Niger: What about Education Now Mr. Le President Mahamadou Issoufou

L'opposant historique Mahamadou Issoufou a remporté avec près de 58% des suffrages l'élection présidentielle au Niger, selon les résultats provisoires annoncés lundi par la commission électorale.

Le second tour, dont le bon déroulement a été salué par les observateurs internationaux, était destiné à rétablir un régime civil après un an de junte militaire, à la suite du coup d'Etat de février 2010 contre Mamadou Tandja.Ces résultats provisoires de la Céni doivent désormais être transmis au Conseil constitutionnel, qui a 15 jours pour proclamer les résultats définitifs. L'investiture du nouveau président est prévue le 6 avril.

Niger's history in the 50 years since independence has been a series of coups and military regimes.

Mahamadou Issoufou, whose Social Democratic Party represents change, is expected to perform miracles in one of the world's poorest countries.

During the campaign, Mahamadou Issoufou promised to dissolve parliament and organise legislative elections for a more representative assembly in the vast, landlocked country on the edge of the Sahara desert.

He  vowed to tackle the poverty that afflicts about 60 per cent of the population, protect against the cyclical food crises, and assure an equitable distribution of the country's wealth from uranium.

But what about EDUCATION? Monsieur le President! Education is the guardian of democracy!

PROUD to Vote in Benin

Proud to vote today because I have never seen such democracy in most African countries! Benin is viewed as a rare example of democracy in a region of West Africa better known for coups and dictatorships!

This morning, my husband and I were already lining up at 9am at the CEG Ocean's school garden, ready to vote.

Benin opened polls today (Sunday) for a twice delayed presidential election after a last minute scramble to register hundreds of eligible voters. 

We were all lining up at 9am and by 11am we were already back home. We had to wait 40mn because they ran out of ballot paper!!! I know!!! How come??? Our polling station ran out of ballot papers because of the unexpectedly high turnout. In addition, our polling station opened also with some delay due to the late arrival of election materials including ballot papers and ink. But we were all very calm!

Some 3.5 million voters are expected to vote today to elect a fifth president since the advent of multiparty democracy in 1990. Voting is expected to end at 6pm and the results are not expected before Tuesday. 

"Bombed Lebanon anchor wins award"

A Lebanese television journalist who was badly maimed in a car bomb attack last year has been awarded Unesco's annual World Press Freedom Prize.

Since losing an arm and a leg in a bomb blast meant to kill her, Lebanese journalist May Chidiac returned this summer to television and her trademark criticisms of Syrian involvement in her homeland. She has received two major press freedom awards.

On the day that changed her life in September 2005, Chidiac hosted her regular morning political talk show on the privately owned Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, one of the country's most influential and respected news providers.

As she often did, she addressed Syria's possible involvement in the murder of Rafik Hariri, the anti-Syrian former prime minister who was killed in a massive explosion along with 22 others on Feb. 14, 2005.

A few hours after the show, 500 grams of explosives detonated under the driver's seat of her Range Rover. The explosion blew off her left leg below the knee and shredded her left arm, which was subsequently amputated. Her face was spared, largely because she had turned toward the back seat when the bomb went off.

"I knew I was disturbing them," she told Women's eNews recently, referring to Beirut's ruling pro-Syrian class and their mentors in Damascus. "But I never thought they would have been able to consider killing me," she said in an interview at her home in a leafy Christian suburb overlooking Beirut. Her attackers have not been found.

Syrian troops occupied Lebanon from 1976 to 2005, after entering as a peacekeeping force. They soon became a party to the bloody civil conflict that raged from 1975 to 1990. But in a country where dissent against Syria often meant death or disappearance, Chidiac didn't shy away from asking difficult questions, even during the Syrian presence in Lebanon.

Chidiac is largely dependent on her wheelchair until she learns how to walk again on her prosthetic leg. Her two bodyguards double up as assistants. She can't get ready in time to host her morning show, which she's put on hold, but she is still teaching two broadcast news courses at a university and fronting her evening program.

"My body is different but my mind is still the same," she said, pointing to her bejeweled, French-manicured prosthetic arm. "I'm still as tough as before, maybe tougher."

This article has been written by Rania Abouzeid. She is a freelance journalist based in Beirut. She has covered Lebanon for the last seven years.

Benin: Making School Safe for Girls

"In the West African country of Benin, harassment of girls in school has been commonplace. Approximately half of girls in Benin enroll in school and many end up dropping out because of the hostile environment created by continual pressure for sexual favors from teachers or fellow students. Girls who report sexual harassment often are accused of leading a teacher on and may be forced to drop out of school by parents as a result."

Wible (2004) found that 43 percent of primary and 80% of secondary students in Benin dropped out of school because of sexual abuse.

"In Benin, a small nation on the west coast of Africa, many girls opt out of school because they are sexually harassed by teachers," Neylon said. With no punishment for the men, some girls find it easier to drop out of school. About 50 percent of girls enroll in primary school and a majority of them drop out by secondary school, according to UNICEF. Only 25 percent of Benin women age 15 and older are literate. The Republic of Benin's National Assembly voted July 17 to pass the country's first comprehensive sexual harassment legislation aimed at protecting girls and women in schools, workplaces and in homes, according to the Women's Rights Initiative, a program of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Sexual violence to girls and women in schools is happening all around the world! Very few female teachers work in schools. Consequently, girls are likely to be sexually exploited by their male teachers. 

