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News & Information on the eLearning Africa Conference, an Annual Event for Developing eLearning Capacities in Africa

www.elearning-africa.com

No. 7, May 22, 2009
Content
1. A Warm Welcome from the President
2. The Big Debate at eLearning Africa
3. Laying the Foundation for Africa's e-Schools
4. Matching Resources with Resourcefulness - The Role of ICT in Africa
5. Students Absorbed by "Cool Technology" at South African School
6. TICE et handicap : les clefs de l'intégration
7. Salles d'opérations virtuelles pour une coopération internationale !
8. The mLearning Guru and The eLearning Africa Debate





Taking place in Dakar, this year's eLearning Africa conference is under the patronage of His Excellency Maître Abdoulaye Wade, The President of the Republic of Senegal, who will attend the official launch of this prestigious event and has sent his enthusiastic greetings in advance. Find out more about the country's visions and ambitions when it comes to the development of education and ICT:

MORE

Un chaleureux accueil du Président

Se tenant à Dakar, la conférence eLearning Africa de cette année est placée sous le patronage de la République du Sénégal. Le Président du Sénégal lui-même, son Excellence Maître Abdoulaye Wade, participera à l'ouverture officielle de cet évènement prestigieux et à envoyé en avance ses voeux enthousiastes. Découvrez les ambitions et les visions de pays en ce qui concerne le développement de l'éducation et des TIC :

EN LIRE PLUS

The Big Debate at eLearning Africa

For the first time, at this year's eLearning Africa in Dakar, delegates from all over Africa and beyond will join leading international experts for a major debate on an issue of central importance for the future of education in Africa.
[more]

3. Laying the Foundation for Africa's e-Schools

To equip all African schools with ICT tools and to ensure that African youths graduate with the skills necessary to fully participate in the information society and knowledge economy is the objective of Nepad's e-Schools Initiative. A large-scale roll-out addressing 600,000 schools across Africa is now about to begin. Here Dr Henry Chasia, Executive Deputy Chairperson of the e-Africa Commission and keynote speaker in the Opening Plenary, depicts how a decisive e-Schools business plan will help the ambitious 10-year project become a success.
[more]

Matching Resources with Resourcefulness - The Role of ICT in Africa

As the chairman for Africa at Microsoft, Dr Cheick Diarra is responsible for the company's commercial and citizenship activities on the continent - of which education initiatives are a critical part. Since taking on the role in 2006, Dr Diarra has travelled throughout Africa talking to students, youth groups, teachers, universities, government leaders, Ministries of Education and the private sector about the role of ICT in enhancing the effectiveness of education in Africa. eLearning Africa cordially welcomes Dr Diarra as a keynote speaker in the plenary session on Thursday, 18:00 - 19:30.
[more]

5. Students Absorbed by "Cool Technology" at South African School

8. The mLearning Guru and The eLearning Africa Debate

Enabling flexible learning with mobile and wireless technologies is what mLearning advocate John Traxler is passionate about. There is probably no one who has a broader perspective on the issue than the author of widely known textbooks such as "Mobile Learning: A Handbook for Educators and Trainers" and "Mobile Learning in Developing Countries". With an analytical and discursive mind, John Traxler has investigated the African landscape for many years and developed a profound understanding of the role of technology in education. He will be one of the keynote speakers in the eLearning Africa Debate and here he examines some of the key issues surrounding it.
[more]


JOURNALISM IN THE AMERICAS
Journalists Can Apply for New Spanish Online Course: Advanced Digital Tools for Investigative Journalism

Journalists from Latin America and the Caribbean can apply until June 4 for the Knight Center's new online course in Spanish, " Advanced Digital Tools for Investigative Journalism," which takes place June 15–July 19, 2009.
The course was developed for the Knight Center by Argentine journalist Sandra Crucianelli after the success of her popular introductory course “Digital Tools for Investigative Journalism.”
Spaces for the course are limited, and demand is expected to be high. Those selected to participate will be Latin American and Caribbean journalists who currently work full time for print or electronic news media and have at least five years of journalism experience. They will have either taken the introductory course by Crucianelli or can demonstrate proficiency with digital tools.
More information and a link to the application can be found in the Knight Center's story here: http://knightcenter.utexas.edu/distancelearning_article.php?page=9743
—Jennifer Potter-Miller


(RE-EDITED BYMUKTI MAJID ONBEHALF OF E-LEARNING AFRICA 2009)

Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama

Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama

By Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet. Posted May 15, 2009.

