Fighting fire with fire sets the whole world ablaze, Mrs. Clinton

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8194539.stm

When I saw this clip of Hillary Clinton giving a “sharp response” to a Congolese student who asked what Mr. Clinton thought of China’s loan to the DRC, my first reaction was my aggressive feminist side: way to go Mrs. Clinton, way to stick up for yourself and show ‘em that’s not acceptable.

My second reaction was holy shit, that’s the DRC. And that got me thinking. Did she come off a little strong? Granted, I can’t tell the context of this interview session or what was said before, but I can imagine a few different interpretations of this question besides “you respect my husband more than me because he’s a dude”: how about “because he’s a former president of the United States” or “because he just got back from diplomatic negotiations in North Korea” or “maybe something was lost in translation”?

On the other side of the coin, what if the kid meant exactly what it sounded like? Now don’t get me wrong, I’m your biggest neighborhood fan of the long-term systemic need for women’s rights in a society. But maybe, just maybe, for a country that’s been ravaged over and over by war and corruption and genocide in recent years, ensuring gender equality in the home isn’t at the top of the priority list.

Which brings me to my biggest gripe. Probably the most high-profile and influential woman in the world, one who has years of public speaking behind her back and is responsible for international conflict resolution, had the opportunity to start a dialogue about a critically important global issue and instead came off looking like a bitter whiny old lady. Seriously you think the phrase “my husband is not the secretary of state, I am” comes off as anything other than the emotional blabber of a woman who’s sick of being stuck in her husband’s shadow? When she could have asked the kid why he cared about a civilian’s opinion, stimulated a conversation about gender equity and provided the example of a woman who has the power to challenge engrained cultural viewpoints, she may well have caused the opposite impression: that’s what happens when you put a woman in power, she gets all emotional and defensive at routine interview questions.

Wasted opportunity, Madame Secretary.

Quit your whining or I will pull this car over right now

Hmmm. Raila is whining about ambassador Ranneberger's "lecturing on governance": http://www.nation.co.ke/InDepth/Agoa%20Summit/-/634508/634912/-/xmlhr0/-/index.html

Now, I'm not saying the west has any business lecturing anyone on governance. But two things:

1) Uh, how are statements like "you need to implement the reform agenda you made when you formed the coalition government" controversial? Seriously?

And 2) haven't we heard this complaint before? Like, in 1964, when it was uncouth to criticize a newly independent government for corruption that was probably the Brits' fault anyway? This argument seems sliiiiightly outdated.

Also funny that Raila didn't mind when Obama said the same thing two weeks ago... http://allafrica.com/stories/200907140005.html. I guess the Luos have to stick up for each other, si ndiyo?

New boss, same game?

I rarely follow Peace Corps news. But hey, what the hell. Maybe this one will be interesting.

Obama nominated Aaron Williams to be the next Peace Corps Director. And now it looks like he could be confirmed, really soon.

Who is Aaron Williams? Well, he was a USAID country director for a while (hmm...), and is now a VP of inernational business development at RTI International (hmm!). He also serves on the Council on Foreign Relations, and happens to be a board member at CARE alongside a number of my esteemed mentors (hmm hmm!). Sidenote: interestingly, his USAID experience isn't mentioned in his CARE bio...

So, will he be a good PC director, or more of the same? Chris Dodd, resident Senate Peace Corps mouthpiece and reform campaigner, seems pretty ecstatic about him. So do the other advocates pushing for reform. That and his experience are a pretty good sign.

That said, I was a little underwhelmed with his statement to the Senate committee - plugging sustainable expansion (yay for sustainability, ? for expansion), the continuing importance of volunteer security (sounds reasonable, but this is what cost me my respect for the organization), and the Third Goal of Peace Corps - coming home and getting Americans to "better understand people of other cultures" (yawn... like Peace Corps volunteers can do that). To give him the benefit of the doubt, I'm not sure what he could have said that would have been politically correct and actually impressed me. Maybe something about overhauling the priorities of the whole organization.

So, we'll have to wait and see.

Pirates

I would like to dedicate this blog post to my good friend McKay, the original discoverer of the pirate bar in Adyar.

I recently had a conversation with a journalist friend about the Somali pirate trend, admitting that despite the seriousness of the situation I couldn't help but snicker every time I saw the term "pirate" splashed across a headline. And I think the media plays it up too - "Pirates take captain hostage and demand ransom," "Somali pirates strike again, hijacking 4 ships." I know I know, that really is what happened, but don't you think they dramatize it a bit?

And wouldn't you? Nobody dressed up as a burglar or a carjacker for Halloween when they were a kid, but a pirate...

Anyway, another participant in the conversation passed this article on to me, justifying any sympathy I may have had for the real-life version of my eye-patch wearing, parrot-toting fantasy.  Pirates 1, Italian mafia 0.  And as always, Africa gets the shit end of the rest of the world's stick.

CDF in the news

I don’t work on this project, but 10 points if this article helps you understand the term “economic governance.” If you weren’t confused about what my organization does before, you probably are now.