A study by Rossetti (2001, cited in Davies), found that 67 percent of students in Botswana schools had been subjected to sexual harassment by teachers. Twenty percent of these students were propositioned by their teacher for sex. In Ghana, 13.5 percent of girls in both primary and secondary schools were victims of sexual abuse at school (Brown, 2002). Amnesty International reported that 50 percent of Malawi girls experienced unwanted sexual touching by their teachers or male classmates. According to the World Bank, 8% of school girls from Cameroon were sexually abused by their teachers. A student in Uganda reported that one of her male teachers required that she wash his feet, take water to the bathroom, and when he appeared naked asked her to "help him as a man" (Action Aid).

Teachers need to be trained in sexual harassment, gender equality, and discipline procedures that are respectful of the dignity of women and men. Students must learn about sexual violence, female equality, good communication skills, boundaries and respect of gender differences. 

The schools do not operate in a vacuum! It is a reflection of society's mores and values. Each community should create their own solutions to the problem of gender violence. We have to use the mass media programs on radio, television, town posters, and the Internet. We must listen to students because they have some of the best problem solving capabilities about this issue. A holistic approach, integrating agencies, NGOs, governments, and individuals will give us the chance to get rid of sexual harassment.

We must STOP violence in schools! It is an overwhelming task which will require from us to change the cultural belief systems about patriarchy, masculine hegemony, and girls and women's values in our society.

Ernesto Ché Guevara

 "If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine," Che Guevara said. He is a comrade to so many because so many today are burning with indignation.

I cannot see myself as a teacher, even in primary school. (Ernesto Guevara, 1955, as cited in Taibo 1997: 60)

I am not a teacher; I am just one of many men struggling today to build a new Cuba… (Ernesto Che Guevara, 1964, as cited in Guevara 2003a: 378)

Wherever Che went, there was a school; there was a school in Africa, a school in Bolivia, a school in the Sierra Maestra, a school in Las Villas. Wherever Che began a campaign, alongside it came instruction, education. (Villegas 1997a: 12)

It is important to see…Che…as a teacher, as an educator. (Victor Dreke as cited in Gálvez 1999: 77)

Che was a communist. He believed that work was an important aspect of our humanity. He realised that increasing production was essential for a functionning socialist society. One cannot share equall when there is not enough to eat.

Che Guevara said that the "two pillars of the construction of socialism are the following: the education of the new man and woman and the development of technology." As a leader, he was known for setting an example of working as absolutely hard as possible, of refusing privileges, of offering to or simply doing the hardest task, worked long hours on Sunday in the cane fields and on various construction sites. He wanted to show that volunteer labour was an example of non-alienating labour. 

Che Guevara tried to conduct himself in the ways he believed others should follow!
According to Galloway (2006), Che Guevara represents what today's politicians conspicuously lack: idealism, self-sacrifice and a deep connection with young people. That's why his image is an enduring inspiration.   

Che Guevara was a Cuban revolutionary and political leader. He was trained as a physician at the Univ. of Buenos Aires. He took part (1952) in riots against the dictator Juan Peron in Argentina, joined agitators in Bolivia, and worked in a leper colony. 

In 1953 he went to Guatemala, joined the leftist regime of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, and when Arbenz was overthrown (1954) fled to Mexico, where he met Fidel Castro and other Cuban rebels. At heart a revolutionary rather than an administrator, he left Cuba in 1965 to foster revolutionary activity in the Congo and other countries. In 1967, directing an ineffective guerrilla movement in Bolivia, he was wounded, captured, and executed by government troops. 

 "There are no frontiers in this struggle to the death," Che told an international conference in 1965. "We cannot remain indifferent in the face of what occurs in any part of the world. A victory for any country against imperialism is our victory, just as any country's defeat is our defeat." In a refutation of every right-wing stereotype, he added that, "the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality."

Guevara wrote Guerrilla Warfare (1961), Man and Socialism in Cuba (1967), Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War (1968), and The African Dream (2001), a forthright account of the failed Congo rebellion.


Holst, J. D. (2009). The pedagogy of Ernesto Che Guevara. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 28(2), 149-173. doi:10.1080/02601370902757026


Che Guevara. Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition [serial online]. July 2010;:1. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed March 11, 2011.

Galloway, G. (2006). A very modern icon. New Statesman (London, England: 1996), 135, 44-6. Retrieved from OmniFile Full Text Select database

Morocco: from Feudal to Modern

When France granted independence to its protectorate in 1956, Morocco was a largely feudal kingdom of 12 million inhabitants. King Hassan II, who succeeded to the throne on the death of his father, Mohammed V, in 1961, ruled the country with a firm and arbitrary hand for 38 years. In Morocco, France did not adopt any steps to promote social welfare in the country. France wanted to maintain Moroccan society in a state of underdevelopment: illiteracy, poor health conditions, poverty and an abscence of industry.

King Mohammed VI has set himself the challenge of creating a modern state while maintaining the feudal veneer: 20-minute daily diet of state functionaries kissing the royal hand. Well, it is easier to be a dictator than a democrat ;) Is the King Mohammed VI ready to hand the power to the people?

