On the coup in Paraguay

It’s been awhile since I last posted.  It’s been a busy time, with doing some fieldwork – mainly interviewing people – for a report which I’m trying to get done by the end of this week.  However, I had some spare minutes yesterday to draft the following about events in Paraguay.  Just now I’ve had an email from one of the editors of our book on the Latin American right, who notes how prescient Peter Lambert was regarding his chapter on that country.  Anyway, for what it’s worth, here’s my take (and which should possibly be up at the Ideas Centre blog in the next few days – I hope!):

Latest publications out

After several rounds of writing and revising, this has been a good start to the year in publication terms.  I have just had my third academic article published, which I am especially pleased with.  It’s in Third World Quarterly and is on the Islamist political party, Hamas, and its vision of development.  I’m happy with it because it’s the first Palestine/Middle East related article I’ve published.  The others have been Latin America-oriented and based on my PhD topic.  Also, it got accepted with no demand for changes, which was surprising.  Anyway, I certainly hope that people find it of interest.

As for the other articles, both are related to my PhD years and deal with education in Brazil and Chile.  The one on Chile is a relief, especially as I was never sure if it would actually be published or not.  I wrote the original draft more than four years ago and the process dragged on and on.

On top of these articles, I have just submitted a few others (either first drafts or revisions), which – fingers crossed – should lead to further publications in the next year or so.  One is on European aid to the Palestinian Authority and the other on Brazil’s poverty reduction and alleviation programmes.  I just hope they are both accepted!

Comparing Israel and South Africa and its limits

Last night I accompanied a friend to watch ‘Roadmap to Apartheid’, a documentary which draws together the experience of apartheid in South Africa with the discrimination and oppression visited by Israel on the Palestinians.  The analogies were well done, with footage from South Africa before 1994 set alongside with that from Israel and the occupied territories.  Images of checkpoints, soldiers checking permits, beating up and shooting protestors were all used to reinforce the idea that Israel is busy introducing an effective apartheid state.

Anyone working in academia will be familiar with the charge.  To this are increasing numbers of solidarity activists and supporters and sympathisers of the Palestinian cause who are making the link.  Perhaps the most visible expression of this analogy is that of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement that has grown up in recent years – and Israeli reaction and paranoia that they may one day be labelled a pariah state in the same way that South Africa was (hence the draconian legislation relating to the BDS which exists within Israel today).

The Corniche, Beirut

Lebanon, then and now

Beirut has changed substantially when compared to my last trip there.  That’s to be expected, given that I first visited the city 15 years ago.  And while I knew that it had changed, it wasn’t until I got there that I realised how much.  It was brought home to be from the first day I was there, as I walked from my accommodation on Rue Gemmayze to the American University of Beirut (AUB).  Back in 1997 I recall seeing the bombed out Holiday Inn standing amid a pile of rubble where a whole neighbourhood once stood.  On Monday I recognised the same building, presumably standing as a memorial to the civil war.  But I didn’t recognise anything else around it.  It was hemmed in by all sorts of new buildings, of different shapes and colours, although many of them harking back self-consciously to the past.

Recent presentations

I’m now back behind the office desk after spending the last two weeks travelling, first to London and then to Beirut.  In London I presented my paper on poverty reduction in Brazil and the government’s (still relatively) new poverty elimination plan at the Institute for the Study of the Americas.  I was also hoping to present it at the symposium being organised by Middlesex University on Brazil, but I think there was a foul up in communications, as they didn’t seem to get my message.  Fortunately, they are organising another event, which may take place in April.  I may well be at that one.

Upcoming events

Next week I'll be presenting on poverty reduction and elimination in Brazil in London.  I'm booked to present at the Institute for the Study of the Americas on Tuesday (28) and at a symposium organised by Middlesex University in Trafalgar Square on Wednesday (29).  That said, I have no idea how long I will be able to present for - I'm still waiting to hear back!

Anyway, this should hopefully be an interesting exercise and pay-off for the last few weeks.  I've been giving up my Fridays and Sundays to prepare this work and have become quite interested in the topic.  Maybe I can develop it further after the events into a possible journal article.  The subject is also complementing other work I'm doing on participation and grassroots development among Palestinians.  I find that reading on one helps the other.  After next week's events I aim to post a summary of what I said and the response to it.

Brazil under Dilma

My latest reflections on Brazil and its foreign policy are now up at the Ideas blog.  I haven’t written there for awhile so it was about time that I did so.  It was only after I sent it in that I realised I had written something else of Brazilian foreign policy, only a few months earlier and based on the workshop we had at the LSE in the summer.  So the next Latin America-related piece that I draft will have to focus on another country.  When that will be, I don’t know.  The year is not even a month old and already things seem so busy.

That said, I have begun to make a start on a paper that I’ve had in mind to write for awhile.  This week I finished the last interview needed to make a start on it, which considers Brazil’s and Venezuela’s contrasting approaches to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  I won’t say any more about it at the moment, other than that I aim to get a first draft done to present at the Ideas Centre (if they’ll have me!) in early April.  Also around that time a couple of journal articles are due to come out, the proofs of which I’m currently checking.