The 'Black Shirts' of Guantanamo routinely terrorize prisoners, breaking bones, gouging eyes, squeezing testicles, and 'dousing' them with chemicals.
As the Obama administration continues to fight the release of some 2,000 photos that graphically document U.S. military abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, an ongoing Spanish investigation is adding harrowing details to the ever-emerging portrait of the torture inside and outside Guantánamo. Among them: "blows to [the] testicles;" "detention underground in total darkness for three weeks with deprivation of food and sleep;" being "inoculated … through injection with 'a disease for dog cysts;'" the smearing of feces on prisoners; and waterboarding. The torture, according to the Spanish investigation, all occurred "under the authority of American military personnel" and was sometimes conducted in the presence of medical professionals.

More significantly, however, the investigation could for the first time place an intense focus on a notorious, but seldom discussed, thug squad deployed by the U.S. military to retaliate with excessive violence to the slightest resistance by prisoners at Guantánamo.

The force is officially known as the the Immediate Reaction Force or Emergency Reaction Force, but inside the walls of Guantánamo, it is known to the prisoners as the Extreme Repression Force. Despite President Barack Obama's publicized pledge to close the prison camp and end torture -- and analysis from human rights lawyers who call these forces' actions illegal -- IRFs remain very much active at Guantánamo.

IRF: An Extrajudicial Terror Squad

The existence of these forces has been documented since the early days of Guantánamo, but it has rarely been mentioned in the U.S. media or in congressional inquiries into torture. On paper, IRF teams are made up of five military police officers who are on constant stand-by to respond to emergencies. "The IRF team is intended to be used primarily as a forced-extraction team, specializing in the extraction of a detainee who is combative, resistive, or if the possibility of a weapon is in the cell at the time of the extraction," according to a declassified copy of the Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta at Guantánamo. The document was signed on March 27, 2003, by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the man credited with eventually "Gitmoizing" Abu Ghraib and other U.S.-run prisons and who reportedly ordered subordinates to treat prisoners "like dogs." Gen. Miller ran Guantánamo from November 2002 until August 2003 before moving to Iraq in 2004.

When an IRF team is called in, its members are dressed in full riot gear, which some prisoners and their attorneys have compared to "Darth Vader" suits. Each officer is assigned a body part of the prisoner to restrain: head, right arm, left arm, left leg, right leg. According to the SOP memo, the teams are to give verbal warnings to prisoners before storming the cell: "Prior to the use of the IRF team, an interpreter will be used to tell the detainee of the discipline measures to be taken against him and ask whether he intends to resist. Regardless of his answer, his recent behavior and demeanor should be taken into account in determining the validity of his answer."The IRF team is authorized to spray the detainee in the face with mace twice before entering the cell.

According to Gen. Miller's memo: "The physical security of U.S. forces and detainees in U.S. care is paramount. Use the minimum force necessary for mission accomplishment and force protection ... Use of the IRF team and levels of force are not to be used as a method of punishment."

But human rights lawyers, former prisoners and former IRF team members with extensive experience at Guantánamo paint a very different picture of the role these teams played. "They are the Black Shirts of Guantánamo," says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has represented the most Guantánamo prisoners. "IRFs can't be separated from torture. They are a part of the brutalization of humans treated as less than human."

Clive Stafford Smith, who has represented 50 Guantánamo prisoners, including 31 still imprisoned there, has seen the IRF teams up close. "They're goons," he says. "They've played a huge role."
While much of the "torture debate" has emphasized the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" defined by the twisted legal framework of the Office of Legal Council memos, IRF teams in effect operate at Guantánamo as an extrajudicial terror squad that has regularly brutalized prisoners outside of the interrogation room, gang beating them, forcing their heads into toilets, breaking bones, gouging their eyes, squeezing their testicles, urinating on a prisoner's head, banging their heads on concrete floors and hog-tying them -- sometimes leaving prisoners tied in excruciating positions for hours on end.

The IRF teams "were fully approved at the highest levels [of the Bush administration], including the Secretary of Defense and with outside consultation of the Justice Department," says Scott Horton, one of the leading experts on U.S. Military and Constitutional law. This force "was designed to disabuse the prisoners of any idea that they would be free from physical assault while in U.S. custody," he says. "They were trained to brutally punish prisoners in a brief period of time, and ridiculous pretexts were taken to justify" the beatings.

UN Human Rights chief calls for Sri Lanka inquiry/China’s coming struggle for power/The Islamic world, the United States, democracy: response to Shadi

Death Row Prisoner Troy Davis: We Must Expose a System That Fails to Protect the Innocent
By Martina Correia, Campaign to End the Death Penalty. Posted May 5, 2009.