I am not sure! Neither the Moroccan Monarchy, nor the Tunisian secular modernizing regime, nor the Algerian revolutionary junta, are showing interest in creating democratic systems of government.

Is Morocco ready for Democracy? Democracy requires adherence to some values, such as belief in the virtues of dialogue, tolerance of different opinions, acceptance of criticism and abiding by majority decisions. The longer the period of dictatorship, the greater the likelihood of a disorderly transition to democracy. Authoritarianism prevents the development of a tradition of dialogue and compromise. 

Mohammed VI: " I do not know. I have a lot of respect for His Majesty Juan Carlos. I call him Uncle Juan because he is an extraordinary person whom I have known for a long time. He is a relative almost. We often speak on the phone and I ask him for his guidance. But Moroccans are not Spaniards and they will never be.Democracy in Spain was very good for Spain. There should be a Moroccan model specific to Morocco."

Well, let us see if the King, who personifies the new Eurocentric Moroccan, will install democracy in Morocco. He seems to have some leanings towards democracy.

Algeria:19-year-old state-of-emergency!!

Algeria lifted its 19-year-old state of emergency Thursday in response to a key demand from anti-government protesters. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has "ordered the cancellation of the extension of the emergency measure put in place by presidential decree on February 9, 1992," said a statement published on the state newspaper. The state of emergency gave free rein to security forces that effectively served to repress political freedom.

According to Reuters, Algeria's cabinet on Tuesday adopted an order to lift the 19-year-old state of emergency, a concession designed to keep out a wave of protests sweeping the Arab world.

The emergency rules banned protest marches in the capital but Bouteflika said earlier this month this restriction would remain in force indefinitely.

Why has Democracy lost the war in Algeria? We have always learned that democracies tend to win the wars they fight, but then...why not in Algeria? The transition to democracy has suffered, and continues to suffer from ambiguities in the nationalist approach to the demands of secularity and the place of Islam and universal law. The debate swings between the secular values and the religious dogma and tradition. 

Well, as we have mentioned it before, education is the guardian of Democracy. Democratisation in Algeria is not possible because our educational system has fallen. Illiteracy is widespread among women! We all know that an educated woman means an educated child, an educated village. Therefore, we have to educate women! 

Of course there are also other reasons why democracy has encoutered problems in Algeria: demography, high unemployment, lack of a strong civil society to mediate socially and politically. Well, no surprise!! people have been marginalised from power so long!! 30 years of a single party system!! no form of autonomous expression! 

But if we educate women and these women go to vote, then may be one day we might end up with Democracy. There is a feminist slogan in Algeria which says "A vote is like a prayer, no one can do it for you." How come there is an automatic right of proxy given to the husband to vote for his illiterate wife!!! HOW! These husbands must legalise this right by asking his wife to confirm her agreement in writing to the local authorities. 

You understand why I think it is important for women to be educated in Alegeria. They will be the guardian of the democracy! Men vote for their wives! What kind of Democracy is that! These women are housewives and illiterate so their husbands decide for everything, even for their political rights. If we educate these women, they will have their own political voice in order to make their own political choice. 

If you want peace, prepare for education. Instead of spending billions in military spending in order to perpetuate the cycle of civil strife and conflict, spend this money on education.

No Excision for my sister!

Well! unfortunately, female excisions still exist! In Khartoum (Sudan), the ancient practice of ablating girls' genitalia is still happening in some tribes. Most of the people believe that this practice is extinct or is only happening among a handful of the remotest tribes in the most underveloped of African regions. You are wrong. In France, we have some people in the Malian and Senegalese communities who still perform this practice on little girls!

GAMS Belgium, along with some twenty partners, is launching a national campaign to prevent the risk of excision during a holiday in a family’s country of origin.

Female genital mutilation includes all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs whether for cultural, religious or other non-therapeutic reasons (World Health Organisation, 1997).

Excision involves the removal of the clitoris with total or partial removal of the labia minora. This represents 80% of genital mutilation cases. Infibulation involves removal of the clitoris and labia minora followed by stitching of the labia major, leaving only a narrow orifice for the passage of urine or menstrual blood. The mutilation most often performed is CLITORIDECTOMY or EXCISION - cutting off, without anesthetic, the clitoris and most of the external genitalia. 

This is practised in a broad area from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Coast. The most dangerous operation, INFIBULATION, OR PHARAONIC CIRCUMCISION, is customary in Sudan, Somalia, northern Kenya, parts of Ethiopia and all along the Red Sea Coast as well as in West Africa in parts of Mali and adjoining areas (see Map). 

After the clitoris is excised and all external genitalia are carved away, the bleeding raw edges of the large lips are held together by thorns or other fastening devices - until a scar forms to close the entrance to the vagina. The legs of the little girl are tied together for several weeks until the wound heals; a tiny opening is created by inserting a splinter of wood - to allow urination. Thus virginity can be proven before the bride price is paid to the father.

Where is it practiced?

