“Homo homini lupus [man is wolf to man]. Who in the face of all his experience of life and of history, will have the courage to dispute this assertion?“
–Sigmund Freud Civilization and Its Discontents (1930)
More Rohingya being moved to Bhashan Char is a win for national sovereignty
Photo used with permission.
More Rohingya being relocated Less than a month ago I wrote about the move of over 1600 Rohingya refugees being ‘voluntarily’ relocated from Cox’s Bazar to the small island of Bhashan Char. As I write this a second wave of 1,804 Rohingya have been transported to the island by the Bangladeshi navy. I put ‘voluntarily’ in quotations because there is reason to question how these families were chosen for the move. The UNHCR has not been given access to key details about the move but has urged the Bangladeshi government to not relocate any refugees against their will.
Despite statements and pleas from the UN, ASEAN, and various humanitarian and human rights organizations, the Bangladeshi government is planning the relocation of up to 100,000 Rohingya to Bhashan Char in the coming months, ostensibly to ease the pressure on the existing refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar which now number nearly 1 million Rohingya. Just as they did when choosing to graciously receive the Rohingya genocide survivors, Bangladesh is a sovereign nation now taking action to address the complex problems in the camps.
Another win for national sovereignty
The 1648 the Peace of Westphalia ushered in the modern nation-state system in the west, and, ultimately, globally. One of its main tenants is that of national sovereignty, the idea that each nation-state is granted full control of its territory. Born as a solution to chronic wars, the emerging nation-state system slowly replaced an array of kingdoms, empires, and confederations.
Three hundred years later in 1948 the UN agreed upon the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with an emphasis on Humanity as a whole. Drafted by a distinguished international panel and approved by vote of the UN, this historic document remains the beginning point for most international human rights law.
In many ways I see the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a historic moral high water mark motivated by, among other factors, the collective human angst generated by the horrors of the Holocaust. It was as if we, as humanity, realized that our species had the ability to rise above Freud’s warning, that homo homini lupus, man is wolf to man. Freud was right in that our history is darkly marked by countless wars and by unending and unimaginably cruel treatment of the marginalized other. Yet over time various agreements, treaties, policies and laws have been enacted both within and between nations that have functioned to slowly but surely ‘bend the moral arc toward justice.’1 Collectively these sociopolitical structural changes have positively impacted social norms. Perhaps we are taming our inner wolf.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights had the potential of countering the ultimately toxic support of nationalism -and hence ethnocentrism and racism- embedded in the concept of Westphalian sovereignty. But it failed not the nations of the world but humanity itself, doing so by not confronting the inherent paradox that just as ‘man is wolf to man’ one nation is wolf to other nations. By not confronting the sacred cow of national sovereignty this document ultimately allows for what is happening just now in Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Myanmar has been accused of genocide and is being tried in the international courts. Though ample evidence exists that it acted and continues to act horribly toward religious and ethnic minorities, the best the international community can do is impotently shake its finger. Economic sanctions, as in other places around the world, make the lives of the poor worse but are no more than a nuisance to those in power. International Court of Justice (ICJ) and UN mandates and urgings have failed to bring justice to the Rohingya.
Myanmar is acting as a sovereign nation. Bangladesh is acting as a sovereign nation. Both are acting the way they are despite pressure from transnational entities like ASEAN and the UN and from many human rights and humanitarian organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Fortify Rights.
Let me point our quickly that though I join together the nations of Myanmar and Bangladesh in the example above, they are far, far apart in terms of the degree of egregiousness. Myanmar is overtly genocidal where Bangladesh, in the case of relocating refugees to Bhashan Char, merely taking a reasonable -if questionable- action.
Beyond the nation-state model?
Can there be a time when the needs of humanity override the rights of nations? Is it possible to add teeth to the ineffective rhetoric and action by actors like the UN and human rights organizations?
To be clear, I believe that nationalism is just thinly disguised ethnocentrism and that both, as Venn diagrams, overlap dangerously with racism and other forms of toxic othering.
Many have pointed out that in this age of globalization the nation-state system is little more than window dressing and that we have already gone back to a system of ‘kingdoms, empires, and confederations’, though this time more explicitly fed by money and power. These new entities are not really new. The heads on Hydra that is capitalism shape shift in name and form but remain the same in essence. The most powerful people in the world today are not the heads of state but rather corporate leaders and the super-rich.
There is reason for optimism. In many ways this shift is happening incrementally and is perhaps being accelerated by the climate change crisis we face as one planetary ecosystem, as one humanity. One notable example is the news from the city of Dayton, Ohio in the US. On December 30th the city leaders voted on the Dayton End Genocide Resolution, locally reported to be the world’s first municipal resolution condemning genocide and other crimes against humanity. This is one small but significant step in the right direction. I suspect the framers of this resolution know well about the genocide in Myanmar and the plight of the Rohingya.
In the short term, I believe, the best that we can do as individuals is to continually use our voices, our actions, and our votes to urge our leaders -national, international, and other important actors- to prioritize humanity over nation.2
I’ll close with reference to another social philosopher, perhaps even more misunderstood than Freud. In The Gay Science Friedrick Nietzsche refers to “We who are without Fatherlands”, and he critiques those who are nationalistic, who seek
“…to advocate nationalism and race hatred and to be able to take pleasure in the national scabies of the heart and blood poisoning that now leads the nations of Europe to delimit and barricade themselves against each other as if it were a matter of quarantine.”
To fully realize our potential as humanity -and that includes surviving the increasingly real global climate crisis- we must find a way to put humanity over nation and find ways to reverse the economic system’s tendency to pool wealth (and hence power) into fewer and fewer hands. That this paradigm shift must happen is obvious to many, but as in much of life the implementation step is tricky and difficult.
Back to Bhashan Char
I argue above that at base, the issues in Bangladesh and Myanmar have the same source, nationalistic motivations. The solution to many global problems is a call to reason, a call to recognize that nationalism frequently and toxically reverts to racism in various forms. Perhaps the global #BlackLivesMatter movement is humanity crying out, hoping to confront the social and economic forces that have served only to divide us.
1 Steven Pinker’s The Better Angel’s of Our Nature provides some good examples and arguments answering the question posed in his subtitle ‘Why Violence Has Declined’.
2 What I am leaving out here is that the dominant force of global neoliberalism makes the job of prioritizing humanity over the nation-state nearly impossible. We must aggressively challenge the assumption that neoliberal policies and practices are pro-Humanity. They are not.
Tom Arcaro is a professor of sociology at Elon University. He has been researching and studying the humanitarian aid and development ecosystem for nearly two decades and in 2016 published 'Aid Worker Voices'. He recently published his second and third books related to the humanitarians sector with 'Confronting Toxic Othering' published in 2021 and 'Dispatches from the Margins of the Humanitarian Sector' in 2022. A revised second edition of 'Confronting Toxic Othering' is now available from Kendall Hunt Publishers
“Humanitarian organizations are not free from politics.”
-Samual Lemma, humanitarian
Violating the humanitarian space in Ethiopia #notatarget
National humanitarians killed The recent violence in Ethiopia has led to the death of four humanitarians, three working with the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) and one for the International Rescue Committee (IRC). UN staff have been targeted as they attempted to reach those in need of humanitarian assistance in the hotly contested Tigray region. Cell phone and wifi access has been limited since November 4th when these services were cut off by the central government. Ethiopian leadership, based in the capital Addis Ababa, is pushing the narrative that this is an internal matter. The leaders are providing limited cooperation with both UN and INGO organizations.
This conflict has generated many IDPs and refugees, and among those impacted are Eritrean refugees in Tigray Regional State. The UN and the Agency for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA) are working to both gain information and provide support, though access seems limited at this time.
The underlying roots and current status of this conflict are complicated, involving the entire Horn of Africa. See here for an informative summary and explanatory video. After reports of Eritrean troops becoming involved, possible escalation of the conflict is raising international concern.
Historically, by a ratio of nearly ten to one, national aid workers are much more likely to be killed or wounded as compared to international staff, and this is apparent with these recent deaths. This is, in part, due to the fact that national humanitarians make up approximately 80% of the total work force in the sector. However defined, these workers are in ‘the field’, more often than not on the front lines of any humanitarian response, and hence in harms way more frequently.
One humanitarian’s view
Below is a conversation I had with an Ethiopian humanitarian Samual Lemma based in Addis Abada. Samual serves as a consultant to both national and international humanitarian organizations and has worked in the sector for most of his adult life.
What do you think the world would need to see about this right now? From a humanitarian worker perspective?
“According to my view, the current situation in Ethiopia is a type of battle between a once rebel group that struggled for disintegration of the country and came to power and led the country for almost 30 years, and Ethiopians. TPLF, a group of mafia, has killed many people in Ethiopia while they were in power. They also contributed for breaking away of Eritrea from Ethiopia, leading Ethiopia to become a landlocked country with large population size in the world.”