"There are so many more Troy Davises. This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me."

Martina Correia has spearheaded the fight for justice for her brother, Troy Davis, who has spent 18 years on Georgia's death row despite overwhelming proof that he is an innocent man. Troy has faced three execution dates in two years, and won a stay each time. Despite facing a battle with breast cancer herself, Martina has led a national and international struggle to win justice for Troy.

At the National Convention of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty last fall, Martina gave brief remarks and then read a statement from Troy.

For more information on the current campaign to save Troy Davis, which is at a critical moment, go here.

Good evening. My name is Martina Correia, and I'm from the distant planet of Georgia. For those of you who don't know about my brother, Troy Anthony Davis was convicted in 1991 of killing an off-duty police officer. He was trying to help a homeless man.

Someone went and told the police that my brother had shot and killed this police officer. They used nine eyewitnesses to convict my brother and sentence him to death. Seven of those witnesses have since recanted, and yet the state of Georgia still wants to execute my brother -- even though they have no physical evidence, no weapon, no motive, no anything.

Here is the message from my brother, Troy Anthony Davis:

I want to thank all of you for your efforts and dedication to human rights and human kindness. In the past year, I have experienced such emotion, joy, sadness and neverending faith.

It is because of all of you that I am alive today. As I look at my sister Martina, I am marveled by the love she has for me -- and of course, I worry about her and her health. But as she tells me, she is the eldest, and she will not back down from this fight to save my life and prove to the world that I am innocent of this terrible crime.

As I look at my mail from across the globe, from places I have never ever dreamed I would know about, and people speaking languages and expressing cultures and religions I could only hope to one day see firsthand, I am humbled by the emotion that fills my heart with overwhelming, overflowing joy.

I can't even explain the surge of emotion I feel when I try to express the strength I draw from you all. It compounds my faith, and it shows me yet again that this is not a case about the death penalty, this is not a case about Troy Davis -- this is a case about justice, and the human spirit to see justice prevail.

I cannot answer all of your letters, but I do read them all. I cannot see you all, but I can imagine your faces. I cannot hear you speak, but your letters take me to the far reaches of the world. I cannot touch you physically, but I feel your warmth every day I exist.

So thank you, and remember I am in a place where execution can only destroy your physical form, but because of my faith in God, my family and all of you, I have been spiritually free for some time. And no matter what happens in the days and weeks to come, this movement to end the death penalty, to seek true justice, to expose a system that fails to protect the innocent must be accelerated.

There are so many more Troy Davises. This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me, but through our strength to move forward and save every innocent person in captivity around the globe.

I want you to know that the trauma placed on me and my family as I have now faced execution and the death chamber three times is more punishment than most can bear. Yet as I face this state-sanctioned terror, I realize one constant -- my faith is unwavering, the love of my family and friends is massive, and the fight for justice and against injustice by activists worldwide has ignited a fire that is raging for human rights and human dignity.

You inspire me, you honor me, and as I pray for strength and guidance for my family and loved ones, and for the victim's family and loved ones, I share with you this struggle. I share with you our triumphs, knowing that you add to my strength and my courage, and because of that, I share with you my life.

We must dismantle this unjust system, city by city, state by state and country by country. I can't wait to stand with you, no matter if that is in physical or spiritual form. I will one day be announcing, "I AM TROY DAVIS, and I AM FREE!"

Never stop fighting for justice, and we will win!

Open Democracy:

The Islamic world, the United States, democracy: response to Shadi Hamid

The effort to forge a new relationship between the west and Islam and to nurture democracy in the middle east requires that the United States in particular reframe its view of the Islamic world, says Tarek Osman.
President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver a speech in Cairo in June 2009 in which he is expected to reach out to the Islamic world, part of the continuing work of repairing the ties between the United States and Muslims that were so damaged under the administration of his predecessor. The US's president's address will most likely extend and reinforce the themes outlined in his "remarks" to the parliament in Ankara during his visit to Turkey on 6-7 April:
"America's relationship with the Muslim community, the Muslim world, cannot, and will not, just be based upon opposition to terrorism. We seek broader engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect.
Also in the debate on democracy support co-hosted by the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) and openDemocracy:

Vidar Helgesen, "Democracy support: where now?" (17 November 2008)

Rein Müllerson, "Democracy: history, not destiny" (25 November 2008)

Monika Ericson & Mélida Jiménez, "Taking stock of democracy" (17 December 2008)

