While the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a "bright idea", the "hidden agenda" of western countries makes it impossible for African states like Tanzania to achieve the goals, expounds actor Rashid Mkwinda. He is one of the people whose thoughts IPS canvassed in the streets of Dar es Salaam in a series of random interviews about the MDGs.

Fears are high among Kenyan farmers that a new trade regime following a forthcoming deal between developing countries and the European Union (EU) may drive them deeper into poverty. The deal, expected to kick in at the beginning of next year, is one of six economic partnership agreements (EPAs) between the EU and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

When Malians queue to cast ballots in presidential elections Sunday, they will be participating in a poll with a difference: for the first time ever, a woman will be amongst the candidates.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/301/violenceagainst-kids.jpg“Your children are not your children
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself
They come through you but not from you you
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you”. [Khalil Gibran, The Prophet].Dikpak Naker on why it is not OK to beat your children.

The other day I was talking to a colleague who is an activist for preventing violence against women. When I asked her if she beats her child, she responded, “I don’t batter him but if he gets out of line, I won’t hesitate to use a slap”. Her response astounded me and led me to start my own experiment of asking friends and colleagues the same question. The pattern continued. Most adults responded by saying that in moderation, beating children was a useful way of guiding their behaviour. Some added qualifiers such as, it has to be part of a larger disciplinary approach or only as a last resort. Nevertheless, many adults felt justified in using violence against children in the guise of controlling their behaviour. Even those that had seen the corrosive effect of the dynamics that lead to violence from a man to a woman, responded with a question of their own: what is wrong with beating children to teach them how to behave? Some asked in genuine bewilderment, while others simply because they couldn’t comprehend relationships with children that does not involve the adult asserting power over children.

Many of us have had years of experience in which we have learned that adults should control children around them and that in that enterprise, beating them is necessary. Most of us have witnessed children being slapped, shouted at and humiliated in the name of ‘discipline’. Perhaps you have survived a childhood where being beaten, silenced and intimidated was normalised and made acceptable by the prevailing value system. If that was the reality you grew up in, why would you come to think otherwise? Why would you abandon everything you have known, to learn a new way of relating with children? Why wouldn’t you ask, with genuine incomprehension, what is wrong with beating children to teach them how to behave?

If you are reading this, it is likely that you may have some personal or professional interest in the issue. Perhaps you work for a child-centric agency where all the literature or prevailing culture declares that beating children is wrong. You may have read the conclusions from the UN Global Study on Violence against Children or many other similar documents that conclude the same thing: that beating children, regardless of what you call it, is wrong. If you are not convinced by the rhetoric that you may have encountered in the usual documents or literature produced by civil society organizations, you are probably not alone. Maybe you do not want to risk your job or appear uncouth by articulating a dissenting point of view in certain circles. This piece is aimed at you. If you have been asked by people who live in your community about what is wrong with beating children, and not been fully sure what to think, this piece is aimed at you.

What I am about to argue is not new. However, what I hope may be compelling is that it emerged from children themselves. Ultimately if you are interested in creating a better world for children, who better to ask how to do that, than the children themselves and the adults who care about them?

We did exactly that in Uganda. We went to five diverse districts, from east to west, north to south. We asked 1400 children and 1100 adults, in many different ways about their thoughts, feelings and experience of violence against children. We asked boys and girls, younger and older, children who were in school and those who weren’t. We sought out children who were living in rural and urban areas, orphans as well as those living with their parents. They said many things about violence against children (see but above all, unanimously they said two things; the violence against children was too much, and that it did not teach children anything except fear and shame.

Ninety eight percent of the children said they had experienced physical violence, a third of these children said they experience it at least once a week. Approximately one in eight said they experience violence on a regular basis from people that are supposed to take care of them; their parents, teachers, neighbours, older siblings, relatives and community members. When children were asked how this violence makes them feel, the response ranged from rage to resignation. In this confidential space, away from the watchful eyes of adults whose approval they needed, not a single child said being beaten filled her with pride or a sense of being loved or cared for.