• In 28 African countries (look at the map!)
• In the Yemen, the Sultanate of Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and by certain ethnic groups in Indonesia and Malaysia.
• But also in destination countries in the west: Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand

In certain African countries such as Somalia or Djibouti, female genital mutilation is carried out on the majority of girls. In other countries, such as Senegal or the Côte d’Ivoire, it only takes place within certain ethnic groups. The most severe form of mutilation, infibulation, mostly takes place in East Africa (Somalia, Djibouti, Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea), but is also carried out on a smaller scale in certain West African countries (Mali, Nigeria).

More than 130 million girls and women have undergone female genital mutilation in Africa. 3 million little girls are subjected to this practice every year. 

Recently, in Portland, Oregon, a case was heard involving a young woman's plea against a deportation order. Though an illegal immigrant, she pleaded for suspension of deportation because her six- and four-year old daughters, if they returned to Nigeria, would be subjected to the same cruelty that befell her at their age: removal of part of the external genitalia. The woman's sister has promised she will arrange for the circumcisions should they return. A ruling is expected in late March.

 

 In France, there was a comparable case in 1988, when a Senegalese woman named Aminata Diop successfully fought a deportation order on the grounds that at her nubile age she was still at risk of being mutilated against her will.

And in Great Britain last year, in addition to suspended sentences handed out to two Malian women and a month-in-jail sentence to their husband (polygamy has followed immigration to western Europe), for arranging the excision of their daughters, a doctor was barred from practice for agreeing to operate on a thirty-five-year-old journalist posing as a Nigerian bride-to-be whose fiance wanted her that way. The doctor is reported to have stated in front of his "clients" that he knew the operation was illegal in Great Britain.

Kaplan, Roger. "`Prisoners of ritual'. (Cover story)." Freedom Review 25.2 (1994): 25. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 11 Mar. 2011.

National Prevention Campaign Against Female Genital Mutilation.
In partnership with: Amnesty International, CCAEB-RVDAGEB, CÉMiS, CFFB, Collectif Liégeois contre les MGF, Délégué général aux droits de l’enfant, Ecoute Enfants, EXIL, FLCPF, Frauenliga, ICRH, Kinderrechtencommissariaat, Kind & Gezin, KJT, Le Monde selon les femmes, NPNS, NVR, l’Office de la Naissance et de l’Enfance, Project HIV/SAM-ITM, SENSOA, SIREAS

Palestine Refugees

For six decades the Palestine refugees and their descendants have suffered dispossession, exile, conflict, and poverty. Many thousands have lived their lives in concrete shanties.

Following World War I and as the result of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1917, the British started their three-decade presence in Palestine. The conflict between Jews and Arabs over Palestine put the British in the middle, between the Zionist hope to form a Jewish national home in Palestine (as promised by the British in the Balfour Declaration), and the Arabs who were against this idea. 

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) came into being in 1949 and has been heping the refugees who lost their homes, businesses, and farms. In the refugee camps, there was disease, lack of food and water and shelter. Tens of thousands crowded into barracks or caves. 

Today the registered refugee population has grown to 4.8 million, and the agency employs over 29,000 staff, mostly refugees themselves to care for thei basic needs. In Gaza, the effect of years of conflict and siege since the start of the second intifada mean that 900,000 people are now reliant on UNRWA for emergency food aid. 

The refugee problem must be taken seriously at the negotiation table. The Palestine refugees embody the collective sense and experience of Palestinian loss! 

Gandhi wrote in The Hindu, 1 May 1947: ‘The Arabs are a great people with a great history and therefore if they provide refuge for the Jews without the mediation of any nation, it will be in their tradition of generosity." Therefore, Jews and Arabs has to be able to imagine and create peace and have a dialogue about a two state solution that will allow each community to secure its rights, identity, and legitimacy by embracing the other as equal. 

Israelis have been told for decades by their leaders that only an exclusive and controlled enclave can guarantee their survival! Is the conflict at a bleak impasse? Israel needs to give up land it had occupied in exchange for peace. Will the new generation of Palestinians engage in massive non-violent resistance in the areas occupied in 1967 and claim the "Right of Return". 

God, YHWH or Allah promised the land of milk and honey to the seed of Abraham. However, Abraham is the shared religious figure of Palestine and Israel, Muslim, Jewish and Christian citizens. Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isshak, from whom the Muslims (Ishmael) and the Jews (Isshak) base their religious claim to the same land. Therefore, each culture claims occupation of the same land through religious justification from God and the same prophet. 

Ta'3yush (Arabic for "life in common") is a Muslim-Jewish educational partnership working to break down the walls of racism, ethnocentrism, and segregation by constructing a true Palestinian-Israeli collaboration giving economic and social assistance. This association holds indeed a role model in the region. 
 

Sari & Oz: Rapprochement between Israelis and Palestinians

A committed writer, Amos Oz has always worked for a rapprochement between Israelis and Palestinians.Oz is the founder of Peace Now and he has remained an unwavering advocate of a two-state solution.


Six decades since the birth of Israel and the demise of Palestine! Palestine has been partitioned among Israel, Egypt (remained in occupation of the Gaza Strip), and Transjordan (which had taken the old city of Jerusalem and the territory west of the Jordan River).