Kristen Sample, "No hay mujeres: Latin America women and gender equality" (4 February 2009)

Ingrid Wetterqvist, Raul Cordenillo, Halfdan L Ottosen, Susanne Lindahl & Therese Arnewing, "The European Union and democracy-building" (10 February 2009)

Daniel Archibugi, "Democracy for export: principles, practices, lessons" (5 March 2009)

Asef Bayat, "Democracy and the Muslim world: the post-Islamist turn" (6 March 2009)

openDemocracy, "American democracy promotion: an open letter to Barack Obama" (11 March 2009) - a document hosted by the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) and the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED)

Rodrigo de Almeida "The inspectors of democracy" (13 March 2009)

Tarek Osman, "Democracy-support and the Arab world: after the fall" (17 March 2009)

Christopher Hobson & Milja Kurki, "Democracy and democracy-support: a new era" (20 March 2009)

Shadi Hamid, "Democracy's time: a reply to Tarek Osman" (6 April 2009)

Rumbidzai Kandawasvika-Nhundu, "The gender of democracy matters" (7 April 2009)

Vessela Tcherneva, "Moldova: time to choose" (9 April 2009)

Krzysztof Bobinski, "The partnership principle: Europe, democracy, and the east" (22 April 2009)

Winluck Wahiu & Paulos Tesfagiorgis, "Africa: constitution-building vs coup-making" (28 April 2009)

Achin Vanaik, "Capitalism and democracy" (29 April 2009)

