The Voice of Youth: child wedding stopped by school students

A reminder that we should think beyond cliches - kids are the leaders of tomorrow, but they might also be the leaders of today; and while children are frequently described as amongst the most vulnerable, this is a reminder that we shouldn't overlook their capacities and forms of resilience either.

Child wedding 'stopped by pupils' (from BBC)

Classmates of a 13-year-old Bangladeshi school girl due to enter a forced marriage have united to stop the ceremony going ahead, police say.

Around 50 pupils in the town of Satkhira took to the streets to demand that Habiba Sultana's wedding be called off, they say.

Pupils even submitted a petition to police urging them to take action.

Police summoned Habiba's father and ordered him to stop the girl's marriage, which they said was illegal.

Her father was told to sign a bond in which he promised not marry off his daughter while she is still a child, the Bangladesh Daily Star reported.

It said that the wedding was to have taken place in the south-western town of Satkhira on Friday.

Police say that Habiba, a student of Abdul Karim Girls' High School, did not agree when her poverty-stricken father arranged for her to marry a 23-year-old neighbour.

Police say that she was too frightened to protest.

When she told her friends about the impending wedding, they rallied round and urged her not to go ahead.

Parents of her friends contacted Habiba's father and tried to stop him from going ahead with the wedding.

Initially he ignored their protests, but changed his mind after the police were alerted and small protests were held outside the school.

Correspondents say that the stand of the schoolgirls has created a stir in the town.

Like many other parts of the country - young people in Satkhira are deferential to their parents and seldom question their commands.

On the danger of song lyrics and election shenanigans

The NSW government has refused to scrap a controversial songbook with a song apologising to Aborigines, despite complaints it's political propaganda. Hamish East, the father of a pupil at Kiama Public School, on the state's south coast, approached the school principal after learning his son Brian was being taught the Sorry Song by West Australian composer Kerry Fletcher. Mr East told News Ltd he was not opposed to reconciliation but the sorry issue was "emotive" and political, and should not be forced down the throat of a child. He is reported as saying that the song is a "political stunt" which "confused" his son.

The only lyrics I can find on the web are the following:

If we can say sorry to the people from this land,
Sing, sing loud,
Break through the silence,
sing across this land.

They Cry, they cry,
Their children were stolen,
They still wonder why.

Break through the silence
Sing sorry across this land
We cry, we cry, their children were stolen.

Mmm. I would have thought the history of that song was fairly undisputed, and was not overly politicised. Kids were taken from their parents, we still feel the ramifications of that today, and we should be sorry for that part of our history.

Kevin Rudd has disagreed with the NSW government. He's indicated that he sees the song as inappropriate for schools, saying: "I think we're starting to look at too much political correctness on those sorts of questions. We've got to watch out for political correctness going mad."

"Political correctness gone mad." That phrase always sets off alarm bells for me!

Mr Rudd says that children should be educated about the facts of Australia's history, including respecting indigenous culture, but left to make up their own minds about what's right and wrong.

With all due respect to Mr Rudd, I reckon that irrespective of whether Aussie kids are taught that indigenous kids were "stolen" or "taken", they're going to find that pretty...uh, emotive. When I was in primary school I was absolutely terrified that my parents would get divorced, because it felt like everyone else's parents would. I suspect that a lot of kids are going to find the idea that children were "taken" from their parents pretty distressing...even confusing.

I'm far from convinced that the Sorry Song is any more "emotive" or biased than the lyrics of our national anthem: . Perhaps we should cease teaching that to kids, in case it denies them the ability to make up their own minds about history.

When gallant Cook from Albion sail'd,
To trace wide oceans o'er,
True British courage bore him on,
Till he landed on our shore.
Then here he raised Old England's flag,
The standard of the brave;
With all her faults we love her still,
"Brittannia rules the wave!"
In joyful strains then let us sing
"Advance Australia fair!"

Or how about the final verse:

Shou'd foreign foe e'er sight our coast,
Or dare a foot to land,
We'll rouse to arms like sires of yore
To guard our native strand;
Brittannia then shall surely know,
Beyond wide ocean's roll,
Her sons in fair Australia's land
Still keep a British soul.
In joyful strains the let us sing
"Advance Australia fair!"

I'm not sure that singing about Aussies having a "British soul" and England ruling the waves is allowing kids much scope to "make up their own minds" about our history.