That may surprise you. After all, have we not trained our children sufficiently to swallow what Alice Miller, the famous pro-child psychologist calls the ‘poisonous pedagogy’; that being beaten is for your own good? It was not unusual for some children to begin that defence in focus group discussions and soon abandon it when they found that we were not there to change their mind. We were there to simply listen and learn from their views. Once the ‘defence’ was deemed unnecessary, authentic feelings and thoughts emerged.

We learned many things about violence against children through this study. The first thing we learned is that children think of violence against them in a very different way than adults. Adults focus on the act while children focus on the experience. What that means is, when an adult is beating a child, they think of it as an isolated incident that is over when the physical act is over. But children learn the fear and the shame of the incident and how the act makes them feel about the person who commits it against them. They learn that people bigger than them can treat them unfairly without there being consequences for the abuser. In an important way, they learn about the nature of power in intimate relationships and that whoever has more of it, prevails. Children learn that the best way to protect themselves from the abuse is to have power over people. We are all familiar with the consequences of that lesson when these children become adults and acquire power.

Secondly, when adults were asked why they beat children, a majority said to guide children and to teach them how to behave. Yet rarely did the adult take the time to talk with the child, discuss what they had done wrong or explain their error. If they did, they are more likely to use an alternative to a beating as a form of punishment. When children are beaten for reasons beyond their comprehension, they rarely learn what was wrong with their behaviour and they certainly don’t learn how to behave better.

Thirdly, adults severely underestimate the emotional response their violence provokes in children. When children feel humiliated, their reaction can range from fury to depression. Because most children do not have the option of expressing their feelings, it ends up being stored within them, wreaking terrible havoc in storage. Children violated over a long period of time can victimise others, behave anti-socially or just withdraw from developing their identity. They may feel hopeless and some may become suicidal. It affects their performance at school and it affects their self-confidence. It affects who they are likely to become.

Fourthly, despite the fact that beating of children is common, more than half of the adults were not sure that beating was creating a desired change in behaviour. Many admitted that often they beat children out of frustration rather than a carefully thought out strategy to teach children something. Many times children are beaten because they are children rather than because of their actions.

Finally, when children’s dignity is routinely insulted they lose trust in adults who make them feel that way. They outwardly learn to fear and internally resent the adult who inflicts violence on them. They develop ways to cope with the violence rather than spend that energy developing their intelligence. They become much smaller individuals than what they could have been.

As we reflected on these things, it became clearer to us how diverse societies have come to legitimise violence against children. The only way we can sustain such patent injustice in our intimate relationship is by refusing to empathise with the child. How else could we live with another human being on a day-to-day basis, while deep in our hearts knowing that we regularly do them injustice? After all, that is the oldest trick in the book for dominating another group of people. We learned about other blatant ways in which adults ignore the evidence in front of their eyes. If beating taught anything to anyone, none would need to be beaten twice or at least repeatedly, and yet that is what continues to happen to children.

Most importantly, we learned from children that beating children is not a harmless vice that parents succumb to and we can turn a blind eye to. The violence has powerful short-term, and profound long-term consequences, not only for the child but also for the entire community (perhaps even entire countries). For these and many other reasons, beating a child is counter-productive. It does not achieve the aim of changing behaviour. It does not help the child learn what was wrong with their behaviour. It undermines their confidence and contributes towards the child learning to trust you less. If you are interested in helping children learn, beating them is the last thing you would want to do.

If you are still reading this, I presume that you are willing to ask the deeper questions. If I can be presumptuous, I would like to ask you the following. How might your possibilities as an adult be different, had you not been beaten and shamed as a child? I wonder what you might have been, had you not been humiliated as a child. Would you persist in believing that it has done you no harm or would you be honest enough to see the injury it might have caused you? Wait! Don’t answer just yet. Let it circle in your head and come back to it when you are about to fall asleep at night…just when you are entering that intimate space and maybe in deeper touch with your heart, and then, answer to yourself as honestly as you can.