Anna Lekvall, "Democracy and aid: the missing links" (13 May 2009)We will listen carefully, we will bridge misunderstandings, and we will seek common ground. We will be respectful, even when we do not agree. We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world - including in my own country."
The overall message is somewhat in vogue these days. In March 2009, a group of international experts and scholars wrote a letter to President Obama urging him to put democratic reform at the heart of the US's engagement with the Arab World (see "American democracy promotion: an open letter to Barack Obama" (11 March 2009). The core advice of the letter - jointly hosted by the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) and the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) - was the need for Washington under its new leadership to engage with the political Islamic currents in (mainly) the Arab world, as well as to support Arab liberals.
In reply, I suggested that the letter erred in respect of its scope and content. My central argument was that the United States, as a result of its strategic interests in the middle east, is on a clashing path with the Arab world's political Islamic current (see Tarek Osman, "Democracy-support and the Arab world: after the fall" [17 March 2009]).
Shadi Hamid, co-convenor and one of the lead drafters of the open letter, responded in turn to my article by arguing that leading representatives of political Islam in the Arab and Islamic worlds (such as key members of the Muslim Brotherhood) are showing signs of increasing liberalism; for example, by inherently accepting peace with Israel and writing in Jewish newspapers in the United States. Accordingly, America, should seek to find common ground with such currents of political Islam:
"There is an important change underway. In much of the middle east, Islamist groups are aware that gaining power within their countries will remain unlikely, if not impossible, without US encouragement or, at the very least, neutrality....It would be wise for the United States to carefully consider such overtures. After all, autocracy cannot be made permanent. Eventually, the authoritarian regimes of the region will cease to be. An uncertain ‘something else' will replace them. Western nations would be wise to prepare themselves for the change to come. It is better to have leverage with Islamist parties before they come to power, not afterwards when it is too late" (see Shadi Hamid, "Democracy's time: a reply to Tarek Osman" [6 April 2009]).
Shadi Hamid's response is in my view based on a flawed and limited framing of the US's relationship with the Islamic world. This article continues the discussion, itself also part of the debate on the future of democracy-support jointly hosted by the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) and openDemocracy). I develop here the case outlined in my original contribution: that the United States - and where appropriate the European Union and other interlocutors too - needs to frame its view of, and dialogue with, the Islamic world in a different and more creative way. Three dimensions of this proposed change are considered.
Range and complexity
The first dimension is to recognise nuance and complexity, in ways that move beyond the reductive view of reducing political Islam as (at heart) little more than hapless opposition movements in a number of Arab countries.
The United States political outlook with regard to the Islamic world tends to centre around such groups as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Harakat al-Tahrir, Hizbollah, and the multitude of other Islamist movements in the middle east. This reductive tendency to respond to the most ambitious and manipulative Islamist voices rather than the quieter and truer leads it to be drawn into petty, tactical and localised issues and problems (see Ali A Allawi, The Crisis of Islamic Civilization [Yale University Press, 2009].
A more mature outlook would see Islam also as a sort of grand socio-political umbrella of values and guiding principles that can comprise and accommodate many different political currents. It is not the exclusive doctrine of any political movement; it vastly transcends them.
This more nuanced view of political Islam would retrieve the ideas of Sheikh Ali Abdel Razek (1888-1966). In his Islam and the Principles of Government (1925) He argued that the institution of the caliphate (or for that matter any concentration of political power in the name of Islam) is obsolete; that Muslims have graduated from their need for religious chaperoning; and that the separation of the state from the mosque had become effective since the politicisation of Islamic rule at the end of the "rightly guided caliphs" era, only a few decades after the death of the Prophet Mohammed.
A perspective of this sort, intelligently undertaken, would seize the initiative and reclaim the agenda from the different political Islamic movements. It would help position the US as the mature, long-term, weighty, and strategic player that it is. Its engagement with the Islamic world could then become part of a serious dialogue between civilisations - shorn of the unfortunate and loaded atmospherics that have surrounded this term. The results might be surprising. In its spirit, for example, Sheikh Ali Abdel Razek's message resembles many of the principles of the US's own "founding fathers".
The adoption of a grander definition of political Islam by the United States would enable many of the reactionary forces in the Islamic world to be seen in terms of their actual and natural (rather than inflated) size. It would also the best way of supporting Arab liberals, and an important departure from the approach of outright backing which all but discredits them in front of Arab populations as a whole.
Confidence and flexibility
The second framing dimension is to address explicitly and centrally the Islamic - rather than the Arab world and "mind". I argued in my earlier article - "Democracy-support and the Arab world: after the fall" (17 March 2009) - that the scope of the open letter to President Obama was misleading and over-general. Shadi Hamid retorted that the middle east, the Arab world, and the Muslim world "are all relevant to our call". True, they are all relevant, but choosing which one to address is hardly a matter of semantics.
There are two reasons why the US should formulate its democracy-support policy and its wider policy aspirations in relation to Islamic, rather than Arab, realities. First, Arab nationalism is far from the dominant identity in today's "Arab world"; it is a weak political force living only on the momentum of nostalgia. In no Arab country are Arab nationalists serious political contenders. Islamists have come to dominate the region's social life, and become the sole challengers to the region's ruling regimes.
Second, Islamism is - unlike Arabism - a flexible notion. Arabism is by definition a national and exclusive identity, whereas Islamism is a multinational and inclusive one. The Islamic identity encompasses rich, refined traditions that express the mixing and merging of different cultures that have come together under the banner of Islam. In its healthy and progressive manifestations, the Muslim "mind" draws upon a host of influences and traditions - Persian, Egyptian, Indian, Andalucian, even Hellenic. Such diversity and richness breads progressive, liberal and tolerant thinking.
An important and relevant example is Ibn Rushd, the 12th-century Andalucian philosopher (also known as Averroes ). He was confident enough in the great flexibility and moral strength of Islam to shun the notion of al-Jahiliyyah (the era of ignorance eradicated by the advent of Islam - and the term frequently used by militant Islamists in describing the west), and to advocate borrowing from the thinking of al ummam al salifa al saliha (the pious ancient peoples) in a direct and reverent reference to the Greeks. Ibn Rushd also sought dialogue between the Muslim rulers of al-Andalus and their Christian neighbours in northern Spain and western France - as well as to their Jewish subjects in Andalucia itself.
There are more contemporary examples. The United States's and Europe's thinkers should - instead of seeking common ground with the ideas of the Hassan al-Banna (the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood) or Sayyid Qutb (the leading theorist of rejectionist political Islam) - study the work of the al-Azhar scholar Taha Hussein. In his book Mustaqbal al-Thaqafa fi Misr (The Future of Culture in Egypt) (1936), Hussein scolded the religious establishment (then the main bearer of political Islam) for its reductive view of the religion and its role in society; and reminded his readers of the immense influence of the Greeks, Jews and Christians on the land of al-Azhar and the Islamic empire itself.
The confidence and flexibility of such thinkers are vastly superior to the insecurity and rigidity of many players in today's political Islam. They are also (again) resonant of the best American and European traditions.
Realism and discrimination
The third dimension is to embrace realism and intelligent discrimination: to abandon the silly and condescending declaration (frequently voiced by George W Bush) that Islam is "a religion of peace", and to engage with those currents of political Islam that have integrity.
A careful study here could, for example, involve a recovery of elements
Tarek Osman is a writer and a merchant banker

Among Tarek Osman's articles in openDemocracy:

"Egypt's phantom messiah" (12 July 2006)

"Mahfouz's grave, Arab liberalism's deathbed" (23 November 2006)