What can be done to bring peace?
“TPLF should be removed and labeled as ‘Terrorist Organization’. They killed many people. They are known as terrorists that led a country.”
How are the humanitarian organizations reacting to this war?
“It was difficult to access the region due to heavy shelling and war crimes targeting ethnic Amharas. TPLF has a history of using humanitarian aid to buy weapons while they were rebels. The 1984 famine helped them to get more money and weapons. International humanitarian organizations have supported TPLF in the past.
During the 1984 famine, most (80%) of affected people were under the control of the then government, but more than 50% of aid was provided to area controlled by TPLF. Having this experience, in 2004 the government led by TPLF refused to allow access to famine affected Ogaden area, where Somali people were affected by drought and famine. In this area there was a guerilla warfare organization called Ogaden Liberation Front. Humanitarian organizations are not free from politics.
Many people crossed Ethiopian border and moved to Sudan. Unlike, other humanitarian crisis, most of them are
young males that questions the humanitarian works. Ethiopian government is saying that these young males are the one who committed genocide and war crimes.”
Are humanitarian workers in mortal danger?
“There is news of the killings of four humanitarian workers due to the conflict between the government and the TPLF. There is continued danger for the humanitarian workers.”
What do you think should be the UN/international response to this conflict?
“I think, UN and other countries should not intervene in this case. Western and Arabian countries tried to interfere but government has sent a diplomacy mission and now they understood the situation. To be frank, I do not like the TPLF. They are renegade those betrayed Ethiopia. The rise and fall of this group is a shame.”
Are IDPs and refugees being created and how are humanitarian organizations responding?
“Yes, there are many IDPs most of them are ethnic Amharas. The Tigraians crossed border to Sudan as refugees but most of them are young males. The refugees in Sudan are being helped by UN. But the IDPs in Ethiopia are being helped by local residents.”
How are you personally handling this turn of events?
It is expected to have some economic and social impacts. During a time of unrest, consultancy works like the one I am involved decreases. Socially, we are very worried about our relatives, friends and other civilians in Tigray.”
How is the response to the COVID-19 being impacted by this conflict?
“Due to this conflict, the rate of testing Covid-19 has declined. Before, we used to have daily tests of above 10,000. But now it is below 5000, and the positive reported cases are more than 10% of the total tests.”
Observations about the humanitarian response in Ethiopia
Samual provides some good insights but his observations raise many questions, some of which have only unclear answers. One point he makes is that “humanitarian organizations are not free from politics.” True, that. Aid and development work has come under increasing scrutiny as inherently perpetuating neocolonial power structures. It is with distorted irony that I write this just 10 days away from the major Christian holiday of Christmas. It was in 1984 in reaction to the ongoing famine in Ethiopia that Band Aid recorded “Do They Know Its Christmas“, perhaps the most tone deaf and patronizing holiday song in history. That the some of the money raised by Band Aid was siphoned off by the TPLF to buy weapons is a cautionary note that remains unread by too many within the sector. We are again reminded of the fact that any aid, especially in a conflict zone, can and will be used to cause more harm. Indeed, “humanitarian organizations are not free from politics.”
That Abiy Ahmed wants to limit UN and INGO interference may be the right call. But even writing that sentence cuts at the core of what I believe to be the humanitarian imperative. How do you decide -as an individual or as an organization- when, if, and to whom to offer humanitarian assistance? As James Dawes puts it in That the World May Know,1 “How do we weigh the unforeseen and unforeseeable negative results of our humanitarian interventions.” I am reminded of the way one humanitarian described the sector in an interview. She offered the all-too-true cliche, ‘”you’re damned if you do and you’re damed if you don’t.”
The situation in Ethiopia is likely to get worse before it gets better. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed seems quite willing to use violence against his fellow citizens. I find it deflating that yet another2 Nobel Peace Prize winner -Abily won in 2019- has tarnished their award by fostering war.
1Dawes, James, That the World May Know: Bearing Witness to Atrocity, Harvard University Press, 2007.
2 I have watched, researched, and written about the genocide in Myanmar unfolding under the authority of the 1991 Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi. Her embrace of the Tatmadaw seems complete and grotesquely complicit.
Tom Arcaro is a professor of sociology at Elon University. He has been researching and studying the humanitarian aid and development ecosystem for nearly two decades and in 2016 published 'Aid Worker Voices'. He recently published his second and third books related to the humanitarians sector with 'Confronting Toxic Othering' published in 2021 and 'Dispatches from the Margins of the Humanitarian Sector' in 2022. A revised second edition of 'Confronting Toxic Othering' is now available from Kendall Hunt Publishers
“We aren’t born to float and drown/Nor to be refugees …”
-Ro Anamul Hasan, from his poem The Dead Island
Humanitarian questions about the relocation of Rohingya to Bhashan Char Island
In their own words
This report by Amnesty International, LET US SPEAK FOR OUR RIGHTS: HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION OF ROHINGYA REFUGEES IN BANGLADESH provides an excellent and up to date overview of the plight facing the Rohingya. In eight sections using first person accounts from Rohingya, both women and men tell detailed and compelling stories. The section titled “This is worse than prison” gives the accounts of Rohingya who were brought to Bhashan Char in May, 2020 having been turned away by Malaysian authorities after a traumatic months long sea journey. The title of this section (“This is worse than prison”) summarizes the feelings of those already on the Bhashan Char and foreshadows what is to come for the Rohingya who arrived on the island recently.
The Move to Bhashan Char Island
The Bangladeshi government’s plan to move Rohingya refugees to Bhashan Char Island has been unfolding for several years now. Just in the last several days boatloads of families have been moved from the sprawling refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar to this new island in the Bay of Bengal. The ultimate goal is to move 100,000 or more Rohingya to this ‘made to order’ refugee camp. See here for a detailed visual history of the island.
The future of those who are moved to Bhashan Char seems as tenuous as that of the island itself. The Rohingya goal of repatriation with full citizenship rights to their former villages in Myanmar seems not reachable given the current political situation and lack of effective pressure from the international community. Despite international pressure, the Rohingya remain unrecognized by the Myanmar government, who prefers to use the pejorative term ‘Bengali’ to refer to this ethnic group which has lived in Burma/Myanmar for many centuries. Once on Bhashan Char, no one knows what will happen either to the refugees or the island itself, especially in the coming monsoon and cyclone seasons.
A ‘char’ is by definition an unstable, shifting island, with Bhashan Char (literally ‘floating island’) emerging from the Bay of Bengal just 14 years ago, changing in size and shape as the years pass. Construction on the island began in March of 2017 with the building of a helipad.
In quick succession, roads were created and land cleared for what is now a large cluster of buildings. The Chinese construction company Sinohydro completed an 8 mile (13km) flood-defense embankment surrounding the encampment, and the 1440 closely packed red roof buildings cover several acres. Each building has communal toilets on one end, shared kitchen space on the opposite end, and sixteen 12×14 feet (3.7 x 4.3 m) shelters providing approximately 3.6 square meters in covered living area per person, just above the UN requirement of 3.5 square meters per person for emergency shelters.1
Resistance to the move
Resistance to the decision to relocate Rohingya refugees to Bhashan Char has been widespread, coming from Rohingya activists, human rights organizations, and the UN. The UN has maintained that those being relocated should be doing so by their own informed choice, but it appears that UN representatives have not been allowed access to the process by which families were chosen for relocation.
Reaction from the Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar has taken many forms, and tension in the camps is high both because of the recent movement to the island and due to worsening corruption and violence within the camps, much of which is related to actions taken by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). There is some speculation that the two events may be related.
In a recent online conversation with one Rohingya I was told,
“They [the families that chose to relocate] were badly persecuted by the members of ARSA for no specific reason and their minds were changed to move from the camp to their secure lives. Also the government of Bangladesh gave 5000 taka per person [approx. $60USD] to those who chose to move to the island.”
Commenting on the situation from a more general perspective another young Rohingya said,
“For days now there has been continuous reporting on the fate of the Rohingya and I’m slowly wondering that what deeper meaning is behind it? Should the Burma be prepared so that the federal [Myanmar] government might already have the great idea of wanting to accept Rohingya for humanitarian reasons?”
I have been fortunate to communicate with and write about many Rohingya who express themselves through poetry. Please read above the work “The Dead Island” by my collaborator and poet Ro Anamul Hasan. His words capture the confusion, anger, angst, and the frustrating feeling of hopelessness that can dominate the minds of even the most resilient and articulate refugees. He says, in part, “We are driven out of our homeland/Now being sent to fear and uncertainty.” There is little mystery why relocation to Bhashan Char is controversial within the Rohingya community.