While on the surface this appears to be a relatively insignificant spat over the appropriateness of singing a song in a primary school, at a deeper level it reveals the extent to which Australian history continues to be whitewashed (and I use that term deliberately). The vulnerability and capacity of individuals and communities is rooted in their histories. History shapes our social structures, our sense of self, our emotional resilience.

I don't expect 8 year olds to fully understand this part of Australian history - it's hard for me, a young adult, to get my head around it! I don't believe that 8 year olds of Anglo descent should be plagued by guilt for what their grandparents or great-parents did. However the reality is that many 8 year olds of indigenous descent are painfully aware of this history. They might know that their father has only just met some of his siblings, or they might know that their grandmother never knew her mother because she was taken from her family and forced to work, very hard, for white people in a place very far away from her own community. Or they might know that their father doesn't know where he comes from, and that he saw very bad things in the mission he grew up on. Where do these kids fit into our education system? For how long will we continue to ignore their voices, their everyday experiences? For how long will their experiences be ignored because their stories are "too difficult" for other 8 year olds?

In Vanuatu, watching events in Tonga

I've left this far too long, but internet access is intermittent, expensive, and sloooooooow...

Tongan news can be found at Tonga Now. I'll update this post with some commentary once I have permission to publish it. I'm definitely no expert on anything to do with Tonga - I've never even been there for starters. It does, however, strike me that the recent riots bear similarities to those occurring elsewhere. While some commentators understand the riots in Tonga as an expression of pro-democracy sentiments, others see a link between urbanisation, poverty, the youth bulge, and the anger of young men that have limited or no access to education and employment. Some months ago I posted about the links between demography, livelihood security and civil security, drawing a link between Honiara and some Australian indigenous communities...and Port Moresby could be added to the list, as could Suva. But I'm out of my depth here...for better informed voices than mine, see:

This article from Radio New Zealand International; this article in Pacific Eye by the Director of the Tonga National Youth Congress; and this article, also in Pacific Eye, in which five youths involved in the riots were interviewed.

Speaking of youth, disenfranchisement, and anger...Vanuatu was recently found to be the "happiest nation on earth", and there are posters in the airport and copies of newspaper articles pasted to plenty of windows, but one can't help but wonder how long that 'happiness' is going to last. Local people working in NGOs certainly raise their eyebrows in bemusement when one brings up the subject, and here - as is the case in so many other places - one finds the "youth bulge", limited access to employment (at least in the formal economy - there's also the 'custom economy') and limited access to education. Here too there are young people moving to the urban areas in search of education and employment, and many are moving into informal settlements - it's not appropriate to call them 'squatter' settlements, as in many cases people from other islands are invited in to act as caretakers for the land by the customary landowners.

Last night I had dinner in the market with a new friend, at her mother's food stall. We watched the evening's devotions and chatted about our lives, faith and partners over a spectacular meal of Vanuatu steak, cucumber salad and tomato. We shared stories until late into the night, and I was reminded that despite the sometimes massive cultural differences, some things are universal. Her mother hugged me goodbye and told me to come back soon, and I felt the warm rush of being cared for despite being so new - a feeling I haven't really felt since I was in the Solomon Islands, where an Aunty I was only just getting to know sat up all night massaging me and wiping the sweat from my face as I struggled through a feverish night. As in the Solomons, I'm suddenly, beautifully aware of my identity as a woman, sharing specifically female aspirations and views with other women. I know who I am here, despite not wearing makeup, having long hair or particularly pretty clothes - I don't discount the fact that gender norms can be stifling and discriminating, but in my own society, femininity is often marked by whether a woman wears a dress or lipstick. The experiences of other women are undoubtedly different, but as a white, Western woman (and therefore sometimes considered an 'honorary male'), I have found working in highly-gendered societies liberating in the sense that I find myself returning to Australia with a stronger sense of womanhood and identity.

