Peacejacking: Peace Literacy and the Co-optation of Peace Concepts
Oliver Rizzi Carlson comments on the (ab)use of peace language to describe the reported capture and killing of Osama bin Laden. Far from an isolated case, Rizzi suggests that we call this form of dialectal manipulation “peacejacking”.
Operation ‘Degrade Al-Shabaab Capacity’: Kenyan Mission with No Winners, But Losers
If there is any lesson that the war on terror, now ten years old and counting, has brought to the surface, it is that conventional military is the worst possible tool to fight an insurgent group that coexists with and feeds from a complex crisis. The harder you hit the perceived stronghold with conventional strategies and weapons, the more complex the situation becomes. In this article, Patrick Mugo Mugo asks: what happens when you decide, as the Kenyan government, to go after the tail of Al-Shabaab and not its head? If we can assume that Al-Shabaab is an invisible creature of a complex crisis, what does that tell us about Somalia’s dithering Transitional Federal Government, which the Kenyan incursion purports to help? Why should the Kenyan government, well aware of American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, invade Somalia following the same script without even editing or rephrasing it? Even if the Kenyan military succeeds in ‘degrading Al-Shabaab capacity’, who will fill the void created in southern Somalia? But before all that, is it Al-Shabaab that is the problem, or is it the analyses that have come forth since al-Shabaab became credible threat?
Open Source, Dynamic Systems and Self-Organization
Open source advocate and practitioner Ino Fleishmann comments on the utility and significance of open source, examining different motivational drivers behind its power of innovation through dynamic systems and self-organization.
Occupy’s Legacy
Peace and Conflict Monitor Assistant Editor, Tara Ruttenberg, shares an outsiders perspective on the Occupy movement, celebrating a newfound sense of pride for her native nation whose people have taken to the streets en masse to protest US plutocracy of the corrupt and powerful 1%.
Occupy Jewish
Professor Mark Ellis discusses the potential of the occupy movement to explicitly raise issues of culture and identity — in effect, to occupy the religious establishment as well as the financial and political.
Saudi-Islamic Feminist Movement: A Struggle for Male Allies and the Right Female Voice
In this report, journalist Rob Wagner analyzes the nuances of the contemporary Saudi feminist movement and its innovative methods of advocacy to garner support for women’s rights and gender-neutral Sharia in Saudi Arabia. He highlights the challenges associated with the Saudi feminist movement in the face of anti-Western activism rejecting their calls for rights to education, travel and other freedoms currently denied by Saudi Sharia.
Saudi Women’s Empowerment: Deep pockets, Not Political Activism, is Leading to Independence
Journalist Rob L. Wagner examines the growing wealth of Saudi Arabian women, who under Sharia have complete control of their finances. Changes in commercial and real estate laws have given women more flexibility in investing their money in business opportunities. However, Saudi society is slow to embrace such changes, creating roadblocks for women seeking to develop profitable businesses. Yet changes in Saudi society are coming from young Saudi women who came of age in the post-9/11 era. They are returning from Western universities armed with degrees and expectations that jobs and investment opportunities are available.
Resistance
Resistance Author: Bernadette Rule Originally Published at Peace and Conflict Monitor on: 07/04/2011 Resistance Not for a bow of the finest yew, not for a quiver full of arrows fletched to hang like a wing from my shoulder will I go to war for you Not for a sword of finest silver, […]
Reparation of Victims: Seeking a Bottom-up Approach to Transitional Justice
M’bartee Locula examines the role of reparation for victims in post-conflict transitional justice initiatives, highlighting cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone. He emphasizes the need to prioritize further remuneration and justice-seeking for victims over DDR processes, which favor perpetrators, in order to foster reconciliation toward sustainable peace.
REMEMBRANCE, REFLECTION AND RESISTANCE
David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, comments on the continued threat of nuclear weapons 66 years after they were used to by the United States of America to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.