A humanitarian crisis
The issues in Cox’s Bazar are many and all add up to a massive, chronic, and purely human-made humanitarian crisis. Those working for the UN and other humanitarian INGOs based in Cox’s Bazar face a challenging situation. Staff from IOM, DRC, MSF and others must balance realities of local and national Bangladeshi politics with the needs of the Rohingya refugees who exist as guests in a nation not their own but feel they are treated as prisoners. The
Rohingya refugees arriving at Bhashan Char Photo from Bloomberg.
social and cultural realities of camp life include, sadly, all of the social ills that beset all cultures across the globe: drug abuse, gangs, corruption, SGBV, and, insult upon insult, the spread of COVID-19 within the camps. And now humanitarians and the refugees themselves must handle this additional stressor -the tension around who will be relocated to Bhashan Char. That the Bangladeshi government has not fully involved the UN and other organizations is a clear point of stress.
Bangladesh, a densely populated and poor nation, has had to absorb Rohingya refugees for decades, with a huge flood coming in the wake of genocidal actions by the Myanmar government and military in August 2017. Their way forward includes exploring all options, and when Bhashan Char emerged from the sea, easing the crowding in Cox’s Bazar through relocation of Rohingya refugees presented an additional, albeit controversial, option.
A better life?
I wonder what stories will come from Bhashan Char now that the first big wave of Rohingya have been resettled to this ‘floating island’. And then I ask, who will listen to these stories and what will come of what is learned? On a personal level I question my efforts to amplify the Rohingya voices I hear over FaceBook and WhatsApp. At the end of the day I am left with few answers. Will those relocated have a better life on Bhashan Char, and compared to what?
There are two things in which I do have firm confidence. First, the humanitarians working in Cox’s Bazar will give full measure each day as they do their jobs, and that organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Fortify Rights will continue their advocacy of the Rohingya. Secondly, I have faith that the many Rohingya who work daily in the camps to create a better life for themselves and their community will not waver in their efforts and will continue to meet every challenge.
If you have questions, comments, or feedback you can contact me at arcaro@elon.edu.
Tom Arcaro is a professor of sociology at Elon University. He has been researching and studying the humanitarian aid and development ecosystem for nearly two decades and in 2016 published 'Aid Worker Voices'. He recently published his second and third books related to the humanitarians sector with 'Confronting Toxic Othering' published in 2021 and 'Dispatches from the Margins of the Humanitarian Sector' in 2022. A revised second edition of 'Confronting Toxic Othering' is now available from Kendall Hunt Publishers
“Listening is very important and then understanding the messages that come out of that.”
Heba, a humanitarian workers from Jordan
International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women
The United Nations has designated November 25th as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. In this age of COVID-19, the UN calls gender based violence (GBV) the “Shadow Pandemic”. Though gender based violence is as old as humanity, change can happen through actions -big and small- at both the personal and organizational level.
I have talked with humanitarians in various places around the world and each has observed this distressing pattern. As the coronavirus pandemic worsens, so does GBV.
Zooming in to Kurdistan
I was honored to contribute today to a Zoom conference jointly organized by the Kurdish Regional Government, the Ministry of Culture, and the Youth Department of Gender Equity. Along with one of my students, Megan Casner, I presented in a session addressing the topic “Violence via Social Media.”
As part of our preparation I reached out to a my Rohingya contacts. Listen to the words of one young Rohingya woman.
“I am a Rohingya refugee living in Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh. After fleeing to Bangladesh in 2017, gender based violence, domestic violence, child marriage, forced marriage, abortion, physical violence, divorce cases and traffickings have increased in refugee camp.
As you know, we are living in over crowded shelters. We have to share a bathroom and a latrine with five to ten families. There are male and female separate bathrooms and latrines but women and girls are not safe at night. They often experience sexual abuses, molestation and verbal abuses while going to latrines.
Most of the women and girls shy to speak out about their assaults and the cycle of violence continues. Rohingya women and girls who work at NGOs and INGOs often face verbal abuses, bullying and mocking in the streets from fellow Rohingya men. Community members also criticize them for working outdoors.
Shelters are very close to each other, and girls are not safe. So many parents arrange early marriage of their daughters to save their dignity. Most of the parents don’t ask the will of daughters. They don’t think it is important although young women have the right to get married ‘only with their free and full consent according to Islam’. Even this right is being violated. According to Islam, dowry is ‘haram’, illegal, but dowry system became a tradition in Rohingya society. There are many parents who can’t manage to pay dowry for their daughters. These kind of girls marry married men. Men are marrying two or three wives and domestic violence and divorce cases increase. Some girls choose to go to other countries. In this way, they get into traffickers hands where they have to face sexual abuses.
It is a sad reality that many parents think girls need not to be educated and girls are not allowed to go out to work. Girls lose their rights to education. They are dependent and only housewives. They don’t have any knowledge about their rights. They silently face all kinds of abuses.
There are GBV spaces in every block, and they raise awareness about GBV. But this is not enough. It is important to have further training and raising awareness of UNHCR staff regarding SGBV, gender inequality and discrimination and to develop close cooperation with governments and different organizations to improve prevention and response to SGBV. The most important thing is that there should be a legal team who will help the victims and give them protection.
Girls should be given a special priority to education. In the case of sexual assault, it is important to react properly and enable access to justice, legal remedies and reparation. It is very serious issue. Women and girls must be saved from cruel, inhuman and degrading gender based violence. Rohingya women are vulnerable, helpless and voiceless. So please raise your voice to end this assaults. Thank you.”
Tom Arcaro is a professor of sociology at Elon University. He has been researching and studying the humanitarian aid and development ecosystem for nearly two decades and in 2016 published 'Aid Worker Voices'. He recently published his second and third books related to the humanitarians sector with 'Confronting Toxic Othering' published in 2021 and 'Dispatches from the Margins of the Humanitarian Sector' in 2022. A revised second edition of 'Confronting Toxic Othering' is now available from Kendall Hunt Publishers
Pan Thar’s “Life tale of a Rohingyan Soul” was recently featured on Litlight.
“I communicate and work with many Rohingya poets and poetesses who are writing poetry for various platforms. Our writing makes us not only feel glad but also to be proud of our activism for our community. Our pens are our guns. Our words are our bullets. Our ink is our activism.”
-Pan Thar, Rohingya poet
Bringing two worlds together
Par Thar, Rohingya poet
In the past 18 months I have been in contact with many young Rohingya men and women now living in the world’s largest refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Most are victims of genocidal persecution from the Myanmar government and military, fleeing along with over 700,000 other Rohingya to Bangladesh in August of 2017. I have written many posts about what I have called ‘refugee humanitarians‘ and have kept up with the lives of
most via social media. I continue learning about the human rights struggles of the Rohingya and am following the genocide case against the Myanmar government now being examined by the International Court of Justice.
Refugee camp life is hard, and there are many pressures to succumb to the negative forces swirling about the narrow pathways between the bamboo and plastic sheeting houses. Many Rohingya women and men demonstrate great resolve and strength, daily fighting those forces. For every act of violence in the camps there are hundreds of actions, both big and small, which never make the news. I have been privileged to meet (virtually) many kind, compassionate, and brave Rohingya souls. Meet Pan Thar, one shining light among many.
Last week I noticed a Facebook post highlighting a poem recently published in the Art Garden of the Rohingya by a young man named Pan Thar. I commented on the poem, mentioning that I would talk about it to my university sociology classes. The poem addressed self identity and the need to be in control of one’s destiny, both topics we have examined.
Via Facebook Messenger, we talked. Below is part of the discussions we’ve had.
Here is what he wrote describing himself:
“I, Pan Thar am a Rohingya youth student, Humanitarian Aid-Worker, Photographer and budding writer (poet) of the present generation and writing is my passion. Faced by racism I was born to Rohingya parents in Maungdaw, Northern Rakhine State (also popularly knows as Arakan State), Myanmar where most of the Rohingya people live. My Rohingya community was facing violence, discrimination and civil-war for decades. I want to be one of the most educated people in the world to create peace and harmony for the entire world.”
I learned from Pan that he has written over 250 poems since he started putting pen to paper in 2018. Many of his poems have been published in on line sites such as The Art Garden of the Rohingya, Litlight, Speaking Heart, Arthut, and Namaste Ink. Though he has published under various pseudonyms, he now “strongly admits it is me, Pan Thar.”
Pan Thar is his newest pen name, based on his home village in Myanmar.
I asked, ‘How do you find the time and energy to write your poems?’