No more a Palestinian Arab state and 700,000people had become refugees. A permanent mass exodus, as villagers abondoned their ancestral soil and city dwellers left behind their homes and businesses. The refugees live in makeshift camps located in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the Gaza Strip. The camps became permanent! The absorption of Palestinian land and property into the Israeli economy made is next to impossible for Israel to consider the repatriation of the Palestinians (Cleveland, 2009).


In the refugee camps, concrete block dwellings have replaced the tents and they remain the home of thousands of Palestinian refugees. The people are deprived of work, freedom, and no future. They live with the sweeping political choices made by prime minister and presidents.


Sari Nusseibeh, a Palestinian philosophy professor and Al-Quds University President, offers drastically different views of Israel/Palestine and of Jerusalem where both Oz and Sari grew up.

Sari Nusseibeh was struck that Oz had excised Palestinian Arabs from his childhood memories in his book.

The Ta'ayush, the Palestinian-Israeli group that has taken up the most difficult and dangerous hands-on work of peacemaking by bringing convoys of medecine and food into the West Bank and helps Palestinian farmers harvest their wheat and olives, should be mentioned in the writings of Sari and Oz!!These courageous people often are placing themselves physically between groups of wild eyed guntoting settlers and Palestinian peasants simply trying to sow their fields. 

Now, Sari and Oz, please get together and try to find a two-state solution, please!

Once Upon a Country A Palestinian Life. By Sari Nusseibeh, with Anthony David. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

A Tale of Love and Darkness By Amos Oz.

Palestinian Walks Notes on a Vanishing Landscape. By Raja Shehadeh.

Dark Hope Working for Peace in Israel and Palestine. By David Shulman.

URGENT ACTION Amnesty: Qatari blogger detained

Amnesty International says a blogger and human rights activist has been detained incommunicado in Qatar and is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.

Sultan al-Khalaifi, who is a Qatari blogger and the founder of a human rights organization, was arrested on 2 March and is being detained incommunicado. He is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment. The reasons for his detention are unknown.

PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY in Arabic, English or your own language:

• Urging the authorities to ensure that Sultan al-Khalaifi is protected from torture and other ill-treatment, and is allowed prompt and regular access to a lawyer of his choosing, his family and any medical treatment he may require;
• Asking for details of any charges he faces to be made public and calling on the authorities to ensure that any legal proceedings against him conform to international fair trial standards.
  
  
  The minister of interior is allowed to detain anyone, anywhere, for six months, extendable for another six months, without a trial, without any lawyer, it's up to him."‎ The Qatari government could not be contacted for comment.
  
    
  PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 14 APRIL 2011 TO:
  Minister of the Interior
  
  
  His Excellency Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalid Al Thani
  
  
  Ministry of the Interior
  
  
  PO Box 920
  Doha
  State of Qatar
• Attorney General
  
  
  Dr Ali bin Fetais Al Marri 
   
  PO Box 705 
   
  Doha
  
  
  State of Qatar
  Fax: +974 4484 3211
  
  
  
  

Al Dabour series and the Position of Women

The director of Al Dabour series is Tamer Ishaq. Most of the Middle East televisions have been broadcasting his TV series during the fasting month called Ramadan.

Al Dabour, one of the most popular television series in the Arab world,  provide us with an array of ceremonies, rituals, and folk practices which re-construct the daily routine of Arabic women's lives. 

Tamer Ishaq exposes anxieties related to the proof of virginity, women's mobility and transgression of home boundaries, restriction on speech and the idolization of silence as a feminine virtue, the threat of divorce or polygamy which "yokes women's daily lives into SUBMISSION", and the enforcement of this submissiveness through rigorous religious application.

Al Dabour TV series is a frank expression of mysoginy and it conveys the negative message that women are a source of worry because they are a potential threat to the honor of EL HARA (the neighbourhood)! The women are shown as an economic burden to be shouldered by the males of the family as long as these women live.  

Women, poor women, they lacked economic power, and most of them still do, most of us still do! Women are shown passive and completely insignificant in the scale of the society, and the universe at large. All these women in the TV series are trapped in social and economic conditions which they do not even question. And if they do, they will be murdered or accused of madness.

The women in Al Dabour TV series live in a patriarchal society under patriarchal control, completely excluded from the society, with covered faces and hidden bodies.

Well, thank you to Tamer Ishaq to remind us today that many women do still live like the women in the TV series called Al Dabour!

I would like women to start making television series which will be broadcasted during Ramadan and they will focus our attention on the important role that women have in our societies! Women's series which will serve to confront and counter the picture of the passive chador clad women! 

Mr. Tamer Ishaq, your TV series convey stereotypes of Muslim women: doe-eyed, veiled, and submissive, exotically silent, inhabitants of harem! Well, I am glad that women in Tunisia and women in Egypt's Tahrir square were at the front and centre of organising and leading protests! Women were a leading force behind the revolution. They are hotheaded young women with megaphones and blogs to cry their ideas out to society.

We are tired, Mr. Tamer Ishaq, of these TV series which convey images of women who have no voices in their homes, no voices in their neighbourhood, no voices in their society, and where they are only considered as good cook or sexual being! 

Women's sexuality was linked to the honor of the men and the family, while men's sexuality was not linked to their honor! Therefore, women are restricted to their homes  and if they went out, they were responsible of the preservation of their purity. 