* Dipak Naker, Co-Director, Raising Voices

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Sanusi Ibraheem is the Ag. Executive Director, The Intellectual Group based in Ogbomoso, Nigeria and working on issues around youth development. Saloman Kebede interviewed him on the upcoming “Grand Debate on the Union Government” to be held at the June 2007 summit of the African Union. The interview is part of a series of interviews, to be published in AU-Monitor, of African citizens and civil society leaders on the AU proposal for Continental Government. The interviews were conducted by the Pan Africa Programme of Oxfam in the corridors of a civil society meeting organized by UN-CONGO and FEMNET in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in the week of the 13th March 2007. Emily Mghanga of Oxfam’s Pan Africa Programme edited this interview.

Saloman Kebede: What are the strengths and weaknesses of the current proposal?

Sanusi Ibraheem: The strength of the proposal is the fact that Africans will for the first time be uniting, very similar to the European Union. There will be free movement across the continent. Weakness- I hope we will not have weak institutional structures right from the start. That may give room for some lapses, which at the end of the day become too cumbersome. For instance we may be discussing things on the ground that we cannot accommodate.

Saloman Kebede: Should it be adopted in Accra in July 2007, what would you like to see the African Union Commission achieve within the first phase (2007-2009)?

Sanusi Ibraheem: Give room for Civil Society participation in the process before the final adoption. If the reason the government is uniting structures is for the unity of the people of Africa, then the civil society most especially young people should be involved in the process. I hope that the first phase will be able to achieve the resolution of various crises in Africa especially, Sudan, Somalia/Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Congo etc. If we are able to solve these crises, we will have taken the first and most important steps to economic emancipation.

Saloman Kebede: And why would this form of continental union be important to African citizens, particularly the poor and marginalized?

Sanusi Ibraheem: When we adopt freedom of movement, for instance, we benefit from free information exchange and best practices that could be learnt more easily and replicated in various other individual state. This will help us understand that, we are one and not northern African, western African, central African or southern African. The peer review mechanism is a good system to improve on a government weakness. A Continental Union will bring coherency and stability in our countries which is good for our economies and will consequently increase export, and impart more on local production and increase foreign exchange flows into Africa and ultimately will contribute to reducing the number of poor people living in Africa.

Saloman Kebede: How could states and non-states ensure that continental union efforts are transparent, participatory and driven by an appreciation of political and economic rights?

Sanusi Ibraheem: Civil society organizations should be involved and consultations carried out widely across all segments of society. Each State should be encouraged to carry out sensitization workshops on the Union Government Proposal and ensure that all segments of the society buys into it. This will bring a sense of ownership to all Africans and will see that it’s a collective responsibility. While involving all segments of the society in the process encourages the “buy in” needed to drive the process, it will also offer checks and balances on the other hand.

Saloman Kebede: What obstacles must the AU overcome for the continental union to be successful?

Sanusi Ibraheem: Let us do away with the afro-pessimistic attitude in our midst. Many of us strongly doubt the possibility of such a structure working out. Secondly, the intra-region crises should be curtailed if the process must succeed. With the right attitude and a safe environment to operate, there is no limit to Africa’s progress.

Saloman Kebede: In what policy area, would you like to see greater convergence and unity across Africa and why?

Sanusi Ibraheem: The economy. The strength of the economy is vital in the provision of basic needs to our people. We also need to change the political face, particularly in leadership and policy making.

The views expressed here are the perspectives of the interviewee. Sanusi Ibraheem can be reached at Email: Ibghandi2001 at gmail.com

Pastor Peter Omoragbon is a Nigerian working on disaster management and ICT. Saloman Kebede interviewed him on the upcoming “Grand Debate on the Union Government” to be held at the June 2007 summit of the African Union. The interview is part of a series of interviews, to be published in AU-Monitor, of African citizens and civil society leaders on the AU proposal for Continental Government. The interviews were conducted by the Pan Africa Programme of Oxfam in the corridors of a civil society meeting organized by UN-CONGO and FEMNET in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in the week of the 13th March 2007. Emily Mghanga of Oxfam’s Pan Africa Programme edited this interview.