"Arab Christians: a lost modernity" (31 August 2007)

"Nasser's complex legacy" (15 January 2008)

"Egypt: the surreal painting" (14 May 2008)

"Youssef Chahine, the life-world of film (29 July 2008)

"China and the Olympics: a view from Egypt" (7 August 2008)

"Egypt's dilemma: Gaza and beyond" (12 January 2009)
of the Salafi tradition as embodied in a number of late-19th and early-20th-century Muslim intellectuals. Sheikh Mohammed Abdou (1849-1905) and Abbas Mahmoud al-Akkad (1889-1964) for example - the latter arguably the most compelling Islamic thinker in the 20th century - invoked a return to the purity of early Islamic thought to commend modernisation and rejuvenation of the religion's spirit.
In his theology, Al-Akkad explored Jewish and Christian writings with open, confident faith; in his socio-political writings, he argued for free elections, a serious constitutional parliamentary system, free speech, and a system of checks and balances applicable to all powers. Abdou bluntly called for "learning from the civilised societies of Europe", "embracing modernity", and "rediscovering in the core of our religion the elements of rationality that made its societies great and permitted modernity and innovation". Their tradition continues in the writings of Gamal al-Banna, Mohamed Sayyed Ashmawi, and others (many of them inside al-Azhar itself).
The Salafists are interesting because - unlike the organised political movements in the region - they have no specific political agendas; their lack of local political ambitions, their genuine piousness and sense of religious continuity, means that they more closely embody and represent the increasing religiosity of the "Islamic street". In this context, the United States - as the most religious western society - would find greater common ground in forging a relationship with the Salafists than most European states.
A new frame
This is not to promote Salafist thinking or propose that the US embrace liberal schools within Islam. Rather it is to suggest that a sophisticated approach to the Muslim world and democracy-support there needs to discard formulaic frameworks and policies, and rise to the challenge of developing new ways of thinking about and engaging in dialogue with Islam.
This would be a service both to the Islamic world and to the United States and the Europeans - for all "sides" need a more serious and rigorous discourse than is represented by (for example) the mediocre missionary-ism of Amr Khaled, the zealous and somewhat vengeful militancy of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, those western leftists and others who indulge and even embrace ultra-reactionary Islamist currents, or those who seek to extend "clash of civilisations" rhetoric into the next decade.
The drafters of the open letter to Barack Obama are right to suggest that the coming to power of an intellectually curious president could open a new strategy. But that strategy should not involve engaging with mediocre political groups and ignorant, semi-literate reactionaries; nor a public-relations campaign in the face of nihilistic groups consumed with desperate resentment.
Rather, the United States - and the west in general - should frame its dialogue with Islam by seeing both itself and the latter as a civilisation that was (and is) rich and confident enough to adapt, to borrow, to change, to dare and to confront its demons. That is the way to encourage, promote and support democracy, and much else besides.
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China’s coming struggle for power
Kerry Brown
The inner-party competition to succeed Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao is already underway, finds Kerry Brown on the road between Shanghai and Changsha.

14 - 05 - 2009


A recent Shanghai taxi-ride was a lesson in China'a constant capacity to surprise. The driver responded to my question about what business had been like lately by saying: "Pretty good. But I only work three days a week anyway. I have other interests. Birds. I have seven birds". If this conjured the vision of a scholar-gentleman from the Qing dynasty driving the car, it was quickly dispelled. "They make a pile of money", he continued. "What, through trading rare breeds?" I was struggling to catch up. "No, no", he said. "Betting. You get them to fight against each other, and make money on who wins."

Kerry Brown is an associate fellow on the Asia programme, Chatham House. He is the author of Struggling Giant: China in the 21st Century (Anthem Press, 2007), The Rise of the Dragon: Inward and Outward Investment in China in the Reform Period 1978-2007 (Chandos, 2008) and Friends and Enemies: The Past, Present and Future of the Communist Party of China (Anthem Press, forthcoming, 2009). His website is here

Also by Kerry Brown on openDemocracy:

"China changes itself: an Olympics report" (20 August 2008)

"China's nervous transition" (22 September 2008)

"China in 2009: a year for surprise" (14 January 2009)

"China's political tunnel" (22 January 2009)

"China's giant struggle" (5 February 2009)