Badran, Margot. Feminism, Islam and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt.. Princeton, New
Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Badran, Margot and Miriam Cooke. Opening the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing. Bloomington
and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990.

Ethnic Factor and Development in Nigeria

No Mr. Qaddafi! Nigeria should not split along ethnic lines! Mr. President, you have always claimed that you are the "King of African Kings" and that you are a champion of African Unity!! You have only succeeded in drawing Nigeria's anger.

But if only the people of Nigeria can transcend beyond the problems of ethnicity and ethnicism, I am sure that the rural communities will experience a positive devolopment.

Nigeria is a beautiful country endowed with a great deal of resources. Nigeria is blessed with unlimited arable lands, half of which remain fallow, leading agricultural products such as cocoa, rubber, groundnuts, cotton, beniseeds, cashew, mangoes, oranges, etc... with mineral sources such as oil, bitumen, mineral stones, raw gold and many other more.

According to the 2006 population census, the population stands around one hundred and forty million people! It is the largest African country but more than half of the population are still rural dwellers. 

The country is not properly managed so Nigeria remains one of the poorest countries in the world with very low per capital income, poor infrastructure development, neglected agricultural sectors, and a high rate of inflation. Because of the mismanagement of the abundant resources, Nigeria has a high level of poverty. High level of official corruption, bad governance, and prolonged military dictatorship have had a negative effect in the development of the country. Yes Mr. Qaddafi! not because of ethnic or religious problems! Ethnicity and ethnicism are not the factors that hinder rural development in Nigeria.

I believe that Nigerians can develop their countries and improve the quality of all Nigerian lives. The Hausa, the Igbo, the Ijaw, the Itsekiri, the Yorubas, the Fulani, and the Odua'a Peoples Congress can all live together and develop the country. There must be a strong commitment on the part of the Nigerian elites who should accept modest sacrifices for a common good.

A bon entendeur Salut!

Bildungsromane and Women Writers

Thomas Mann describes the conduct of the Bildungsroman with these words: "The inwardness, the culture ('Bildung') of a German implies introspection; an individualistic cultural conscience; consideration for the careful tending, the shaping, deepening and perfection of one's own personality or, in religious terms, for the salvation and justification of one's own life."

Well, there is a correlation between the Bildungsromane  of the 18th century German writers and the African woman Bindungsromane in which the heroine try to free herself from a restrictive patriarchal society which does not take into consideration the personal desires, ambitions and the individual freedom of women. 

While the European version of the Bildungsromane does not deal ethnic problem, the African and Middle East Bildungromane deal with ethnic problem, power, gender, and patriarchy. 

Emecheta's Second Class Citizen, and In The Ditch, Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions, and Beyala's Le Petit Prince de Belleville and Maman a un amant "recount the storie of women who, to varying degrees and by different means, find qualified escape and expand toward individuation." The three African women writers the limited place that women have in our patriarchal society.

Middle East and Arab women writers have described in their literature the wish to escape the bonds of the enclosed home and the wish to enter the public sphere. Women's associations started in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Jordan, North Africa, Sudan, and Arabian Peninsula. Arab women novelists write about war, frustration, the erosion of all preconceptions, exile and marginalization. 

 Birds of September offers the first example of Arab female Bildungsroman. Emily Abi Rashed NasrallahBirds of September is set in a small Lebanese village in which the privates lives of a number of male and female characters are influenced by "fossilized social traditions and deeply entrenched patriarchal conventions and religious differences." The young women cannot find refuge in migration abroad so they are obliged to live the limited intellectual and social life of the village. Muna is the central female character and she is ambitious, enthusiastic, and a great positive spirit. Muna is sensitive to the sufferings of other female characters caused mainly by partriarchy and traditional social customs. Birds of September (Touyour Ayloul)  is the Bildungsroman of Muna, whose sustained and powerful passion for self-realization and exercising individual freedom runs through the novel. The village people witness their loved ones (sons and husbands) depart from their lands, just as the birds in the month of September, but Muna stays in the village and she is more articulate in voicing her rejection of oppressive conventions of a patriarchal society. 

Nasrallah writes about oppressive experiences that a number of female fictional characters experience in a restrictive patriarchal society. A men's society where women are denied personal freedom and in which they cannot exercise their individual freedom. 

Confrontation between East and West

Commenting on what the confrontation between East and West might produce in the lives of the Individuals Albert Hourani writes:

Those educated in Western schools became aware of new ideas and norms; they became conscious that the West was judging them in the light of those norms and as the movement of Western learning grew they began to judge themselves in the same way.

Thus there arose an inner unrest, a need to justify themselves which might manifest itself equally in an uneasy, defensive clinging to tradition, or in the eagerness to abandon them and accept the manners of those of the Western world.

Arabic Literary Tradition of Nigeria

The history of writing in Arabic exists in Nigeria for a period close to 800 years. Today, scholars in Nigeria are still using Arabic as the language for doctrinal polemics, Islamic teaching manuals, and poetry in the Sufi tradition.

The first center of Arabic teaching emerged in Gazargamu, the capital of the mais of Bornu in 1480, Katsina, and Kano. 

Both Kano and Katsina attracted scholars from North Africa and from older Islamic centers such as Walata and Timbuktu in the late 15th century and early 16th century. 