“When I get free from my work, I love to spend my time by compossing poems and stories to express and let the world know, how we, Rohingya are surviving in the world largest refugee camp of Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh and also how much we were tortured by the Burmese government. I’m a genocide survivor and non-citizen of in this darkness world. So, I do not get such an opportunity to hold computer and smart phone freely but I write my poems and stories by pen into paper.”
How important to you is it that your words are read and heard? What does not mean to you to be published?
“Being a persecuted people, it is very important to me to read and hear my voice get out all over the world. If not so publish my words to the world, they would not know how much I was tortured in my birthplace and [experiencing] suffering in camp yet.”
Have you worked for any INGO humanitarian organizations like IRC, MSF or DRC? If so, can you tell me about that work?
“I work as a volunteer, as a Community Health Worker (CHW) under the UN Organization called Food for the Hungry and also Medical Teams International (FH & MTI) by day and I teach History at the Free School For Rohingya Community (FSRC) by night. Both are my professions to help my community to improve and show their talents for the entire world. I choose this both work to help my people who didn’t get enough health care and proper education. When I work in the field to improve my community for their health care, I seek to change their negative mind for a better understanding what people must need to change and to improve the entire world day by day. When I’m in the class to teach our historical book, my younger generation don’t know how we need to note and we forget what we faced genocidal operation in our birthplace and for what but I teach them again and again to remember what we need to change our world.”
He goes on,
“The project of Joint Rohingya Respond Program (JRRP) was organized by Food for the Hungry and Medical Teams International (FH & MTI) to help the most vulnerable Rohingya people.
One my ambitions was to become a doctor to cure my people but [I am] unable because my brutal government don’t give us [the opportunity] to study. However, today, I can help other Rohingya through the organization for their health. In this pandemic situation, we want to add more information, there are still misconceptions and misunderstandings about mentally in our society.
What are your thoughts about your repatriation? Can it happen?
“We are so greatful to the Bangladesh government for saving hundreds of thousands of souls from the danger but we all want to go back home to our birthplace, Myanmar. But we must work to get our human rights. A Bangali poet says, ‘Born anywhere is a citizen of everywhere. This universe is ours.’ So, repatriation must be possible for me and my people who are inCox’s Bazar Refugee Camp if we get our all human rights. If not so, I’m far away from it.”
How close are you to the other poets in the camps? Do you work with them?
“I communicate and work with many Rohingya poets and poetesses who are writing poetry for different platforms. Our writing make us not only feel happy, but also to be proud of our activism for our community. Our pens are our guns. Our words are our bullets. Our inks are our activism.
How are you dealing with the corona virus? Are the big NGO organizations doing a good job?
“Here in the refugee camp, all the shelters are near to each other and it is crowded here. So, it is hard for us to maintain distance from each other but we are doing our best. And because of the lock down, it is also hard for us to go outside to buy things. All the NGOs are working their best to protect us from corona by providing masks and soaps, doing sessions on social distance and how to be safe. They also built isolation treatment center for the suspected corona virus patients.
What family do you have? How do they feel about your poetry activities?
“I was born to a poor family who was always eager to be educated. My beloved parents are Mr. Mohammed Younus (High School Teacher) and Mrs. Hafsa Bibi (Private Teacher) who are encouraging me to learn more and more about this darkness world. They always feel proud with me for being a poet and also are encouraging me to fight for our rights through poetry.”
Trading classroom visits
I read the Pan’s poem “I Am Rohingya” to my class on Thursday and then Friday morning (here in US) Pan invited me to meet his class via FaceTime. I joined his class briefly and said hello to his students. He and I talked about education and teaching. Pan and are are similar in that we are both teachers and learners, and I asked him if he had a message for my class. Here is what he wrote [edited per his request]:
“Dear Sir, Dr. Tom Arcaro, A hug thanks to you for keeping my writings to your mind and also sharing with your class. Today, I’m here to tell to the people of all over the world to focus to education. Being a minority people of Arakan, I was denied all my dignity and rights but I’m here to show what I have is in front of you as a little education. I strongly believe that if I have education, I can change the entire world. A popular saying that ‘Success isn’t depend how much money you have or how much qualified you are. It is all about believing on yourself’.
FaceTime visit to Pan’s class.
Education is the driver of your life. Be an educated people. I love to share my word to my people of all over the world ‘Life is never easy. So, never be over stressed. Just be strong and focus on what you have.’
Never stop learning. Education contributes to each child’s total growth and development. Be united for education to change our world. If we do hard work for a better plan, we will achieve our goal.
So, finally I would love to tell that I’m greatful to you for delivering my message to the global people and also the last message is “EDUCATION IS OUR SOLUTION”. So, Be an Educated people. Be an Educated People. Be an Educated People.
Yours Sincerely,
Pan Thar
Here is a view of the sprawling camp in Cox’s Bazar (linked with permission of owner).
A call to witness I have been trusted by many Rohingya to hear and then sometimes share parts of their story. That said, I am a witness to an ongoing genocide. My incomplete and very humble response to what I witness is to constantly seek to learn more so that when I do have the opportunity to amplify voices I do so with fidelity to the truth and with all the grace I can muster.
I am reminded of the words of James Dawes. In That the World May Know he notes, “…giving voice can also be a matter of taking voice.” He goes on, “This contradiction between our impulse to heed trauma’s cry for representation and our instinct to protect it from representation –from invasive staring, simplification, dissection – is a split at the heart of human rights advocacy.” Indeed.
Please contact me here (arcaro@elon.edu) if you have questions, comments, or feedback.
Post Script I learned this morning that Pan Thar co-authored a poem that was chosen by the Art Garden of the Rohingya as one of the top 5 poems in English they published in October. Congratulations to all!
Tom Arcaro is a professor of sociology at Elon University. He has been researching and studying the humanitarian aid and development ecosystem for nearly two decades and in 2016 published 'Aid Worker Voices'. He recently published his second and third books related to the humanitarians sector with 'Confronting Toxic Othering' published in 2021 and 'Dispatches from the Margins of the Humanitarian Sector' in 2022. A revised second edition of 'Confronting Toxic Othering' is now available from Kendall Hunt Publishers
An example of humanitarian support from a small NGO
Prologue
This essay is a continuation of my ruminations about the humanitarian imperative, the edges of the humanitarian ecosystem, bending the moral arc of the universe toward justice, and basic human nature. It is mostly about a small act motivated by humanitarian concern and involving what I consider to be an array of everyday heroes.
Michael Kojo Orleans
Michael Orleans is a young tour company operator in Cape Coast Ghana. I met Michael 21 years ago in 1999 on a university organized faculty tour of Ghana. We had an immediate connection, and continued regular communication over the years; we have developed a close mentor-mentee relationship. Each of us has always felt strongly about our civic duties, and we have worked together on almost a dozen community outreach events in the last 15 years, all in response to Michael’s knowledge of and sense of duty to his community and his ability to listen to those marginalized. About five years ago we started the Torch Foundation as the philanthropic branch of his tour company Torch Light Tours. This statement is on the website front page:
“The name ‘Torch Light Tours’ has a story behind it. The torch flame that we pass on represents the incandescent passion we have for Ghana and for giving back to our land and leaving indelible, positive footprints in the communities we visit. Our goal with every tour is that our flame will be passed on to our guests and that they in turn pass the flame on to others, creating a world full of passion for Ghana and all of Africa. A portion of all tour proceeds directly benefits children and families of Ghana.”
Michael and I had many talks about the impact of COVID-19 on both sides of the Atlantic. He was concerned about me in the US, a global hotspot for coronavirus still not yet flattening the curve in many states -North Carolina (where I live) included. I lamented the devastation to the tourism industry in Ghana, hurting Michael’s company. We both agreed though, that is was those already on the margins who were hurting the most.
Support requested for Metro
Just over a month ago Michael was contacted by a nurse from the Cape Coast Metropolitan Hospital asking for support. Built in 1938, Metro is one of the oldest hospitals in Ghana and is responsible for the the COVID-19 response in the Central Region. I wrote this blog post after Michael connected me to some staff at Metro Hospital and there you can find more background information. Michael contacted me and some of his other supporters about this request, and he and I again continued conversations we have had over the years about sustainable development.
For my part I have written about typically small MONGOs (My Own NGO) and know how, in general, they are viewed by those in the mainstream of the humanitarian sector. In short, we agreed that a one time donation to Metro would be a nice gesture, but would have no long lasting impacts. We decided that to make this fundraising effort have a larger, longer impact we needed to get the media involved. Micheal used his network of contacts to make this happen, with our assumption being that by highlighting the high impact of this hospital has in the community and the needs it has we might get the attention of those in government who have the power to make decisions benefiting Metro. Michael also talked with the administrative staff at Metro, asking what their needs were. We knew that cash was the best gift and that hospital staff would be able to best decide how to prioritize its use.