There's an older, white Australian guy staying in the hotel I'm staying at in Vila. I over-heard him talking to the staff they other day - they asked him whether he'd see his "girlfriend" today, and he laughed and said, "no, I'll have a new girlfriend today". I've been avoiding him ever since. Last night, I shared the cool night breeze, fresh peanuts and stories with a couple of the girls working in the hotel, and they filled me in further. Apparently this guy takes to the streets several times a day, starts chatting to some local woman, invites her back to the hotel saying he's lonely and he wants someone to share a sandwich with him, and once inside the room he propositions them. The girls - who are ni-Vanuatu themselves - explained that the ni-Vanuatu women are so friendly, that when this older, white Australian guy starts talking to them and saying how lonely he is, they believe him "because he's so old", and they feel sorry for him, "because he's so old", and so, they follow him back to share a sandwich. Apparently several of the women have run out of the room screaming, and then through reception where they have given a garbled account of these events to the girls at reception. I was furious, but began to see the (only slightly) funnier side of things once I confirmed with the girls that nobody has been "hurt". Yet.

I told the girls I'd heard the earlier conversation between this man and themselves, and they suddenly smiled weakly as they realised why I'd been behaving so differently when he was around, and when he was not. They were quite concerned that I felt safe staying in the hotel - I assured them that I did, and explained that I thought that he was nothing but a disgusting, sad old man. It's hard to know what to do - in fact it's hard to even know whether this man is picking up 'working women', or whether he is indeed picking up women who are just strolling down the street minding their own business.

Research with children living in situations of armed conflict

I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but this report looks interesting - and looks like an interesting report for anyone interested in social research more generally.

Research with Children Living in Situations of Armed Conflict: Concepts, Ethics & Methods
Jason Hart and Bex Tyrer

Research about children's lives conducted in the volatile setting of armed conflict places particular demands upon researchers. The suggestion that researchers should, whenever possible and appropriate, involve children as meaningful participants in that research may seem unreasonable or inappropriate. However, this paper argues that participatory research for children in conflict situations is especially valuable because of the emergency context.

Youth and sustainable livelihoods

I've been thinking about how in Australia's remote indigenous communities, the Solomons and Bougainville (and probably many other places throughout the world), the focus has been on the older generation, on 'leaders'. Yet these places are plagued by violence, where the primary protagonists are young men - young men who have been dispossessed of their cultural, social and economic inheritence. Young men who for various reasons have been dispossessed of the land which traditionally governed every aspect of the social, political, spiritual and political order. They've not only been shut out of their inheritance, but they're told that to be worthwhile, they need an education in the formal education system, and a job in the formal economy. Given that they can't have either of those things, why are we surprised when they get caught up in the excitement and temporary sense of empowerment that physical violence provides?

I know of one community development agency in Australia that's running a "leadership program" that doesn't target those kids that are usually defined as "leaders" - it's not the academic and social over-achievers that are invited to participate. Instead they're inviting the kids who are, in some respects, the very opposite of that.

I think our well-intended attempts at community development, whether it's here or overseas, often miss the mark because we unwittingly reproduce existing power structures. In Australia, when I go through the list of people speaking at "leadership forums" or lists of the people identified as "young leaders", they are still overwhelmingly dominated by people from white, private school, upper middle-class, tertiary educated backgrounds. Similarly, many agencies engaged in community development work abroad work with those who already have economic, political, and social clout. Yet in doing this, we reinforce the status quo, we reinforce the existing distribution of social, economic and political privilege, furthering the marginalisation of those who are most vulnerable.

Should we in fact be offering 'leadership' programs to those that are regarded as 'leaders' in the traditional sense, or should we be seeking to build the 'leadership' skills of those who are most marginalised?

Can we ensure our civil security by physical force?

A letter to the editor in Melbourne's The Age:

Lessons from Timor
East Timor is a classic example of the consequence of the precipitous withdrawal of stabilising forces.

Despite the fact that the United Nations had forces in the country for three years, the wheels fell off the ship of state within 12 months of the departure of that international presence.

The descent into anarchy that has been witnessed in recent days in and around Dili is a small-scale model of what would almost certainly occur in Iraq should the US and its allies leave that country before the democratic process has been introduced and fully tested. Both East Timor and Iraq are 10-20 year investments on the part of the international community.
MICHAEL J. GAMBLE, Belmont


This is a view that has been repeatedly asserted by The Australian's Foreign editor, Greg Sheridan. For several weeks now, he has been arguing that the crisis in Solomon Islands (ie here and here), East Timor (ie here), Iraq (ie here) can be solved essentially by sending in the troops (see here). Others have suggested that the army might be able to address some of the problems in Australia's remote indigenous communities (see here).