I was shocked, and said that it was banned in England on grounds of cruelty. He was not impressed. "So what about your great Tyson or Lewis knocking the last breath out of each other in boxing matches? What's the difference? We make sure the animals never get badly harmed or die." He snorted. "It's the same. Anyway, it's part of our culture."
Enterprise, practicality, pride, and a touch of amoral ruthlessness: all the elements are there at the everyday level in modern China's search for a business opportunity. As I continued on my way to Changsha, I couldn't help reflecting on how short a distance there was between the Shanghai taxi-driver and the kind of calculations that will be made in and around the Zhongnanhai - Beijing's central-government compound - between now and the next Chinese Communist Party congress in 2012.
Room at the top
The internal leadership battles are already warming up. A senior official told me: "There is now a very active power-struggle going on in the upper reaches of the party". True, the party has many problems to tend to, and the last thing it wants is a large, open, and heated fight. The game-plan will be to keep the political competition and personal rivalries as far out of public sight as feasible. But the differences between the figures now jostling to replace the current president and prime minister - Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao - may make that unrealistic (see Friends and Enemies: The Past, Present and Future of the Communist Party of China, Anthem Press, forthcoming, 2009).
Since the seventeenth party congress in October 2007, there has been a consensus that the next party secretary (and thus president) will be the current "number five" in the politburo's standing committee, Xi Jinping; and that the premier will be the figure ranked after him at "number six", Li Keqiang.
The prospects are brighter for the former than for the latter. Xi Jinping is looking ahead to September 2009, when a number of vice-chair seats on the central military commission falls vacant. A sure route to power in China since the time of Mao Zedong has been control of the gun. If Xi secures a vice-chair place, his route to the top - barring disaster - is assured.
For Li Keqiang, things are more complicated - and even his link to the current president, Hu Jintao, don't make them any easier. Li has been handed the sensitive health portfolio in recent months. This brings great responsibility (since building a semi-decent healthcare infrastructure has been a key government goal since the Sars epidemic in 2003) and resources (a big part of China's $600 billion fiscal-stimulus package is dedicated to the sector), but also risk (for the issue of healthcare in China is as conflictual as anywhere else). The assignment of this key area of policy to Li can be seen as a leadership test, but also a means of setting him up for failure and fall.
The suggestion is reinforced by the fact that other senior figures have an eye on the premiership: the highly regarded Wang Qishan - a vice-premier who is not a member of the party's standing committee but does belong to the politburo. Wang is the leading figure in charge of the economy, and has been at the forefront of dialogue both with the United States and the European Union on economic matters. More ominously, Wang is a protégé of former party secretary and president Jiang Zemin; a man who, even in his mid-80s, still lingers around the edge of power, and is able to offer significant patronage.
Wang Qishan has another definite advantage over Li Keqiang: the latter has notably poor communication skills (which now matter as much in China as in any other political culture). This flaw irritates even his supporters.
Moreover, behind Wang are other figures hungry for advancement. They include the active and effective party secretary of Chongqing in southest China, Bo Xilai. After serving as minister fir trade, Bo was sent down from Beijing as a way of removing him from any possible leadership challenge. But he remains capable of launching high-profile and attention-grabbing initiatives.

Among openDemocracy's recent articles on China:

Perry Link, "Charter 08: a blueprint for China" (5 January 2009)

Wei Jingsheng, "China's political tunnel" (22 January 2009)

Li Datong, "China: democracy in action" (19 March 2009)

Temstsel Hao, "Dharamsala: forging Tibetans' future" (29 April 2009)
A game of patience
Li Keqiang shares with prime minister Wen Jiabao an attribute that can operate in different circumstances as weakness or strength: he lacks a constituency in the party. This could destroy his ambitions, or be their making. A Xi Jinping who reaches the summit, for example, would find it undesirable to have a deputy with his own power-base to mount threats or challenges; yet a standoff between different party factions might in the end lead to Li Keqiang easing through as a compromise candidate (see Li Datong, "China's leadership: the next generation", 3 October 2007).
At present, however, another consideration overrides all these calculations: to express overt interest in a leadership bid is for everyone out of the question. Any display of ambition would be leapt upon by opponents and their supporters as destabilising, "anti-party" - and a reason for automatic disqualification from the upper reaches of power.
In the approach to 2012, it will be more a game of a thousand subtle gestures, slight moves, tiny actions. The bird-owning taxi-driver pithily described the technique of his own sport: "Make a few small bets; then, when you've sized up the opponent, make a big bet - and clean up the show." A guide to the manoeuvrings in the Zhongnanhai can indeed come from surprising places.
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UN Human Rights chief calls for Sri Lanka inquiry
Oliver Scanlan
The humanitarian catastrophe in Sri Lanka continues unabated. The head of the IAEA warns that the number of nuclear weapons states could double in just a few years. More civilians flee from Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. All this and more in today's security update.
15 - 05 - 2009