Saloman Kebede: What are the strengths and weaknesses of the current proposal?

Pastor Peter Omoragbon: It is a workable proposal. A United States of Africa will mean Africa standing together with one voice, strength and unity. However, let us not have the United States of Africa in name only but in practice as well.

Saloman Kebede: Should it be adopted in Accra in July 2007, what would you like to see the African Union Commission achieve within the first phase (2007-2009)?

Pastor Peter Omoragbon: I would like to see all the structures and regulations set up and all heads of states fully committed to this process.

Saloman Kebede: And why would this form of continental union be important to African citizens, particularly the poor and marginalized?

Pastor Peter Omoragbon: It is an attempt to bring us together despite the existence of diverse backgrounds across the continent. There will be greater unity when we capitalize on what unites us other than our differences. It will allow us to eliminate the mind-set that other countries are better or lesser than others. All African countries will stand with one voice!

Saloman Kebede: How could states and non-states ensure that continental union efforts are transparent, participatory and driven by an appreciation of political and economic rights?

Pastor Peter Omoragbon: That is the work of the civil society. We need to monitor and keep the governments accountable to this and other commitments.

Saloman Kebede: What obstacles must the AU overcome for the continental union to be successful?

Pastor Peter Omoragbon: There is the need to put an end to internal conflicts within member-states. We also need to overcome bad policies that do not make decisions in the interests of marginalized people in every African country.

The views expressed here are the perspectives of the interviewee. Pastor Peter Omoragbon can be reached at Email: nursesacrosstheborders at yahoo.com

In the last few months we have seen Bush and Blair bragging about how much they have helped Africa, but a closer analysis reveals that for every dollar Africa receives in Aid, the West gets two dollars back through unequal trade. We have also seen an increase in save the African child foundations and celebrate adoption of African orphans etc. On the other hand, we have become so dependent that practically all African governments as part of the national budget include anticipated foreign aid.

Dear Firoze

We thank you as fellow Africans for bringing us perspectives, insights and courageous out of the box thinking on our continent.

Cassiem Khan
Country Director
Islamic Relief Worldwide - South Africa

CONGRATULATIONS --- Pambazuka is now a well established newsletter - always very informative and to the point - unbiased and it seems well researched. Keep up the excellent work. It is information worthwhile - seeing it covers the whole continent which is otherwise almost impossible. You - the editor and each and everyone contributing to the newsletter - can be proud of your achievements.
Kind regards

Waltraut Trümper - Namibia.

Being a faithful reader, indeed since the very first issue, I must congratulate Pambazuka News and the dedicated team behind the newsletter to its incredibly successful work. Pambazuka News is still my major source of information concerning African affairs as it 'takes the temperature' of current issues. The broad coverage and sober, yet at times provocative, analysis make Pambazuka News a very rewarding read and I am truly looking forward to the next 300 issues.

All the best wishes
Hakan Friman
Sweden

Commemorating the 300th Issue of Pambazuka News I first came across Pambazuka News in/around 2003 when I was a graduate student in Boston, Massachusetts. After reading the first issue, I immediately subscribed and forwarded the web link to all students and scholars of Africa at my school. From time to time, I continue to forward specific articles to various people that I know are interested in listening to an African voice published in an African platform. I have never turned back since then.

Pambazuka News has given me a voice, a home, a reflection point and a reaffirmation that my thoughts and believes are not crazy but shared by many individuals in our world. The weekly articles give us a visual picture of “the African” activist through the style of communication that reflects expressions of reality rather than abstract or theoretical imagination of issues concerning civil society in Africa.

Occasionally, other social activists from outside Africa contribute to our discussions on international justice and its impact on Africa and other marginalized groups.