Delivery
Over the last several weeks Michael organized the fundraiser and on July 16 the outreach took place with the Medical Superintendent of the hospital, Dr Derek Acheampong Bonsu, accepting the donations on behalf of the hospital. Happily, the media was present and interviewed both Michael and Dr. Bonsu, and there were at least three outlets that ran the story. The outlet with perhaps the widest reach was My Joy Media which is listened to and read on line all over Ghana.
“A travel and tours company based in Cape Coast, Torch Light Tours is making a passionate appeal to government to help fix the infrastructural defects at the Cape Coast Metro Hospital.
Built in 1938, the facility which is one of the Covid-19 centres in the Central Region needs major rehabilitation works due damage caused medical equipment and the infrastructure by the sea breeze.”
Michael Orleans and Dr. Bonsu at Metropolitan Hospital in Cape Coast, Ghana
Stories from other major outlets:
Here is the online article from Yarquah 1 on 1 written by Nana Yarquah titled ‘COVID 19: Touch Light Tours donate to Cape Coast Metropolitan Hospital.’
Impact?
Only time will tell if the media attention generated by the donation from Torch Light Tours/Torch Foundation will get meaningful action from the Ghanian government. Those that have responded to Michael’s social media posts about the event seem optimistic.
In the short term, though, staff and patients at Metro were asked about the donation. Registered General Nurse Anastasia Ankomah is hopeful Metro Hospital will get a face lift and be able to continue delivering quality health care. She was specific about the need for both material and human resources, hoping that in these difficult moments and adversities, this media attention could serve as an opportune moment to get the hospital back on track. This she asserts is both the responsibility of government and importantly the society to help the hospital. She believes the hospital has given so much to the society and it is time the society gives back to the hospital.
Head nurse at the surgery theater Rebecca Darkwa is also hopeful and optimistic that things will get better, but she noted there are some basic measures that should be put in place. She is of the view that though the hospital is doing great with its limited resources, in the near and far future the hospital will be able to improve on its health delivery. She believes the media attention the hospital has received in these difficult moments highlights the hospitals ability to take care of the Covid patients while at the same time going on with its usual routine health delivery.
One patient expressed her excitement with having the new TV in her COVID-19 ward. To her it’s key to their recovery. She said “watching the TV at times makes one forget he or she is sick, it takes my mind off the environment a bit and helps clear the head”.
Here’s what Nicholas Nyantakyi, an anesthetist at Metro Hospital had to say,
“Well these [dealing with COVID-19] are difficult times, turbulent moments. What keeps us going, what keeps humanity sane, what I believe is urging us on is that we are all hopeful. We cannot lose sight of being hopeful, because if we do that will be the moment we give up on our existence. In these difficult moments we are hopeful that it [this donation and the media attention] could be pivotal for addressing some if not all the
Nicholas Nyantakyi, anesthetist at Cape Coast Metro Hospital
discrepancies in society, including our hospital that has given so much to the society.”
This moment of giving, of civic engagement organized by Michael was not his first nor likely be his last. We remain hopeful that actions like these are ‘moving the needle‘ in a positive direction.
Everyday heroes
There are well over 10 million NGOs globally with the US having the most, but a large number in virtually every nation on the globe, including Ghana with at least 200 non-governmental organizations. Many are small charities or advocacy organizations with a very local and specific mission and impact like the Torch Foundation, too small to make most official registries.
In the US alone an estimated $410 billion is donated to charitable organizations every year, with global giving many times that number. In context, the humanitarian sector spends about $20 billion per year delivering critical, life saving aid to those affected by natural and human-made disasters. Though at the margins of the humanitarian sector, NGOs have a huge impact.
The term ‘hero’ is elusive to define, but I do know that heroic acts are not ‘one offs’ but rather long series of actions, a way of being in the world characterized by a deep commitment to justice, brother/sisterhood, and a devotion to the cause of dignity for all.
Front line medical professions Dr. Bonsu, nurses Ankomah and Darkwa, and my new friend Mr. Nyantakyi are heroes. My old friend and mentee Michael is a hero. Not just because of this most recent act of community kindness but rather for a lifetime of partnership with those in need. They are exemplary individuals, responding to the humanitarian imperative as defined by the ICRC (International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement), Code of Conduct, as “the right to receive humanitarian assistance, and to offer it”.
Human nature
My view of human nature is based on a ‘nature and nurture’ assumption. Through the interaction between our evolved basic wiring and our complex and ongoing socialization/cultural learning influences, we engage in a lifelong behavioral dance, with some of our actions more clearly influenced by our basic evolutionary tendencies than others. The anthropologist Miles Richardson said it best in his essay ‘Culture and the Struggle to be Human’ He noted,
“Instead of culture being a set of rules that guide our behavior, culture is that which we, both as anthropologists and as ordinary humans, create to give meaning to our behavior. Rather than thinking and then proceeding to act; we act and then proceed to explain.”
Though variously defined, we have found intelligence to be distributed in a population along a normal ‘bell shaped’ curve. Most people are within one standard deviation of the norm, with some on either extreme. Similarly, I feel that the ability to embrace the humanitarian imperative is also spread along a similar curve. Some people are one or two standard deviation’s away from the norm on the positive side, naturally very empathetic and thus responsive to the humanitarian imperative, and a number of people on the opposite side of the continuum who are naturally repulsed by the idea of our shared humanity, i.e., some people are inherently selfish, narcissistic, and non-empathetic.
Examples of those on the positive side of the curve are the heroes I mentioned above. The key to bending the moral arc of the universe toward justice is creating cultural, legal, and normative systems where pathways to power and influence are created and sustained for those who are on the positive side of this continuum and, alternately, pathways to power and influence our inhibited for those who are inherently narcissistic. We need to resist and reverse the glorification and normalization of gluttony, greed and narcissism in our cultures. This magnitude of social change is necessary to confront what I have called the Hydra of privileging forces.
As always, please contact me at arcaro@elon.edu with questions, comments, our feedback.
Tom Arcaro is a professor of sociology at Elon University. He has been researching and studying the humanitarian aid and development ecosystem for nearly two decades and in 2016 published 'Aid Worker Voices'. He recently published his second and third books related to the humanitarians sector with 'Confronting Toxic Othering' published in 2021 and 'Dispatches from the Margins of the Humanitarian Sector' in 2022. A revised second edition of 'Confronting Toxic Othering' is now available from Kendall Hunt Publishers
Critically important for every 1 in 7 people on Earth
A very high percentage of refugees and immigrants now living in the minority world (aka ‘Global North’) regularly send money back ‘home’ to family and friends they left behind. These funds, typically in small amounts and sent every month, are mostly used for health care, living expenses, school fees, and other necessities. The term for this transfer of funds is ‘remittances’.
I make a point of defining this term because in conversations with both my students and with even generally well informed friends and colleagues I have found that they know little to nothing about the fact that remittances exist and, more importantly, how critical they are to the alleviation of poverty in the developing world.
Here are a few relevant data points about remittances.
According to the World Bank in 2019 over 200 million migrants transferred remittances totaling over $612 billion, with more than $440 billion being sent to developing nations. To put this in context, in 2019 the total amount of development aid being sent by ‘rich’ nations to the developing world was just over $150 billion. Remittances account for more than three time as much as traditional development aid funds sent by nations like the US and the UK.
(See illustration above.)
According to the UN, over 1 billion people on the planet -one in every seven people in the global population- are either sending (200 million) or receiving (800 million) remittances, and over half of the funs that are sent go directly to rural areas of the world. Recognized as contributing to several of the goals set in the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, June 16 has been set by the UN as International Day of Family Remittances.
For the most part, the aid we and other nations send to the developing world is a humanitarian act, meant to confront both the consequences and the causes of poverty, but research makes clear that remittances have a much higher positive impact than direct aid on poverty in the developing world.
Making remittances is the ultimate fulfilling of the humanitarian imperative
This flow of remittances around the world represents the best of humanity, families broken apart continuing to help those left behind. The act of sending $50 or $100 a month from an already anemic budget to assist mothers, brothers, cousins, and family friends is the marginalized helping the marginalized, a clear expression of the humanitarian imperative. In the Code of Conduct for the ICRC (International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement), the humanitarian imperative is defined as a fundamental humanitarian principle, “the right to receive humanitarian assistance, and to offer it”. Though not organized or coordinated on any significant level, those giving and receiving remittances can be viewed as part of the humanitarian/development ecosystem.
Here is what Jennifer Foy, Vice President for World Relief, a US based international humanitarian INGO, had to say about remittances,
“The vast majority of refugees send back remittances. I would estimate 80 to 90 percent that have family overseas that they’re close to especially those with family in camps or displaced in cities send money back home. It’s [sending remittances] a big part of their life and a big motivator for them to work. They come hereand are are continuing to sustain friends and family back in their communities of origin.
