do other drugs. It’s sad to watch someone literally waste away their future like that. But I’m glad to see that there are organizations in Russia finally doing something about even if it’s slow.

I almost had an internship with a tolerance organization in St. Petersburg. Although the issue there, with all the hate and racial crimes, is a very important one, I am very happy I was able to see what is being done by government and non-government organizations to help children without families and children from families with difficulties. After a friend of mine read what I wrote about my internship in St. Petersburg, she wrote to me about her training in Houston for Teach for America. She said the kids she taught there we much more difficult than the ones we taught at Breakthrough in San Francisco last summer. I believe her. Her email was a nice or maybe more appropriately "sad," reminder of the problems with education and at-risk youth in the United States, not just abroad or only in underdeveloped countries. Most people I know, recognize this, but expect it more from a poorer society. I went to a conference last year where a recent college graduate spoke about an NGO for young girls and women she co-founded in Kenya after she had studied abroad there. She said her family members asked why she couldn't just stay in New York, her home town, and help poor children there. I'm not sure of her exact words but she said something along the lines of "everyone deserves the right to an education." She had already worked with those girls and did not want to be "just another white face that comes and goes." I think she has a good point. No matter where one is, children from needy backgrounds all need care, attention, and to be believed in by someone who in their eyes is not like them.

Thursday, July 5, 2007


Human Rights Watch issued a report today that calls for the immediate release of the three Israeli soldiers taken prisoner last summer. Corporal Gilad Shalit was taken near the Gaza border last year by Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees and the Army of Islam, while Sergeant Eldad Regev and Sergeant Ehud Goldwasser were captured at the Lebanese border by Hizbullah forces. Human Rights Watch stressed the illegality of taking hostages in the laws of war, a grievance that probably won't garner much respect by terrorist organizations.

Much focus has been on Gilad Shalit as of late, as an audiotape was released on the anniversary of his capture (June 25) in which he requested the Israeli government adhere to his captors' demands. Additionally, Hamas leader Ismail Haniya has specifically called for a deal to be made for Shalit's release. But then so have Galit's captors.

“If they think the soldier will be presented on a golden dish, they are wrong. We have proved our ability to keep the soldier for one year, and we can continue for years. They have to realize that Shalit will not be released without a glorious deal which comprises the largest number of Palestinian prisoners being released, especially the long-term prisoners," Abu Mujahid, spokesperson for the Popular Resistance Committees, stated.

There is precedent for unequal prisoner exchanges from Israel. Most notably, perhaps, was in 2004, when hundreds of Lebanese fighters were exchanged for one Israeli and three bodies of soldiers, all missing since 2000.

Human Rights Watch also called for the cessation of illegal Israeli practices, specifically imprisoning Hamas leaders to use as their own bargaining chips for the captured soldiers. "Associated Press reported that, when asked if the Hamas officials would be freed if Shalit were released, Major General Yair Naveh, the head of Israel Defense Forces' central command, responded: 'I think so. The decision to arrest them came from the political level ... and I think the political level's perspective could change.' However, many other Israeli officials have denied that the Hamas members were arrested to gain Shalit's release."

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Individuality Through Objects and Literature in Holocaust Memory

Norine Zapata, the administrative assistant for the Center, handed me an article this morning from the University of Chicago Magazine (Volume 99, Number 5, May-June 2007).

It deals with the impersonal impressions of the Holocaust derived from satistics and piles of objects, such as eyeglasses or suitcases.

“Those piles of objects don’t speak of the lives of their owners. They speak of their death. Shoes, eyeglasses, bones: these speak of death.”

Literary theorist Bożena Shallcross, an associate professor of Slavic languages & literatures, uses literature to transform the role of these objects. “Very often poems do not talk about human fates, but only about objects,” she says. “They enumerate them, they list them, they show them, they describe them from a personalized perspective.”

Just like in non-Holocaust-related literature, an object is never just an object; it is a symbol, a metaphor. Rather than discrediting objects, then, Shallcross reemphasisizes their importance on an individual level.

Read the whole article here.

Monday, July 2, 2007

Croatian rock star embraces Nazi past


At a recent concert in Zagreb, some fans of the Croatian rock star Marko Perkovic wore the black caps of Croatia's World War II Nazi puppet government, known as Ustashe. (Denis Lovrovic)

By Nicolas Wood
Sunday, July 1, 2007

ZAGREB, Croatia: For the Croatian rock star Marko Perkovic, it is a routine part of his performance: He shouts a well-known Croatian slogan from World War II and his fans respond with the Nazi salute.

On a hot Sunday evening last month, thousands did just that in a packed soccer stadium here in the Croatian capital. Photographs from the concert show youths wearing the black caps of the Nazi-backed Ustasha regime that ruled Croatia, and which was responsible for sending tens of thousands of Serbs, gypsies and Jews to their deaths in concentration camps.