Journal uncertainty

I’m coming to the conclusion that academic journals are like London buses: you wait ages for one to reply to your submitted article and several all reply at the same time.  So it has happened in the past couple of weeks when several journals sent decisions on papers I submitted, one from last month, another in July and two others after I made the changes requested by the reviewers – in one case two years ago.

So it seems that two of them may soon be published, while in responding to the third I am no clearer to knowing if they will publish it (since they didn’t express any urgency about when I might make the changes) and the fourth will require more work.  Anyway, what this all suggests is that the Christmas-New Year period may not be as calm as I like, since I will need to do some work on these papers.  Still, it’ll be nice to boost my publications total and actually see them in print (fingers crossed – can’t get too confident since I've been waiting for at least one to be printed for over a year now!).

Thoughts on Brazil's development model - shared in public

It was a flying visit back to London at the weekend for the Latin America 2011 conference.  This is an annual event organised by the various solidarity groups and bringing together activists and academics.  I had been invited to present on the Brazil panel, along with Joaobe Cavalcanti (an Anglican priest based in London who is also the Workers Party representative) and Francisco Dominguez of Middlesex University.

I was invited through my involvement with the LSE Ideas Centre and the conference I presented at back in July.  I guess they didn’t realise at the time what making an invitation to me would mean.  But I didn’t feel I could say no: I’ve never been invited to present at a conference before and it’s good to keep my foot in the door on Latin America-related activity, including in the UK.  There was also the matter of the launch for the Right Wing Politics in the New Latin America book, which I contributed a chapter on (it now seems so long ago – the paper I presented at the Society of Latin American Studies conference in Leeds in April 2009 which was the genesis for the chapter and finally sending it to Steve Ludlam, one of the editors, back in July last year).

Water as resistance

There seems to be a general thread across different aspects of the Palestinian ‘development’ domain. This was brought home to me at yesterday’s workshop, hosted by Birzeit’s International Studies department, on water resources and management. There were a couple of interesting presentations about the situation facing the Palestinians. Indeed the most interesting were those that had a political edge and which, in the words of the rapporteur, focused on how to break the constraints posed by the occupation as opposed to working within them (the latter was addressed in a couple of presentations on intergrated water resources management and the waste water strategy).

Todos somos palestinos

Last night a friend was showing me the video she was making of the rallies in support of the Palestinian Authority (PA) president Abu Mazen's homecoming following his speech at the UN. It was full of people waving Palestinian flags and posters of the leader himself.  Many of them were wearing the black and white checkered Palestinian scarf known as the keffiyeh.

Then this morning, I was checking out a friend's blog about life on the other side of the world. Being here it's easy to forget that there are other events happening elsewhere, making similar demands for change.  So thanks, Robert, for reminding me of Chile and the efforts being made there to achieve free and fair education.

What is striking is the link between these two political struggles in the simple form of the keffiyeh, no longer a symbol of only Palestinian national identity, but of global social activism:

Some reflections on gender

At the moment I'm preparing a presentation for a workshop and the launch of a report on gender equality and development which we're hosting with the World Bank next week.  This should be interesting and details of the findings that my colleagues worked on at the beginning of the year make for interesting findings.  Granted, the fieldwork was collected in Rafah (Gaza) and Hebron, perhaps the most socially conservative part of the West Bank.  But both have to reflect Palestinian society to some degree.

Looking to New York

You would have to have been locked away in solitary confinement not to know that this week is when the Palestinian state juggernaut goes to the UN and seeks international recognition of the fact.  Walking across Clock Square (or is it now Arafat Square?) my friends and I came across the work team putting up a stage and sound system.  Palestinian flags made up the bunting between the lampposts while in Al Manara Square a few minutes’ walk away a giant blue and white chair to symbolise Palestine’s seat at the UN has been put in place (I intend to get a photo of me sitting on it, which will make me look tiny - UPDATE: That wasn't - and as of today - 9 October - still isn't possible as there always seem to be police around it!).  Meanwhile, the university president sent a circular to all staff this afternoon announcing that anyone who wants to can go attend the demonstration and speeches between 11am and 2pm.

 

Palestinian politics, unity and the role of religion

I attended the first day of Muwatin’s (the Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy) two-day conference on the Arab revolutions and the political and intellectual challenges stemming from them yesterday.  I won’t be able to get to today’s presentations as I have other commitments.  Although the quality of the presentations and discussion was variable, it did present some useful insights and thoughts to consider.

First, I get the sense that there is very much a sense of disconnection from Palestinian society and the leadership.  The focus of the past few months (in case it’s escaped anyone’s attention!) has been on the Palestinian leadership’s drive to achieve recognition for a Palestinian state at the UN next week.  The last couple of weeks have seen reports coming out in the media which have raised a number of concerns in relation to this move, including the status of refugees who would be forgotten if the PLO’s status (which represents Palestinians everywhere, including in the diaspora) is revoked in favour of the PA.  There’s also the question of how to incorporate Gaza and East Jerusalem into the Palestinian state vote as well.