I asked Jennifer what the refugees got from making these sacrifices. She said,
“It’s peace of mind; it’s knowing that their family is taken care of. In some cases helping their family survive long enough to join them here. Immigrants and refugees sending back remittances embody the humanitarian imperative.”
Indeed, relocated refugees are both ‘recipients and givers of humanitarian assistance.’
Coronavirus pandemic impact on on remittances According to the Pew Research Center analysis of World Bank data, the coronavirus pandemic is beginning to cause massive long-term economic upheaval, constituting a major humanitarian crisis. Nations, already suffering from both natural and human made disasters are made even more precarious by this sudden and catastrophic economic disaster.
Here’s how Jennifer from World Relief described the impact on the immigrant population here in the US,
“Immigrants tend to be the first ones laid off in many cases because they are in the entry level jobs. So when the factory shuts down, the restaurant shuts down, the people who tend to be affected at such a high rate will be the immigrant population.
But I have no doubt they can survive. They do amazing things and still send money overseas. But it’s going to be hard in that are going to have to make choices between ‘do we have 3 meals a day here or do we have one or 2 meals a day in our house but still send money so Gramma can eat back home’. They’re going to put pressure on themselves to continue to support and make the sacrifices to be able to continue that support.”
The coronavirus pandemic will have many negative and long-lasting impacts, and the significant decline in remittance flow will put many already on the margins at further risk. Given that donor flow is connected to overall global economic health, this recession slows this essential failsafe for many. The humanitarian ecosystem is responding aggressively and proactively to this pandemic, and the best new can hope is that the aphorism ‘necessity of the mother of invention’ will make the sector smarter.
Added note: See here for a quick look at the impact of coronavirus on remittances.
As always, please email any comments or feedback to arcaro@elon.edu. Go here for more views from Jennifer Foy.
Tom Arcaro is a professor of sociology at Elon University. He has been researching and studying the humanitarian aid and development ecosystem for nearly two decades and in 2016 published 'Aid Worker Voices'. He recently published his second and third books related to the humanitarians sector with 'Confronting Toxic Othering' published in 2021 and 'Dispatches from the Margins of the Humanitarian Sector' in 2022. A revised second edition of 'Confronting Toxic Othering' is now available from Kendall Hunt Publishers
Overview
Below I expand on previous posts related to the humanitarian imperative, the ‘privileging forces’ Hydra, and the quest for global social justice. Studying and engaging with humanitarians all over the world has provided me with a broad base of insights, and I especially thank those from the majority world (aka Global South) who have so patiently offered me their thoughts, feelings, and opinions.
The recent reemergence of a surprisingly inclusive #BlackLivesMatter movement both here in the US and around the world has many talking frankly about systemic racism and toxic white nationalism, and these conversations have generated action. One perhaps not insignificant example of change is the fact that NASCAR, the auto racing organization most popular in the US Southeast has recently banned confederate flags at sanctioned events. These flags have long been a racist symbol and commonly found in abundance at NASCAR races. This change was initiated by one Black driver and then embraced by the policy makers in NASCAR. A second and related example is that Mississippi appears to be on the verge of changing its long divisive flag, deleting the confederate flag embedded in the upper corner.
Within the humanitarian sector there are #BlackLIvesMatter conversations being held. Here is the statement by MSF-USA describing racism as a public health crisis. MSF International’s position is similar, admitting that the organization had ‘failed to tackle institutional racism’, but noting that, “We get a lot of ‘all lives matter’ reaction from colleagues from different parts of the world. … Context is everything.” The deep intersectionality between racism and colonialism embedded within the humanitarian sector needs very close scrutiny and eventually aggressive action at every level, especially within the UN organizations and ‘big box’ INGO’s like World Vision, OXFAM and others. The seriousness and scale of this self examination and policy change must be even more progressive and soul-searching that was done in reaction to the OXFAM (and others) #MeToo crisis.
The Hydra
Last October [2019] I attended the ALNAP conference in Berlin, a mixed gathering of humanitarian practitioners and academics like myself who have studied and commented on the humanitarian ecosystem. There I used the metaphor of the mythical Hydra, a multi-headed monster, to talk about how all of the privileging forces that serve to oppress those marginalized all over the globe, almost always the object of humanitarian actions. The underlying fuel to keep the Hydra alive and active is the toxic and pervasive process of othering which inevitably leads quickly from differentiation (A ≠ B) to stratification (A ≠ B therefore A > B) and using any power asymmetry to justify the ‘isms’.
Many are now learning both old and new lessons about how deeply racism is baked into the US (and global) culture, and most are seeking ways to directly and productively join the movement toward true racial justice. JLove Calderon and Tim Wise offer this statement in an article titled, “Code of Ethics for White Anti-Racists”
“We are persons classified as white in this society. As aspiring anti-racist allies/collaborators, we seek to work with people of color (and follow their leadership) to create real multiracial democracy. We do not fight racism on behalf of people of color, or as an act of charity. We oppose white supremacy because it is an unjust system, and we believe in the moral obligation to resist injustice.”
This statement, all of it, spoke to me, and I immediately related it to the lessons I have been learning while listening to humanitarians from the majority world. Without using the phrase, they critique the ‘white savior complex’ and voice support for a humanitarian perspective. Read here what some of the respondents said on our survey of humanitarians from the majority world and for further observations about the ‘white savior complex.’
Over 30 years ago Kimberle Crenshaw presented us with the conceptual tool of intersectionality. In this 2017 interview she reflects,
“Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects.”
So, with deep gratitude to Calderon and Wise, I offer here a “Code of Ethics for Privileged Anti-Othering Persons”, addressing all seven heads off the Hydra.
We are persons classified as privileged in our global society. As aspiring anti-patriarcal, anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-hetero/cisnormativity, anti-classist, anti-ablist, and anti-ageist allies/collaborators, we seek to work with people differently privileged (and to follow their leadership) in order to create a more just world where all humans have pathways to dignity. We do not fight these privileging forces on behalf of those marginalized, or as an act of charity. We oppose privileging forces because they create unjust systems, and we believe in the moral obligation to resist injustice.
The fact that these privileging forces are woven deeply into the fabric of all modern global cultures and that they ‘interlock and intersect’ with each other makes confronting them difficult. Like a cancer, these privileging forces infect all institutions of the social system, none are sparred. Religion. Education. Sport and leisure. The economy. Family. Government. Military. Media. Entertainment. All are infected, and all, again, ‘interlock and intersect’ to synergistically and effectively maintain structures of marginalization and oppression. All must be seen as mutually interdependent. In addition, the economic determinists will point out that an amoral -and hence, I argue, immoral global capitalism works synergistically with the heads and the othering body of the Hydra.
Embracing a “Code of Ethics for Privileged Anti-Othering Persons” means understanding that one simultaneously may be privileged and marginalized. For example a queer Black male from the minority world, aka Global North, enjoys male and Global North privilege while enduing heternormativity and racism. Privilege always depends upon the social context currently inhabited and can change even moment to moment.
Humanitarian imperative and bending the arc For me, the humanitarian imperative begins with the assumption that all human lives have equal value, and every human deserves a life marked by dignity and access to basic human rights. Those who commit to humanitarian values must aggressively fight all of the systemic ‘isms’ represented by the heads of the Hydra. Cutting off one head is not only futile but impossible; as per the myth of the Hydra it will only come back as two. Hence the body of the Hydra, fed by toxic othering, must be the focus of our attacks. That means a comprehensive and coordinated effort to address all systemic misuse of power certainly by individuals but even more importantly by institutions wielding power, clearly including the humanitarian sector itself. Ultimately, since human nature -albeit the the darker parts- produced the Hydra, the Hydra must be tamed and transformed, not killed.
In previous posts I have used the language and imagery of defeating the Hydra, not by lopping off each head but rather by fataly attacking the Hydra’s body. Defeating the body, the toxic engine supporting and perpetuating each of the heads, seemed a logical action point. Upon reflection, I must admit that my manner of framing the solution –
killing the Hydra- was perhaps yet another example of toxic masculinity emerging from my imagination. Taming rather than killing reflects perhaps a more feminist -and humane- approach. Indeed, I would have done well reading more by and about bell hooks (and others) who articulated long ago the a feminist model of conflict resolution which advocates the “…deconstruction of unequal power relationships in societal structures.”
Not only is taming the better goal it is, looking more closely, the only way forward that pays attention to the fundamental fact that we cannot ‘change human nature.’ The evolutionary psychologist will tell us that how our brain works is, in large part, based on our evolutionary history and that our basic emotions are deeply wired into our brains, specifically located in the limbic system. We can’t eliminate fear, a basic emotion, but we can, as President Kennedy argued, work toward a gradual evolution of human institutions.