The Tijani literature in Nigeria is concerned with defending the doctrines of the tariqa. The founder of the Tijani Sufi Way is Shaykh Ahmed el-Tijani. He had to face accusations of unorthodoxy. These accusations were made by the austere Wahhabis.

Most of Nigeria's Arabic writings are about devotional literature. First, the Arabic literature emphasizes on proper Islamic commands and prohibitions such as, "the commanding of good and the prohibiting of evil" (al-amr bi'l-ma'ruf wa'l-nahy 'an al-mankur). This moral conduct meant no lying, backbiting, hypocrisy, jealousy. Instead the person has to develop these following virtues: generosity, forbearance, humility, ascetism, ...

Al-Tahir b. Ibrahim al-Fallati of Bornu wrote secular writing in Arabic about cognitive sciences, logic, and history. This famous scholar also wrote on a medical problem called the treatment of hemorrhoids. Muhammad Bello wrote on the treatment of intestinal worms and in the use of senna as a purgative. 

In addition to these religious and secular works written by Nigerian scholars a special word must be said about poetry. Muhammad Fodiye, Muhammad Bello, and Ibrahim of Zaria have written poems about victories, to satirize enemies; to criticize their societies, to talk about joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain.

funny American woman had a little converstion with muslim women from tun...

Algeria and the Surrealistic Vote

To get a taste of the kind of bias one finds toward Bouteflika in much of the media, understand that El Moudjahid, the semi-official French-language paper, describes Bouteflika as
“l’homme qui défend les valeurs authentiquement algériennes dans leur triple dimension l’amazighité, l’islam et l’arabité pour imprégner les valeurs nationales, de paix et de fraternité à la jeunesse”.

Bouteflika always wins the elections with a surrealistic 84.99 per cent of the votes cast. When Bouteflika first ran for the presidency in 1999, all opposition candidates dropped out on the eve of the election. Why do you think all the candidates gave up? The vote was marred by fraud, of course!

Bouteflika is the chosen one by the shadowy military structure that we call (the Algerians and I) "the power" or the "deciders."

Bouteflika presented himself as the savior of the nation: the only man who could guarantee the eradication of terrorism and the miracle of the "national reconciliation"!!!

But Bouteflika does not rule the country! It is the army, the Algerian Generals, who rule Algeria with their cruel methods and their repressive methods. Bouteflika is indeed trying to limite the army's function and role but it is very difficult since the army is still the actor who decides for Algeria! We do not have any laws that limit the power of the army and the security forces. The gendarmerie, the army and the security forces kill the demonstrators without impunity.

Impunity, in the human rights context, refers to the lack of accountability for human rights violations committed by the agents of state. The army, which considers itself as the guardian of justice, is killing the demonstrators.

The FLN, since its foundation in 1954, represented itself as the "incarnation of the unified nation whose survival had to be guaranteed by an all-compassing state represented by the FLN regime" (Lamchichi:1991). As Frantz Fanon said it so well, in order to be free, the subjugated Algerians have to purge their minds of the regime left by the FLN.


Hutchinson, Martha, Crenshaw, 1978. Revolutionary Terrorism: The FLN in Algeria, 1954-
62. Stanford, Calif: Hoover Institute Press.

Lamchichi, Adderrahim, 1991. L’Algérie en crise. Paris: L’Harmattan

FLN is the acronym for Front de Libération nationale. FLN launched the Independence War in 1954. FLN was the only legal party since the independence 1962 up to 1989.

http:///www.mission-algerie.ch/anglais/index2.htm. Preamble to the 1996 Constitution.

I want to be an aid worker

Pre-electoral Crisis!

The United Nations, the African Union delegation and the West African group ECOWAS declared that they supported the idea of postponing the presidential election which was scheduled for Sunday 6th of March.

The presidential election was scheduled for 6 March but many voters do not have their electoral cards.

Yayi Boni is seeking a second term, but he faces a strong challenge from his main opponent Abdoulaye Bio Tchane (former president of the West African Development Bank).

Benin is facing a pre-electoral crisis following many problems linked to the delay in the establishment of the permanent computerised electoral cards.

Benin's political stakeholders on Thursday agreed to seek an international audit.

Two of the country’s former presidents, Emile Derlin Zinsou and Nicéphore Dieudonné Soglo have already started the discussions in order to find a solution to the LEPI's problem.

No More Bloddy Tyrants!

Gaddafi reaps what he has sown during his four-decade rule: terror, nepotism, tribal politics and abuse of power.

Tyrants can turn peaceful citizens into rebels!

Many countries were sacrificing their mission of spreading democracy and human rights in exchange for Gaddafi's OIL!

The Colonel Muammer el-Gaddafi and his regime are guilty of,political repression and human rights violations.

Libya is governed by the populace through a system of local council meetings. Political parties and oppositions groups are banned under Libyan Law. Libya's political structure, called the Jamahiriya, is based on Gaddafi's theory that representative democracy is a poor substitute for individual participation.

All the presidents who have sacricified their democratic and moral principles for access to Libya's vast oil resources must be ashamed of themselves.

Today, Gaddafi is killing his own people and the protesters are fired by police with tear gas.