A spokesman for Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters on Friday that she supports an independent inquiry into the violence in Sri Lanka. The call comes on a day when Sri Lankan military forces continued their relentless bid to end the 25-year war with the Tamil Tigers. Remnants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) resist desperately from a tiny strip of land, in the midst of thousands of civilians.
The ToD verdict: It is over a month since Walter Kaelin, the UN Secretary General's representative for the rights of internally displaced persons, warned of a "blood bath" if the Sri Lankan military moved in against the Tamil Tigers without first allowing the civilian population to flee. As the Sri Lankan military continues to drive the LTTE into the sea, it is becoming increasingly apparent that his prediction has come true. Although both sides have engaged in a vigorous propaganda war and journalists have been forbidden from entering the war zone, it is nonetheless clear that thousands of civilians have been killed in the cross fire between government and rebel forces.
Those who survive face increasing hardship as the International Committee for the Red Cross has been forced by the continuing combat to suspend the delivery of aid, with ICRC operations director Pierre Krahenbuhl referring to the situation as "an unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe".
The suspicion on the part of many commentators and analysts, including Pillay, is that human rights abuses have been committed on both sides. Her call for "clarity" not "impunity" would make a probe into suspected offences a necessity. At this point, however, with the Sri Lankan government so far brushing off calls for a ceasefire, it is uncertain when such an inquiry will ever be held.
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Thousands more flee Pakistan town as military lifts curfew
As the Pakistan military lifted the curfew around the town of Mingora in the Swat valley today, tens of thousands of civilians fled to swell the already vast numbers of people displaced from their homes by the ongoing war against the Taliban. According to a military statement, at least 55 Taliban militants and three Pakistani soldiers have been killed during this, the twentieth day of the Pakistan army's operations against Taliban positions in the districts of Swat, Buner and Lower Dir in the country's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). A total of over 834,000 people have registered as displaced persons with the UN since the beginning of the fighting, with Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, saying that there would be a humanitarian crisis if a massive deployment of aid is not forthcoming.
Nuclear watchdog warns nuclear weapons states set to double
Mohamed ElBaradei, the outgoing director general of the IAEA, has warned that international agreements restricting the proliferation of nuclear weapons are on the verge of collapse and that, without drastic action by nuclear weapons states, the number of potential nuclear weapons states could double in a few years. Citing the inequity of the system, designed around the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty which compels signatories to refrain developing nuclear weapons while, theoretically, obliging nuclear states to disarm, he said that in this respect the middle east is a "ticking time bomb".
He made the prediction that the next wave of proliferation would result in the emergence of 10 to 20 "virtual" weapons states. Such states would not actually have nuclear weapons, but would have sufficient technical knowledge and raw materials to be able to weaponise rapidly. He noted that there were sweeping steps that could be taken immediately to prevent this, observing that of the 27,000 nuclear weapons in existence, the vast majority of them are possessed by the United States and Russia.
Aung San Suu Kyi charged in run up to Myanmar elections
On Thursday, the Burmese opposition leader was charged with violating the terms of her house arrest in what many analysts are saying is a political move by the Myanmar military junta. The ostensible reason for the charge was a recent incident in which an American man swam across a lake and spent a night at her home, where she has been under house arrest for thirteen years.
The charges have been introduced two weeks before the statutory end of her latest six year term of house-arrest and have resulted in her transfer to the harsher conditions of Insein prison. Next year the military clique, which has ruled Myanmar since 1962, will hold its first multi-party elections since 1990. That election resulted in Aung Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, winning a sweeping victory which was promptly rejected by the military.
Obama brings back Guantanamo trials
Having suspended them within hours of taking up office, US officials revealed today that President Barack Obama will bring back the highly controversial military tribunal system at Guantanamo Bay. The officials have said that the system, which is expected to apply to fewer than twenty of Guantanamo's 241 inmates, will be amended so that it restricts the admissibility of evidence based on hearsay and bans altogether evidence gleaned from such practises as "waterboarding". These provisions have not allayed critics, however, who point out that during his presidential campaign, he vowed to reject the Military Commissions Act.
Policemen killed in Chechnya
On Friday, two policemen were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the restive Caucasus republic of Chechnya. The attack comes weeks after Moscow ended its decade long counter-terrorist operation in the region, and is symptomatic of continued unrest. The attack occurred near the entrance to the regional interior ministry building.
(Re-Edited by:MUKTI MAJID,Dacca,Bangladesh.)