My previous thinking was wrong, misleading, and borderline mysognistic. Taming, not killing the Hydra must be our goal.
Another shortcoming in my previous thoughts on the Hydra was too little attention to what it means to ‘deconstruct unequal power relationships.’ Bending the moral arc toward justice means identifying and then reversing all instances where hatred and fear have been encoded into norms, policies, and laws on all levels, locally, nationally, and internationally. This includes, of course, all of the organizations and bureaucracies in which we learn and work. This work demand a close reading of [all] local, national and global history sometimes made difficult by racist resistance. The 1619 Project is a good model for a deeper examination of how racism has permeated US history.
Though our illustration above implies otherwise, some heads of the Hydra might well be seen as far more important than others. To wit, racism impacts most of the people on this planet, and thus must be confronted with full measure of effort. That said, the fight against systemic racism need be anchored in rooting out power misuse allowing for all forms of toxic othering.
How can this be accomplished by an underfunded humanitarian industry designed mostly to respond to natural and human made crises? There is no quick or easy answer to that, but I do suspect that Donini (quoted above) is right: humanitarianism is a discourse of power. One very important step in understanding and then changing toxic power arrangements is to listen to and work with those who have been marginalized by misuse of power. Those who are multiply marginalized (especially women of color) have much to teach, and it is our job to listen and to follow their lead, always demanding an inclusive scope of both understanding and action.
One such voice is Namati. Established seven years ago, Namati.org is a global legal empowerment movement. From their web site: “Namati means ‘bending the arc.’ With leadership from those most impacted, we will bend the arc of history together.” The current #BlackLIvesMatter movement is a necessary and vital part of bending the ‘moral arc of the universe toward justice.’1
This phrase has a long history, with President Barak Obama borrowing it from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who adapted it from abolitionist minister Theodore Parker. Parker said,
“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”
Bending this arc is a long process, and one that takes constant, coordinated effort. Gains won must be aggressively preserved or they can be lost very quickly. The Namati organization has it right: legal changes are key in bending the arc. But it must be
Rev Dr ML King, Jr. “I Have a Dream” speech
stressed that structures within all other social institutions must be altered as well. Humanitarians have great potential and responsibility as ‘arc benders’ and, as stressed one more time, demands accepting leadership ‘from those most impacted.’
Understanding interconnected and baked in privileging forces and then responding to the humanitarian imperative is hard, complicated, and a long term commitment. But is a commitment mandated by our devotion to the cause of justice for all. This mandate includes, well, inclusion, and we must act on the fact that all of the heads of the Hydra are fueled by othering and hate.
In the words of the late John Lewis, champion of civil rights, we must “Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.” The title of his posthumously published editorial is “Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of your Nation” but I feel he would approve of this re-statement: “Together, we can redeem the soul of humanity” so that it adds a call to action for those subscribing to the “Code of Ethics for Privileged Anti-Othering Persons” discussed above. To “redeem the soul of humanity” and to bend the moral arc of the universe toward justice means confronting, challenging, and changing some near-sacred social structures. Focused social change is never quick nor easy, and we must be willing to make “good trouble” to make this happen.
A broader perspective?
Are we bending the arc? It might not seem so if you look only at the last six months or even 60 years. What if we look at the last 6000 years? According to Steven Pinker there has been steady progress toward a more ‘civilized’ world. He argues in his 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined that as a species we have become progressively less violent and cruel to others, that world cultures have slowly become more intolerant of violence in the family, and within and between peoples.
Justification for othering comes from many sources through history, and in one section focuses in on the Abrahamic religions. Pinker writes,
“The scriptures present a God who delights in genocide, rape, slavery, and the execution of nonconformists, and for millennia those writings were used to rationalize the massacre of infidels, the ownership of women, the beating of children, dominion over animals, and the persecution of heretics and homosexuals. Humanitarian reforms such as the elimination of cruel punishment, the dissemination of empathy-inducing novels, and the abolition of slavery were met with fierce opposition in their time by ecclesiastical authorities and their apologists. The elevation of parochial values to the realm of the sacred is a license to dismiss other people’s interests, and an imperative to reject the possibility of compromise.”
The humanitarian reforms that Pinker meticulously details over many chapters are actions that bend the moral arc. They have had a cumulatively powerful impact, creating at least a less overtly violent world and a best a more just and moral humanity.
Let’s push Pinker a bit. I’ll grant his historical observations, but question whether in this 21st century the pendulum may be swinging back. It is possible that the net actions of humans in the last 20 years have undone much of this ‘positive bending’ of the moral arc? Have greed and gluttony been so thoroughly normalized and glorified in our global culture that even the better angels of our nature cannot purge them?
In 1940 -80 years ago- at the very end of The Great Dictator Charlie Chaplin gives an amazing and passionate speech saying that “greed has poisoned men’s souls” and calling on humanity to reject those motivated by greed and who pedal fascism. According to many social critics unchecked capitalism and neoliberalism in the last 80 years have served only to further ossify toxic values serving only the ultra rich. Though Chaplin’s speech champions the resilience and morality of the human spirit, there is current evidence that fascism may have again been embraced by those in power in many parts of the world. Saudi Arabia under Mohammed bin Salam. Myanmar under Aung San Suu Kyi. Russia under Putin. Brazil under Bolsonaro. And, yes, perhaps, the United States under Donald Trump.
I’ll offer that an antidote to the poison of fascism is to embrace the “Code of Ethics for Privileged Anti-Othering Persons” I presented above. Those of us, like Charlie Chaplin, who believe in the power of humanity have a moral duty to resist injustice in all forms.
Final note My students have suggested that the Hydra needs another head describing our species’ anthropocentric perspective and the consequent destructive ‘ecocidal’ relationship we have with the environment. We ‘other’ the very natural world that sustains us and this has led us to the brink of a massive climate disaster, which has already exasperated humanitarian crises across the globe, mostly in the majority world. This impact is an example of environmental racism in action, and as such merits our immediate attention. Adding ‘anthropocentrism’ as an additional head to the Hydra may be in order. [See this for an update.]
As always, if you have any comment or feedback please contact me at arcaro@elon.edu.
And yes, I will be watching the movie highlighting the work of humanitarian Paul Farmer “Bending the Arc” when it is released and share my thoughts.
1This section on bending the arc toward justice is an edited version of what I previously posted here.
Tom Arcaro is a professor of sociology at Elon University. He has been researching and studying the humanitarian aid and development ecosystem for nearly two decades and in 2016 published 'Aid Worker Voices'. He recently published his second and third books related to the humanitarians sector with 'Confronting Toxic Othering' published in 2021 and 'Dispatches from the Margins of the Humanitarian Sector' in 2022. A revised second edition of 'Confronting Toxic Othering' is now available from Kendall Hunt Publishers
A voice from Ghana I talked recently with Nicholas Nyantakyi, an anesthetist. He was kind enough to take time away from his medical duties at the venerable Metropolitan Hospital in Cape Coast, Ghana to share details with me about the COVID-19 pandemic. As of today, his hospital has 17 COVID-19 patients and he seemed clear they have not yet reached a crest in the number of cases. Metro has no ventilators, is low on both oxygen and PPE, and has a staff that is strong, but feeling stressed.
Ghana, with a population of just over 31 million now has over 7300 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 34 deaths. The Cape Coast Metropolitan area has about 170,000 people, and there is only tentative data on the number of COVID-19 positive cases.
We talked about how many people in Cape Coast, very much like countless others in the majority world (aka global South), are day laborers, and following any ‘stay at home/self isolation’ orders is nearly impossible. The choice is between working and earning money to eat for the day or staying at home, presumably helping to slow the spread of the coronavirus, and suffering from hunger. The choice for too many is between the coronavirus and the ‘hunger virus.‘
Attitude and behavior are hard to change
Mr. Nyantakyi and I talked about the spread of the virus, and how getting people to practice social distancing, use face masks, and frequently wash theirs hands was very difficult. He observed, “It is all about attitude and behavior, and it is very hard to get people to change their ways.” Sharing stories from our respective communities, we agreed that it was exactly the same situation on both sides of the Atlantic. I told him about where I live and our current situation.
I live in Alamance County, North Carolina which has a population of about 161,000 people. As of today our mostly rural county has over 342 COVID-19 cases and 24 deaths. Just in the last few days, though, we made national news. Last weekend, May 23rd, a crowd of over 4000 people packed Ace Speedway (in the northern part of the county) to watch short track auto racing. Very few wore masks and none practiced social distancing. The Speedway anticipates and even larger crowd this weekend.
Let that sink in.
The city I live in, Burlington, the center of Alamance County, is #1 right now nationally for the rate at which COVID-19 deaths are doubling.