Indeed, Pambazuka News has established itself as an African mouthpiece for social justice for all of civil society. As we move toward the 301st issue, I ask Pambazuka News to help us begin a conversation with our national, sub-regional and regional political leaders. Civil society tends to monopolize concerns for social justice in Africa in Pambazuka News and the current publications in Pambazuka News tend to affirm this trend.

Most of the contributions are from people (myself without exemption) decrying or rebuking the government without an opportunity given to the government to respond in this forum. It cannot be true that there are no individuals within our national, sub-regional and African Union concerned about social justice in Africa. We in civil society do not hold a monopoly of concern for the welfare of Africa. We, therefore, need to make a concerted effort in working with our governments, providing them our ideas and accepting that them and us can richly contribute to shaping the growth and health of Africa and African Unity.

As my friend Chidi Odinkalu once said to me, “If Oxfam has an African Union Representative in Ethiopia, why not us, African organizations and civil society?” I fully agree that, rather than disengaging with our governments, this kind of engagement will help us achieve the transformations for Africa we expect from our leaders.

Politicians come from among civil society, some of whom have been activists before they are transformed into government officials. Let us, therefore, begin a conversation with our governments through Pambazuka News, and if possible, let Pambazuka News establish a regional desk in Ethiopia to capture proceedings as they unfold.

Thank you for the great service Pambazuka News and may you keep it up and strong!

Pambazuka news is a reference point for those of us who need analytical presentation of news. It has become an indispensable tool for analysts and policy makers who want to know what the real issues are and what drives events and paves the way for a preferred future. One of the things that Makes Pambazuka stand out is the way issues are reported and treated holistically with all threads and linkages brought out to clarify situations. What surprises me is that the crew is able to put out reports of such depth and importance on a weekly basis.

The only thing I have not seen much of is a deliberate targeting of the younger audience. A section for youths as well as children will be a great addition

* Nnimmo Bassey is Director Environmental Rights Action (Nigeria)

Dear comrades, Thank you very much to all of you from Firoze, whom I have met on a few occasions to all I have not met, but without whom the 300 mark might not have been reached, or might have been reached with greater pains and greater costs.

What could I say that you already do not know?

Pushing the enveloppe all the time, moving away from the pyramidal figure of the global society toward the sphere as suggested in Ayi Kwei Armah's KMT novel.

From now till 2011 there will be several 50th anniversaries. It is easy to be satisfied, but one should above all think, it seems to me, of the largest majorities and minorities on the Continent who have not benefitted anything, except for more suffering, more misery, more poverty from 50 years of so-called independent rule.

How does one combat a mindset which has treated our Continent and its people as ready made for any resources, physical and psychic, from human to natural, needed by the forces, internal and external, which have run our countries to where we are today.

In the face of the slogan :"globalize or else..." there is surely room for battling for something else. Why is it that we find it difficult to carry on from where, say, the resisters of the past (wherever they have given it all and all the way) had reached. Following in the footsteps of Haiti (1804) and Cuba (1959), is it not time to relink those who have been divided, split, tribalized, atomized ad infinitum?

Is it not time to think of Africa, its histories, its cultures beyond the geographical borders? Is it not time to move away from fission toward fusion? It is not difficult to talk about the (African) diaspora, but it is more difficult to connect with the diaspora of those who, like Africans (before and after slavery, colonial and post-colonial occupations), have resisted the imposition of the genocidal system on all sentient beings.

From the history of Africa, we have the unusual privilege of seeing things from, so to speak, the bottom. For lack of a better way of saying it, should we not, in the name of democratizing our history, share that privilege and not be afraid of saying what we see? For example, do we not see Hiroshima/Nagasaki as the modernization of Auschwitz? In evolutionary terms, the mindset (of discovery/oppression/exploitation/repression) which was born in 1492 has been confronted with resisters to it. Isn't there a link between the Palestinians, the Haitians, the Africans, the Native Americans, in short between all of the wretched of this world, who have been battling, generations after generations, against political and economic structures, leaders at the service of a genocidal system? A system which has now been scientifically described as on its way of making the inhabitants of the Planet globally homeless.