Speaking of governance, I’m pretty excited to have ordered a copy of It's Our Turn to Eat, which is only available in the UK and apparently is too hot for Kenya. I wonder if it’ll make it through Indian postal screening, because you know, Kenya is the only country with a corruption problem.

Dartmouth’s new prez

Dartmouth just announced its new president, set to take over for good old Jimmy Wright on July 1. He’s like, way young (49), way accomplished (MacArthur Genius Grant) and way global-poverty-focused (Partners in Health co-founder, WHO HIV/AIDS Dept director). Woot.

Of course there is no transparency on who the other nominees were, so I have no idea if this was the best choice. But in absolute terms, a young-minority-notentirelyacademic-globallyconscious choice for a traditionallyrunbyoldwhiteguys-antichange-indangerofinfluencebyneoconservativealums school sounds pretty good to me.

When the law and order guys disrupt law and order

This week when I picked up the newspaper each morning, I have to admit that it was all I could do to keep from laughing at the tragic headlines. “Lawyers, police clash at Madras High Court.” “150 lawyers protest Madras High Court violence, arrested.” Lawyers and police are taking turns smashing cars, setting buildings on fire, and throwing stones at each other. Am I the only one who finds this ironic? The two groups of people we rely on to maintain law and order in society, the two that are supposed to maintain checks and balances and ensure peace is kept and justice is served, have resorted to skirmishing like drug-addicted youth gangs. These are the guys who have to deal with violent members of society every day and clean up the messes they make, one group stopping people from rioting and throwing stones and setting buildings on fire, the other prosecuting or defending those who commit such raucous acts. And here they are doing it themselves, as their chosen method of protest? Seriously?

On top of it all, the whole reason for this clash in the first place, raising the awareness of which which could be the only possible explanation for such childish misbehavior, has been completely diluted in this mess. If you’re lucky you might get a tiny tagline at the bottom of an article about burning effigies and flooded hospitals that provides a half-hearted explanation of “where it all started” – something about a lawyer or two unfairly arrested, a politician failing to support the Sri Lankan Tamils, or some caste discrimination issue at the root of the conflict. These might be worthy causes to support and publicize. But by 50 lawyers standing around, courtroom suits and all, hurling stones and burning police stations? By cops and police administrators bashing windshields of private vehicles? Really, people.

More coverage of the tomfoolery available here.

Prop 8, Karnataka and gay Nepal MPs

Like any good mainstream Californian, I’ve always felt strongly about sexual rights, but recently I’ve felt a lot more passionate about the issue as a basic human right. Maybe it’s the passing of Prop 8, maybe it’s the rampant homophobia I hadn’t been exposed to before. It was one thing in my predominantly Christian village in Kenya, where I expected people to be less educated or open-minded. It’s another in an urban center in India, a nation exploding with diaspora and Western influence. To see young people scoff at traditions like arranged marriage like they’re arcane vestiges of their parents’ generation, but hold tight to their anti-gay prejudices without questioning their origins, is something I can’t get used to despite knowing full well that this is not a phenomenon of the east.

This came to be even more front and center this morning when I read a press release about some recent events in Karnataka, the next state over. This brought back to mind so many images of the issues we worked against in the HIV fight in Kenya – stigmatization, misrepresentation of facts, deliberate deception… but for all my whining about corruption in Kenya, I never saw these types of actions carried out by the police. They were carried out by non-state players, churches, Western-backed NGOs, but never by the very government agency working to prevent misinformation and promote awareness. This reaches a whole new level of atrocity.

There is some light at the end of the tunnel. Recently a panel was held here (in Chennai, capital of the country’s most conservative state) featuring Sunil Pant, a member of Nepal’s parliament who is Asia’s first openly gay MP. Milk is coming out this week, although sadly not in India. The No on 8 campaign is finally waking up and taking some legal action, albeit a month late. And the realization that this is a battle that’s far from over, not just a “matter of time” as I had previously thought, has pushed me into a far higher level of awareness and incited my inclinations towards activism. As much as the comparison offends some communities, I do think of this as our generation’s version of the 1960s civil rights movement, and am starting to consider getting more proactively involved (hmm, next career move? stay tuned). If a few events like these can spur a straight, middle class white girl who’s experienced relatively negligible discrimination in her life to action, imagine what they can do for the rest of the population.

Mumbai

Decent local coverage and streaming video of the terror attacks here.

To me this one is particularly scary not just because of the scale of the attacks (as opposed to Delhi in September) or the targeting of foreigners. It's the indiscriminate shooting in train stations, the ambiguity of motive, and the impact it's actually having. The Delhi, Bangalore, and Ahmedabad blasts didn't receive this kind of coverage from the international press. There weren't hostages. The markets didn't close. They certainly didn't cause the death of the chief of the Anti-Terrorism Squad, which may be the most scary so far.

I do sincerely hope, though, that this isn't considered a crisis just because of the involvement of foreigners, the threats against US and UK passport holders. The latest counts say 101 people have died, 6 of them foreigners. Let's remember that the other 95 deaths are just as tragic and despicable.