Imagine not being able to have a birth certificate, or official registration that you were actually born, or even have any legitimate proof you exist. You would be hampered throughout life, each time you needed to show your identity, for school, health care, any number of services and activities. It’s one thing to follow through on John Lennon’s words, “Imagine there’s no country”, but it’s another not to belong to one in today’s world. In Nepal and Thailand thousands are believed to be stateless and not recognized by the state. Worldwide, some 10 million people are stateless, and the number is swelling in refugees camps like those of Syria, where thousands of births are not being registered. In the past 10 years some 4 million people were granted citizenship, and in 2008 Bangladesh formally recognized thousands of Urdu-speaking Biharis. Despite occasional efforts such as those, in human terms the consequences of statelessness are devastating. On a larger level experts say the overall numbers could be destabilizing, meaning that as those who are undocumented and stateless keep increasing, their number, some believe, could lead to a refugee crisis. The UNHCR (The UN refugee agency) held a forum in The Hague recently to draw attention to the issue and to help find solutions and will soon launch a global campaign to end statelessness—A welcomed effort underlining there’s a long way to go.
Category: Governance
Pushed to Ponder
Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a recent CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria that Russian President Vladimir Putin bears at least some responsibility for the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. “I think if there were any doubt it should be gone by now, that Vladimir Putin, certainly indirectly—thorough his support of the insurgents in eastern Ukraine and the supply of advanced weapons and, frankly, the presence of Russian Special Forces and Intelligence agents—bears responsibility for what happened.” Even without too much parsing, her words look more than just a statement, they hold profound implications. They point to the idea that indirect responsibility is valid. Wouldn’t that mean that manufacturers, suppliers, and other intermediaries in the chain of any weapons of war and destruction bear responsibility too? Jan Oberg of Sweden’s Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research thinks so and highlighted it in one of his TFF Press Info communications.
It’s quite possible Hillary Clinton didn’t mean to go so far when she declared Putin indirectly responsible. Whether she meant to draw attention to the implications or not, the statement would have to imply that the U.S. holds responsibility when it supplies arms to groups such as the Syrian rebels or the Israeli military. It’s quite doubtful Mrs. Clinton meant to engage in a philosophical discourse on the morality of the war machinery, but one has to be grateful she did. It pushes us into pondering it.
Children, Holocaust And Responsibility
Oyster Creek, Tex, Lawrenceville, Va and Murietta, Calif, are among the many localities that have strongly objected to having a shelter for the Central American children who need to be taken care of until their immigration status is clarified or they are deported. As past and future demonstrations remind us, possible locations in Connecticut, Iowa, North Carolina, New York along with several other states also have objected, some with extreme measures such as a demonstration complete with rifles. According to several reports including one by Sonia Nazario who has long studied the effects of illegal immigration on children, they are fleeing violence—usually from gangs—and most would be in harm’s way if they went back. I can’t help think that the more we take politics and ideology out of how we perceive this problem, the more we are able to see it as a humanitarian crisis, of minors trying to escape despair, poverty as well as violence. Maybe that’s why as I was reading about these shunned children, I remembered Holocaust survivors telling me about the instances of boats full of Jewish refugees who kept being denied access to port after port, until in at least one instance they went back to Germany where many of the passengers ended in concentration camps. I wasn’t surprised therefore when I read that Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts, had the same idea when while speaking to the Boston Herald he made a comparison linking the children and the Holocaust. Yet, when asked by the White House if he could help with a location in his state, he did not say yes, but said he would be thinking through a practical solution. I was told by those same survivors that the Jewish refugees’ plight and fate eventually played a role in the establishment of the state of Israel, for many in the United States understood but too late that something had to be done. If Deval Patrick and I are correct and there is a link with what happened to Jewish refugees, then we need to ask ourselves, are we making the same mistake again? Will some of the children have to go back to harm and be killed in order for us to grasp our human responsibility?
In Afghanistan
It’s easy to feel downhearted about Afghanistan. That’s why reading about some of the changes there since 2001 can place our feelings in better perspective. In 2001 no girls attended school and only a million boys did. In 2012 there were 7.8 million pupils including 2.9 million girls. To be fair some schools are tents or operate in the open and there aren’t enough teachers, yet a movement seems underway and 36% of girls are said to be enrolled, a feat given the resistance and the obstacles. The status of women has been ameliorated. More than a quarter of parliament and government employees are women including some in the police and the army. Although violence against women is still a big problem, British officers are helping to set up a military academy that will include the training of 100 female army officers per year. Other signs are that in a country of 31.3 million, in 2012 there were 18 million mobile phones and life expectancy has risen a little from 56 to 60 years old. To note also is an important improvement in access to safe drinking water, which has gone from 4.8% in 2001 to 60.6% in 2011. Sanitation too has improved, 37% now have access to some type of toilets. Despite the eradication of polio being a persistent problem, the number of cases is declining, 37 in 2012 to 14 in 2013. Although opium was still the country’s main export, there are still large undeveloped resources of minerals and natural gas. When added together, one can’t help the sense that as the movement towards education and women’s participation grows—underground in need be—there is hope.