Education and Democracy

"Education is the guardian genius of democracy.It is the only dictator that free men recognize, and the only ruler that free men require."

Teachers must find all sorts of new ways to instill democratic values in their students.

Ataturk said, "Teachers, the new generation will be your devotion." Indeed, if the students internalize the democratic values and principles in their behavior at school, they will be able to build a democratic society free of corruption! Therefore, teachers must create democratic attitudes and attainments in children. A democratic society can be achieved only by means of a democratic education.

Critical pedagogy uses knowledge to raise students' political and social consciousness and it encourage students to question the government. In our Amnesty Club, students learn about democratic values by openly discussing issues and I encourage them to hold different perspectives. I always make sure to create a supportive climate of high expectations!

Teachers must engage students in thinking critically about their society by giving them writing prompts, guiding questions, and opportunities to meaningfully discuss the readings that we use in class about human rights and democracy.

Teachers need to give their students subjects and assignments regarding democracy, human rights, peace, citizenship education, and environmental awareness. Teachers play a crucial role in laying the foundations of democratic institutions.

Aid to Sub-Saharan Africa

Western countries or the U.S. have donated billions of dollars to sub-Saharan Africa over the years, yet the crisis in that region has not improved!

Africa will not change until Africans decide to change! We have to organize and demand better living conditions from our respective governments.

Most sub-Saharan Africans living near or below the poverty line cannot afford to pay for medical care.

But what's the point to receive billions of dollars aid when we still have various form of corruption undermining all the population hard work!

Without good governance and a functioning legal system, aid to Africa is simply lost to corruption! We, Africans, have to fight against the quiet corruption which takes form under bribes and kickbacks to public official.

Teachers must disseminate information and sensitize the students on the negative effects of corruption. Most of our Africans students have already witnessed a situation where they saw adults (parents, family members...) in a corruptive situation.

Corruption undermines Africa! We must not fail in the fight against corruption.

We have a beautiful country! the birthplace of the human race, lands of spectacular natural beauties, huge deposits of raw material, the cultural motherland of the global African diaspora...to name a few...

But look what is happening to our continent!! Corruption everywhere! Africans steeling from their government treasuries...electricity, water, telecommunications, social infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, roads,...are hardly disrupted! Well, we have to blame people who commit corruption, we have to arrest them, we have to judge them!

Corruption, indeed, is a feature of every society but African corruption is greater than Western corruption. We all agree that there is much more corruption in poor countries than in rich countries.

Therefore, we must enact political and economic reforms otherwise there is little that aid can accomplish. Aid rarely reach the population!! We should focus on policies to promote growth and we should try to find a way to stop corruption.

Corruption robs the life of poor people and deprives millions of Africans of access to good quality service and of the opportunity to earn a decent living.

Gandhi said, we must become the change we want to see in the world...we need to be the change we wish to see in Africa!

Revolution in the World and Women

Women in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, and Algeria must fight for their human rights and the revolution has yet to translate into greater equity in employment and in political and social positions.

In these patriarchal societies, religion or tradition are used as a barrier for equal rights. We cannot change the past but we can change the future. The equality that women have found during the revolution must live on!

The pro-democracy activists must not forget to promote and protect women's human rights. I urge women to keep fighting for more rights. We must be inspired by all these popular uprisings calling for freedom and change!

Women lag far behing men in nearly any mesure of equality. When women are educated, you can bet that men are too! It is not acceptable to still see women in the twenty first century who are illiterate, poor and powerless.

In this new century, we hope to raise the standard of living for non-western women to levels now enjoyed by European and American!

Polygamy

In the Middle East and North Africa, most of the people engage in monogamous marriages.

It is true that the Islamic Sharia law allows men to marry up to four wives but most of the people do not follow this law. In Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, and many other countries men resist polygamy.

Indeed polygamy goes against the diginity of all women. I think that all these countries cited above must outlaw polygamy and women must mount a drive to end polygamy!

We must create a "bill of women's right" that would allow these women to marry through exclusively monogamous marriages. The women must be able to have a religious marriage and a civil marriage!

Polygamy is an outdated religious practice therefore we must fight in order to abolish this practice. It is true that Christian and Islamic fundamentalists long allowed their citizens to have multiple wives.

I have noticed that in Benin, Nigeria, and Sudan, men have numerous offspring without having to assume the responsibility of raising them. Polygamy marriages just augment loneliness and jealousy among the wives and the children.

Mormons engaged in polygamy because early church leaders encouraged the practice. However, many citizens viewed polygamy with distrust and anti-Mormon sentiment grew, encouraging many Mormon families to leave New York.

For example, in many Native American cultures, polygamy was often permitted after wars or plagues, when populations shrank and sex ratios were thrown out of balance. In such situations, the practice provided widowed females with companionship and ensured that birth rates would not drop to dangerously low levels.

Altman, Irwin and Joseph Ginat, eds. Polygamous Families in Contemporary Society. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Van Wagoner, Richard. Mormon Polygamy, a History. Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1992

"Key Events in the History of Polygamy (sidebar)." Issues & Controversies On File: n. pag. Issues & Controversies. Facts On File News Services, 19 Jan. 2001. Web. 1 Mar. 2011. .