Perkovic's popularity is nothing new in Croatia. It dates back to the Balkan wars in which he fought in the Croatian Army. His patriotic and sometimes violently nationalist songs made him an instant hit. Most Croats know him better by his stage name, Thompson, which was given to him during the war, when he carried the vintage British-made submachine gun of the same name.

But now Thompson's growing success - among a new generation of Croats, many of them apparently oblivious to the history of the Holocaust - has prompted concern and condemnation from minority groups in Croatia and Jewish groups abroad. The concert last month was his biggest to date, with at least 40,000 people in attendance.

What has shocked those groups more, though, is that in the ensuing debate, many senior politicians and the members of the media have not seen a problem with the imagery or salutes.

"They just don't seem to get it," said Efraim Zuroff, the Israel Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who called on the president of Croatia, Stjepan Mesic, to ban future concerts and help outlaw the use of extremist symbols and slogans.

Despite those objections, the concert was shown during prime time Sunday night on state-owned television, prompting further protests from Jewish and Serbian groups in Croatia.

"We don't want to pay for something that strikes fear into my children, or distances them from their friends or neighbors," said Milorad Pupovac, leader of the largest Serbian political party in Croatia.

Such imagery is also at odds with the image that the Croatian government wants to send to the world.

Over the last three years, the conservative Croatian prime minister, Ivo Sanader, has to some extent reduced its reputation as a nationalist state that once harbored war criminals. The transition is widely viewed as a success and Croatia is a favorite to join the European Union, possibly in 2009.

So the country that for much of the 1990s was seen as a war-torn nation is now widely perceived as a prime destination with four million tourists a year flocking to its Adriatic coast line. A government-backed advertising campaign on CNN urges more to come and experience "the Mediterranean as it once was."

Many former critics of Croatian nationalist leanings in the 1990s acknowledge that the country has a come a long way. Once it was possible to buy photographs and memorabilia from the Ustasha period openly in the center of Zagreb. Restaurants displayed pictures of Ustasha units on their walls.

While that has disappeared, souvenir shops still sell key rings and baseball caps with the Ustasha U, as well as the slogan used in Thompson concerts; "Za Dom: Spremni!" which means "For the Homeland: Ready!" And sometimes, insensitivity about issues stemming from the Holocaust can verge on extreme.

Take Perkovic's public affairs manager, Albino Ursic. A large poster entitled "Final Solution" adorns the wall of Ursic's office. It shows a packet of cigarettes marked with a large Swastika and labelled "Adolf Filters" poking out of a black leather jacket. "It's an antismoking picture," Ursic explained. He designed the image in 1994.

"It won an award in Lisbon," he added, stressing that he had no sympathies with the right, and viewed himself as left of center. As for Perkovic's use of the slogans, Ursic said the fascist salutes were no different than those made by soccer hooligans across Europe who have little understanding of what they are doing

"It is just teenage rebellion," he said.

And while the Croatian government issued a statement after the concert in June criticizing the open display of Ustasha memorabilia and slogans, much of the Croatian political establishment seems to agree with Ursic. They cannot see what all the fuss is about.

"You can't see any antisemitism here," said Dragan Primorac, the education minister of Croatia. He was due to attend the same Thompson concert last month, before it was postponed by a day due to rain. Other celebrities who did manage to make it included a former Croatian foreign minister and two former Croatian NBA basketball stars.

"At most you could blame four to five people," he said, for wearing Ustasha regalia, or giving the Nazi salute during the concert. He stressed, too, that Croatia was a good friend of Israel and pointed to his mantelpiece, where there stood a photograph of himself meeting Shimon Perez.

Perkovic, too, has recently sought to tone down his nationalist image. In an interview, the soft-spoken singer said he had never raised his own arm to make a fascist salute. Nor, he said, did he encourage people to wear Ustasha uniforms. As for the Ustasha slogan he uses, he said it was a traditional Croatian salute that predated World War II.

But rights groups here say there is a fundamental problem: while Croatia is now seeking to move away from the nationalist period of the 1990s, a whole generation of young people has grown up in the last 15 years with an incomplete education about the Holocaust, and many in Croatia believe the deeds of its wartime leaders are on the same level as Communist leaders in Yugoslavia.

"The education about the recent history of Croatia is not adequate," said Danijel Ivin, the president of the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights.

Primorac, the education minister, said that is slowly beginning to change. Since 2004, a whole day is dedicated each year to studying the Holocaust. Still, others believe Croatia's ability to face its past will remain a problem for some time.

"It is an issue," said Tomislav Jakic, an advisor to President Mesic. "It is far from the Ustasha nostalgia that it was 15 years ago, when the ghost was first let out of the bottle. But the ghost is still here, and it will be for years to come."

from The International Herald Tribune