 

Between fact and fiction?

Flitting back and forth between Ramallah, Birzeit and Jerusalem, I don't normally come up against the occupation.  However, during Friday night some settlers wrote abusive grafitti on the walls outside the main entrance.  One can only imagine that they are trying to provoke things, ahead of the UN vote later this month.  Needless to say, the feeling in the university community is understandably angry and the students organised a protest outside the administration building for this morning.  As a friend said to me on Skype though, What's the point?  After all, it won't be targeted at the perpetrators.  But, as I pointed out, would a demo outside a settlement fair any better?  I can hardly see the army responding in a liberal and tolerant manner.

Achieving Palestinian statehood

[I'm on a roll today: two pieces after months of little action here.  That said, the following consists of some thoughts that have been brewing in my head over the last couple of months, so it was fairly easy to put them down.

UPDATE: An edited version of the article below has gone up at the Ideas blog here.]

In just over a month the question of whether a Palestinian state is recognised by the international community will be put before the UN. Despite the fact that there has been plenty of time to prepare and anticipate for this moment, it still seems uncertain how this is to be achieved in practice. Several factors are in play here – and they are outside the control of the Palestinians themselves.

Where are the current social protests going?

[The following article is now up at the LSE Ideas Centre blog.  Although I can't tell if they've edited for length.]

Tents on Rothschild Boulevard, Tel Aviv

When the history of the present is eventually written, 2011 may well be most closely associated with the ‘Arab spring.’ Attention will undoubtedly centre on the revolutions of Tunisia and Egypt, as well as the currently ongoing protests against leaderships from the Gulf to Yemen and violent reaction from the Libyan and Syrian regimes.

However, the pressure for change in the Arab world has not occurred in isolation. The last month has seen the transformation of what was initially a youth movement in Tel Aviv against the high cost of living to encompass all elements of society in Israel. alongside the tents sprouting up along the wealthy Rothschild Boulevard in central Tel Aviv, the last three weekends have seen the size of the protests escalate, resulting in an estimated 300,000 people marching across Israel under the banner of social justice.

On Brazil's global rise

(Last month I was a participant at a conference on Brazil and the Americas in the 21st century.  It was jointly hosted by the LSE Ideas Centre and the Fundação Getulio Vargas.  I wrote a summary of my thoughts based on the participants' contributions along with some reading I did in the following weeks for a project I'm aiming to do.  I had hoped that the piece would have been posted on the Ideas Centre blog by now, but since it hasn't I've also decided to post it here.)

UPDATE: This piece has now gone up at the blog.

 

At a recent presentation to the LSE Ideas Centre, the Brazilian ambassador to the UK, Roberto Jaguaribe, painted a relatively positive picture of Brazil’s regional and global role.  He noted Brazil’s efforts to achieve greater regional integration, from the creation of the Mercosur common market (including Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and, as an associate member, Venezuela) in 1991 to the establishment of the South America-wide UNASUR in 2008.  He reported on Brazil’s increasingly diversified trade relations with the world and its current efforts to open up global governance through its participation in various groups of other state actors, along with the G20.  Brazil’s emergence, along with these other state actors, opens the prospect of change in the nature of international relations more generally.

 

Donors and Palestinian development

Back in June I was part of a seminar hosted by the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) at Birzeit University to consider alternative forms of development in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT).  This is an issue which has vexed us for much of the time that I’ve been involved with the CDS, including a conference that was put on in September last year.

The seminar came off the back of a report that I was involved in drafting which consisted of a conflict-related development analysis (CDA) of the OPT.  The seminar focused specifically on the aid community and what it might be able to do differently so as to assist development.  Our main recommendation in the report was that donors’ assistance be directed to support resistance against the occupation.  In particular this means adopting a more rights-based approach to development than has been hitherto applied, where people’s ability to choose for themselves is the primary means when determining how funding be allocated, rather than paying agencies and individuals to do things for them.

The Arab spring and its conceptual challenges

I haven’t been posting lately. This is partly because I have been focused on writing the first drafts of some papers that I intend to spend the summer revising before submission. But it’s also to do with the fact that I took an extended trip, to Jordan and Egypt. In Cairo I attended a conference on the Egyptian revolution at the American University in Cairo (AUC) and the transitions currently underway there. Since getting back I’ve also attended a conference at Birzeit on the Arab spring as well.

I’ve taken away a few interesting points from both. I was especially struck by the limitations we face as scholars to explain what has happened and is happening here in the region. This point was explicitly mentioned by several of the participants at the Birzeit conference, including Saleh Abdel Jawal and Abaher Saka, who noted the focus on old concepts which contributed to a failure to predict the uprisings since Tunisia last December. This was despite all the structural factors being in place according to Laurent Jeanpierre, from rising unemployment among the young, closed political systems and rising opposition outside of the conventional norms. Indeed, this was one of Saka’s main points: that opposition was taking place in new and emerging public spaces that had been overlooked previously.