Ku-fahamisha. Sharing knowledge while producing and reproducing it. Yes, let people hear, in their own voices, for example, someone like Aristide, like So Ann, like Wamba dia Wamba converse on the Congolese who "were separated at birth". Get So Ann (from Haiti) to go and sing in South Africa and the Congo, along with Myriam Makeba.

Pambazuka News could explode, most peacefully indeed, the blinders which prevent us from seeing ourselves completely free from the shackling mindset. Of that I am confident Fahamu shall pambazuka us to a really different world.

There is hardly anything like Pambazuka on Africa's development. It is my first point of call as a news sources and as a source for an alternative perspective. Whilst its articles have effectively reacted/contributed to the the development agenda set in the North, it is unique in pushing issues that matter to Africa even, and especially when, they are not at the centre of the Euro-American discourse about Africa or couched in the language of the dominant polemic. The resource pack is particularly valuable. I download and store them for reference. Nothing goes to waste. May I suggest that resources permitting, periods (say 2-4 times a year) be blocked for re-publishing selected articles (supplemented by a few new teasers) under thematic headings. This will allow resources to serve specific constituencies in a timeless way. Looking forward to your 300th annual birthday. I will be there, jaw-bones and all.

Charles Abugre

It seems like yesterday, that I discovered Pambazuka News. Since then, I've joined the family actively, met Patrick Burnett on several occasions in Cape Town (- actually: not only at Greenmarket Square but also in the coastal 'dorpies' Muizenberg and Fish Hoek, to be exact, since this makes a hell of a difference for a Kapie!), watched his family growing and himself developing further. Now he has matured to the extent that he is leaving the electronic periodical, to which he contributed so much, to pursue his own way further. - Have a good and safe journey, Patrick, and stay on track (I'm sure you will)… At the same time Pambazuka News presents its 300th issue, and again it seems like yesterday, that this weekly turned into a regular source of information, in the meantime even in an expanded version of two separate parts. Politically spot on analyses (though luckily not always 'politically correct'), stimulating and thought provoking debate articles and viewpoints and a wealth of further links to factual information and additional opinions - what asks one more, who has the African people and their struggle for dignity and survival against all odds at his/her heart? Pambazuka News has established itself as an authoritative source of information and remains at the same time an active and central part of a social movement, which mobilizes, reinforces and promotes commitments. It is an inspiration. To Firoze and his Fahamu team my best wishes for many more rewarding years with this project, which hopefully keep them as young and enthusiastic in their hearts and minds as they are!

Henning Melber, Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala

Troops have intercepted a truck-load of already completed ballots the day before Nigeria's presidential election, the opposition said on Friday, heightening fears the vote will be rigged. The accusation followed widespread abuses and violence in regional elections last week which handed the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) a landslide and prompted opposition parties to declare no confidence in the electoral commission.

The World Bank will work with the United Nations and other agencies in a global drive to help developing countries recover assets stolen by corrupt leaders, the Bank has said, estimating that the extent of graft in poor states could reach $800 billion a year.

Kenyans are now faced with the fact that ‘tomorrow’ is bleak, writes Alex Owiti. They no longer want to think about the so called ‘leaders of tomorrow’. But are at the same time confronted with the urgency to elect leaders who will relieve them from the bondage of corruption, tribalism and other injustices.

President Olusegun Obasanjo has admitted that last Saturday’s elections were not perfect “because no human arrangement or undertaking can be so regarded.” He, therefore, wants Nigerians to improve on the process of elections. He spoke in a nationwide broadcast ahead of the presidential election, and against the backdrop of a warning by Senate President, Chief Ken Nnamani, that the presidential elections might witness worse irregularities.

Mozambican peasants have reiterated their demand for incentives for family sector agriculture in order to render their activity more profitable, following the example of other countries in the region and around the world. In practice they are asking for bank credit at preferential interest rates, improved agricultural technologies, and better access roads for marketing their produce.