I have no doubt that army and police personnel can, by sheer strength of numbers and the threat of superior physical force, achieve some gains in restoring law and order in all of these situations. This then provides the context in which other gains - social, economic and political - can be made. However security forces are not development agencies, and they cannot address the root causes of civil conflict. They can put a lid on violence for a short period of time, but only if their numbers and their weaponry are significant enough. Real security requires livelihood security, as all but the situation in Iraq quite easily demonstrate - in remote indigenous communities such as Wadeye, and in the Solomon Islands, young men play a key role in perpetrating violence and are also those who are particularly marginalised, with few opportunities to participate in social or economic structures and little to believe in. In East Timor, violence broke out again after 500 soldiers began to riot after being dismissed from the national service. While the roots of conflict in Iraq are obviously different, it is unlikely that physical security will return as long as local people feel disenfranchised from the social, political, economic and cultural processes occurring on their own soil.

Armies and police forces are equipped to use brute force to achieve immediate results, they are not equipped to address the root causes of civil conflict. We can, as Sheridan seems to consistently suggest, keep pumping more money into these forces, yet physical security at home and abroad will remain an illusion for as long as these root causes remain unaddressed.

Insecure livelihoods, transitional economies and identity: rioting in the Solomon Islands

This piece was written for distribution to mass media in Australia, and is posted here to promote discussion - we realise it isn't the whole story (that's not possible in 1500 words!)

CIVIL SECURITY REQUIRES ECONOMIC SECURITY

by Rebecca Monson and Wei Choong

Rioting in Honiara is not simply evidence of ongoing instability in the Solomon Islands, but of the powerful collision between conflict, governance, and the struggle for peaceful and secure livelihoods.

Recent crises in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Bougainville, and Solomon Islands have provoked concern about the rise of “ethnic conflict” in Melanesia, referred to in the Australian media as the “arc of instability”. From 1998-2003 Solomon Islands was plagued by conflict popularly known as "the Tensions", that resulted in the death of hundreds of Solomon Islanders, the internal displacement of tens of thousands more, and the destruction of the country’s narrow economic base. While the causes of the conflict are complex, the primary protagonists were the Malaitans and the indigenous inhabitants of Guadacanal, the island on which the national capital, Honiara, is based. Europeans arrived in the Solomons in the late 1800s, bringing with them the cash economy, and inhabitants of other islands began to migrate to Guadacanal in search of work. Migration of Malaitans escalated during World War II when the United States brought labourers from Malaita, the most populous nation in the Solomons chain, to work on Guadacanal. Large numbers of migrants from other islands were attracted to Guadalcanal by the prospect of employment offering a cash income, leading to competition for land and jobs. Customary land on Guadalcanal was sold to people from other islands, creating a source of conflict because of the strong relationship between people’s social allegiances and land. Younger Guale people were dispossessed of their inheritance, but rather than blaming those who sold the land, their anger has been directed primarily against Malaitans, who achieved dominant positions in the economy. Guadalcanalese people often describe Malaitan settlements established on an agreed lease as “like mushrooms”, with successive generations squatting around an original lease. This resulted in a build up of tensions over time, which successive governments failed to address. The Tensions began in 1998 when Guadacanalese militants embarked upon a campaign of intimidation intended to chase settlers off Guadacanal. While ethnicity and cultural differences played a role in the Tensions, the roots of the conflict also lie in competition for limited resources and strong ties to land in a transitional economy.

The recent rioting in Honiara also has an ethnic dimension, evidenced by the targeting of Chinese businesses in looting, and in the torching of buildings in Chinatown. But this is not about racism - it is about what happens when cultural identity collides with anger about entrenched corruption in government and limited access to resources. While the elections ran smoothly, the old powers – surrounded as they are by allegations of corruption - returned to the helm. The man elected PM, Snyder Rini, is thought to have both Chinese and Taiwanese links – protestors say that his coalition Government is funded and influenced by the owner of the Honiara Hotel, Sir Thomas Chan. During the election campaign, Solomon Islands media reported of complaints regarding the Asian influence over the political process. On Tuesday night the rioting spread from Honiara on Guadacanal to Auki on the neighbouring island of Malaita, where a gang of youths shot stones at a RAMSI vehicle and a Chinese store. The excuse for rioting in Auki was that the “waku (Chinese) supported candidate” won the election for PM.