Indeed, just as Mr. Nyantakyi stressed, changing attitude and behavior is hard even in the case when lives are put in mortal danger when people go on with their ‘normal’ lives. The social media chatter about this car racing event -and the wisdom of the county leaders who allowed it to occur- has been sharply divided along political lines. The war against COVID-19 has demonstratively become a culture war here in the US.
Back to Cape Coast Coming to grips with the COVID-19 pandemic has been difficult all over the world, but in the majority world the ‘hunger’ virus appears to be much more of a problem. The protocols and mandates put out by the World Health Organization (WHO) are, one one level, medically sound, and many leaders in majority world nations (e.e., Ghana, Bangladesh, India, etc.) are taking legal action to enforce behavioral changes in their populations geared toward ‘flattening the curve’, hoping to avoid catastrophic pressure on already strained and under sourced national and local medical facilities. Following WHO protocols is intended to control the corona virus but they are clearly making the hunger virus far worse.
Here’s what Mr. Nyantakyi had to say,
“The legal measures put in place to help flatten the curve in certain circumstances have been met with mixed reactions. I get worried because it becomes difficult to comprehend why we have to be compelled to adhere to measures for our own safety, our lives. And I keep wondering for how long can governments compel us to do the right thing. On the other side of it is the need for people to work because they have to eat and feed their family, finding the balance between protecting our lives from the virus and ensuring families are fed seems a bit far for now.”
Cape Coast, Ghana is just like urban areas all over the majority world where a large percentage -as much as 50-60%- of the population depends upon daily labor wages to buy food. Very simply, no work, no food. Remaining at home safe from corona virus means getting weaker every day due to lack of food.
I will have more to say about Cape Coast and Mr. Nyantakyi’s Metropolitan Hospital, but for now and am still thinking about the social and cultural factors which make deeply rooted attitudes and behaviors so difficult to change.
In the meantime, please contact me here(arcaro@elon.edu) if you have any comment or feedback.
Tom Arcaro is a professor of sociology at Elon University. He has been researching and studying the humanitarian aid and development ecosystem for nearly two decades and in 2016 published 'Aid Worker Voices'. He recently published his second and third books related to the humanitarians sector with 'Confronting Toxic Othering' published in 2021 and 'Dispatches from the Margins of the Humanitarian Sector' in 2022. A revised second edition of 'Confronting Toxic Othering' is now available from Kendall Hunt Publishers
Here in the minority word With the specter of what happened just over 100 years ago with the Spanish flu, massive and deadly second and third waves, government leaders in Italy, France, the US, and elsewhere are weighing the decision to ‘re-open’ their economies and transition away from ‘shelter at home’ directives. The debate tends to fall along political lines, and core arguments can be condensed to (1) we must stay the course on social distancing measures until critical benchmarks defined by medical science and epidemiological research are met (and hence avoid a Spanish flu-like disaster) and (2) we need our freedom now, we need to make a living, and herd immunity is the only option I the long run. With the unemployment rate nearing 15% in the US, for example, many on the margins are indeed suffering.
Most on both sides of this debate in the minority world (aka Global North, ‘developed world’ or First World) likely little understand the privilege of even having this decision to make. Through my research I am in regular contact with many majority world humanitarians and refugees (most are refugee humanitarians). Though COVID-19 is a major game-changer here in the US and elsewhere in the minority world, my contacts have another perspective.
Read the words below, a poem by a Rohingya activist Kai Sayr:
Solution?
The simple fact is that in much of the world self isolation and social distancing are just not possible. Consider the city of Dhaka in Bangladesh with a population of nearly 20 million, with at least half living hand to mouth. The solution that Kai suggests has good logic behind it. Indeed, could the rich help keep the poor at home by providing enough food?
Here’s a thought.
Jeff Bezos and the other multi-billionaires, if they so choose, could feed the poor in the short term with zero impact to their quality of life. Not ‘eat the rich‘ exactly, but at least be fed by the rich – while pointing out the moral failure of a dehumanizing neoliberal system that has glorified the normalized gluttony and greed at a scale that is now destroying the planet. I’ll respectfully disagree with Kai on his point that we need to restore the world to ‘its normal social equilibrium.’ We need a ‘new normal’ where the structures that allow for extreme pooling of wealth are confronted and altered. As the anthropologist Miles Richardson said long ago, “the problem of the poor is not the problem, the problem is the rich.”
In reference to Kai’s poem one of my students, senior Michael Koppinger, had this to say,
“While I think the concept of a “Hunger Virus” is rhetorically effective, it doesn’t place blame on anybody. Hunger doesn’t come from nature like a virus, at least not anymore, it comes from capitalism and the many heads of the hydra that keep it running.”
Very good point.
That discussion aside, the harsh reality is that COVID-19 has a different and even more ominous meaning in the majority world.
Here’s how one Bangladeshi humanitarian put it,
“When the COVID-19 was first detected, people here were curious and concerned about what is going to be happened in Bangladesh. The first case was identified in Bangladesh on 8th March. After that [there was] tension and fear everywhere. MSF staffs are very much anxious about the situation, and 80% of discussion of total discussion is about COVID-19.
People in Bangladesh are in panic as they don’t rely on government statistics and their measures. Still they have only limited facilities to test corona.
The other issue is countrywide lock down. Many people lost their jobs. Almost half of the people are day laborers who earn money first then eat. They are in serious condition, they said we are not dying from corona but from hunger. They said give me food first, then ask me to stay in HOME. The government is giving some relief but it is very limited than needs. I assume that it is 10% of the needs.”
Photo from The Weather Channel.
In the refugee camps, the situation is even more dire. There are now confirmed cases or COVID-19 within the massive and sprawling refugees camps in Cox’s Bazar and, as I write this, Cyclone Amphan churns in the Bay of Bengal, an immanent threat to those in the camps. COVID-19 cases have also been identified in Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon and also in refugee camps located in Juba, South Sudan.
‘Shelter in place’ Here in the minority world -in my case in North Carolina in the US- we are being asked to ‘shelter in place’ and if we do need to go out in public to wear a mask. Those in the minority world do not have this option, many facing starvation if they stay at home. The World Food Program warns of a ‘hunger pandemic’ as COVID-19 impacts food security in the majority world.
The ‘hunger virus’ that Kai Sayr writes about above is real, virulent, and is ravaging many hundreds of millions.
As always, you are welcome to contact me here with comment or feedback.
Post script
More from Michael Koppinger:
“While I think the concept of a “Hunger Virus” is rhetorically effective, it doesn’t place blame on anybody. Hunger doesn’t come from nature like a virus, at least not anymore, it comes from capitalism and the many heads of the hydra that keep it running. I could write an entire separate paper on all that could have been done and put in place to help lessen the damage COVID-19 has caused. In capitalism, there is no market incentive to do things right, and even less incentive to mitigate the negative effects of the cultural disintegration caused by a Pandemic such as this. What capitalism has been incentivized to do, is create a more fragile world that a virus like this can wreak havoc on.
In class, we’ve discussed how the neoliberal perspective is a little bit rose colored when it comes to the free market, how it puts a happy face on the invisible hand of the free market. Put simply: the happy mask has slipped due to COVID. More than ever, people are waking up to the glaring inequalities and the issues they cause. Before this, in general, people were content to get theirs and not worry so much about the other guy. Now, it seems intuitive that we need to take care of everyone to take care of ourselves, even people who don’t need a stimulus check are fighting to get it for others to help keep them home, and ultimately protect themselves. … What happens to one of us, happens to us all. Until we build a world for all of us, it’s almost like humanitarian efforts are just putting a band-aid over life-threatening wounds.”
Tom Arcaro is a professor of sociology at Elon University. He has been researching and studying the humanitarian aid and development ecosystem for nearly two decades and in 2016 published 'Aid Worker Voices'. He recently published his second and third books related to the humanitarians sector with 'Confronting Toxic Othering' published in 2021 and 'Dispatches from the Margins of the Humanitarian Sector' in 2022. A revised second edition of 'Confronting Toxic Othering' is now available from Kendall Hunt Publishers
as a whole. Drafted by a distinguished international panel and approved by vote of the UN, this historic document remains the beginning point for most international human rights law.
There is reason for optimism. In many ways this shift is happening incrementally and is perhaps being accelerated by the climate change crisis we face as one planetary ecosystem, as one humanity. One notable example is the news from the city of Dayton, Ohio in the US. On December 30th the city leaders voted on the Dayton End Genocide Resolution, locally reported to be the world’s first municipal resolution condemning genocide and other crimes against humanity. This is one small but significant step in the right direction. I suspect the framers of this resolution know well about the genocide in Myanmar and the plight of the Rohingya.
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