The Chinese began to arrive in Solomon Islands in the early 20^th century, originally in search of trading ventures and then later as labour for the British protectorate. They established a quasi-local economy of small general stores located in Honiara, and supply the local people with basic goods as well as employment. They developed and maintained the cash economy, and continue to control it today. Yet analysts have paid little attention to the place of the Chinese in Solomons society. Our research confirms that there are mixed feelings among the Melanesians about the Chinese. There are feelings of envy and bitterness towards the Chinese community for their economic clout and wealth accumulation, yet during the Tensions the Chinese were not targeted by militants and were acknowledged by senior Ministers for their commitment to the country by keeping their businesses operating in spite of rising violence.

Chinese business interests and political agendas are intertwined, but the situation s complex. Solomon Islands is a nation of incredible cultural diversity and lacks any economic distribution mechanism to ensure that its scarce resources are available to all. There are differing perceptions of productivity and the value of goods and services. More importantly, there is differing access to the cash economy which is now essential to survival. Very few Melanesians own their own businesses, most work for the Chinese. Since most Melanesians can no longer choose to remain outside the cash economy, they are confronted with the differing culture and economic power of the Chinese. The losing side to the PM's race decided to play the race card, igniting decades of bitterness. Locals are now worried about “stage two” in the ethnic tensions – instead of Guadacanalese versus Malaitan, there may now be Melanesians versus Chinese.

There is definitely an element of hooliganism to the rioting, as there was to the Tensions, but this hooliganism is linked also to resource distribution and use. Nowhere is this more obvious than among young people. Issues such as poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy, illiteracy and limited access to activities and services are widespread among youth and contribute to the disaffection among young people that maintains the risk of future conflict. The Solomons Island has one of the highest growing populations in the world, a collapsed (or collapsing) economy, a culture that increases the likelihood of young people being shunned from participation in community affairs, limited access to formal education, and a sense among young people that they are ‘being left out’. These conditions are thought to be the type that lead to, or increase the likelihood of, armed conflict.

Solomon Islanders across all age groups regularly describe young people as suffering form boredom, lack of direction, aimlessness and low self-esteem arising from the marginal participation of youth and women in community decision-making, which is the preserve of older males. This is reinforced by a sense of failure due to the high value placed on formal education, which the vast majority of rural people have limited access to due to geographic isolation and limited finances. Associated with the emphasis on formal education is the increased importance of the cash economy, because even in remote areas such as the Weathercoast, where the informal subsistence economy is far greater than the formal cash economy, cash is required to pay school fees. The formal education system reinforces the importance of the cash economy, because respondents routinely described it as training people “to be employees, not employers”, and without enough emphasis on the vocational education and training that would facilitate the establishment of small businesses and enterprises. Limited access to microcredit facilities provides further limits on opportunities for self-employment. There is also limited financial support and a lack of activities available for young people who are not in formal education or employment.

The emphasis on formal education and the need for cash, as well as the lack of youth activities, encourages migration of people from rural areas to urban areas. This is particularly the case among youth – many respondents described how young people from rural villages “are attracted to the bright lights of Honiara”. However unemployment appears to be high in Honiara, and the issues that young people seek to escape from rural life – lack of community participation, poverty, limited youth activities – exist in Honiara also. Respondents described the sense among youth that they “have no future”. This context provided a breeding ground for the growth of frustration and resentment among youth, and in this context it was not particularly difficult to mobilise youth. Young people have described how during the early stages of the Tensions, fighting was exciting, it provided a cause for young people to believe in. All of a sudden they had something to do and something to believe in. One young person described how, "at the time it was just exciting, and I was angry with them for stealing our land. I didn't know what would happen. I didn't know what bad things would happen." Ironically, the situation of young people is worse in the aftermath of the Tensions than before. The formal/cash economy largely collapsed during the Tensions, and while starting to recover, the opportunity for income generation remains limited. Poverty and aimlessness finds no relief through traditional village structures, and the situation is exacerbated by poor access to education and high illiteracy rates.

The rioting, like the Tensions, brings the consequences of cultural differences and tension over minimal resources into sharp focus. The increased immigration of Chinese and their economic success in Solomon Islands only reinforces the sense among Melanesians of being at the bottom of the economic heap in their own homelands. There is a limit to what Australian security forces can achieve. As is the case throughout the world, there will be no chance for real improvements in civil security unless the sources of insecurity are acknowledged not only by the country and its people, but by the bilateral aid donors.