Uganda/Rwanda: After Genocide

In less than one month, I will be heading to Uganda and Rwanda. I'm very excited, but also a bit dazed. I've wanted to go to Uganda for many years now, ever since I first watched the documentary Invisible Children, and it's an unreal feeling to realize that your dream is going to be realized. Rwanda is also a place I've been interested in, after learning about the genocide and the country itself. While I'm in Uganda and Rwanda, I'll be studying post-conflict transformation, both in northern Uganda and Rwanda. To get myself prepared, I'm reading some books that give insight into the genocide that took place in Rwanda.

One of the books I read was God Sleeps in Rwanda by Joseph Sebarenzi. Written by the former head of the Rwandan parliament (in the late 1990s), this book goes through Sebarenzi's life as a child in Rwanda to his eventual move to the United States. Sebarenzi was imprisoned during massacres in the early 1990s and had family members killed during the Rwandan Genocide, but managed to forgive the people who made his life miserable. Though his tale of forgiveness is fascinating in and of itself, Sebarenzi's tale becomes even more intriguing after he goes on to become the head of parliament. He recounts his experiences with the transitional government that was put in place after the genocide- the same government that is in charge now and how many politicians, like him, who disagreed with the leading party, were blacklisted, fired and sometimes killed.

This contrasts greatly with the popular view of Rwanda reinventing itself after a tragedy. After all, we hope that the new government is better than the old, that the conditions that led to genocide wouldn't be in place anymore. Of course, the new government is much less violent and ethnically focused than the old, but it is disturbing to see some of the same tendencies. As I go to Rwanda, I want to learn more about how its citizens view their government. Do most people agree with Sebarenzi, or are they more in line with Philip Gourevitch's book We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, which praises the new government?

International Day of Support for Victims of Torture

"He entered my cell at night, woke me up, made me sit up on my bed and began questioning me. When he failed to achieve any results and his attempts to persuade me proved to be futile, he told one of the prisoners to boil some water and began pouring it on me. My arm was in a sling, broken from previous beatings. The water was poured on my bare flesh. The pain was terrible. I began to scream, but even that required energy. I felt very weak. In short, I could hardly tolerate the torture with boiling water."

"When he did not achieve anything by scalding me, he got mad at his assistant, accusing him of not having heated the water properly and asked him if he had actually boiled the water. I laughed to myself as it would have been impossible for the water to have been hotter than it was; that he thought it was because of the water not being hot enough that he had not had any results. In fact, that boiling water had almost killed me, it was very hard to endure it. You are always on the verge in such a case. And the verge keeps shifting further and further, thank God, but you are on the verge of your endurance, feeling that you can not stand it any longer."

This brief excerpt of a torture survivor's story, taken from the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, just scratches the surface of the terrible physical harm man can inflict on others. There are thousands, if not millions, of stories just like this, of people who may or may not have something to hide being beaten and abused, tortured, either for that information or whatever other reason the torturer decides. While this tale comes from the early 1990's, it would be ignorant to assume these kinds of acts don't continue all over the world today. All to often though, the horror of these acts focuses our attention on the wrong person as we become consumed with catching and punishing the torturer while forgetting the pain and terror of the victim.

That is why this Saturday is so important. Designated the first International Day of Support for Victims of Torture by the United Nations, June 26th serves to remind us that for every conflict, every horror, there are the human victims to remember.

For more information on the day, visit http://www.un.org/events/torture/bkg.htm.

"This is a day on which we pay our respects to those who have endured the unimaginable. This is an occasion for the world to speak up against the unspeakable. It is long overdue that a day be dedicated to remembering and supporting the many victims and survivors of torture around the world."

Secretary-General Kofi Annan

Global Labor Issues Highlighted by World Cup

South Africa has worked hard to keep the spotlight surrounding the 2010 World Cup focused on the games and players, though the referees are doing a good job of stealing the show. This desire though has deeper, and much more selfish, roots than most international commentators are revealing. While it’s known to many that most South Africans are far too poor to afford attending a single World Cup match, the exploitation of local labor populations has received scant attention.

This is best evidenced by the plight of staffers who are working as security at the stadiums. BBC covered the story on Wednesday, June 16th (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/africa/10329679.stm), but it has since fallen out of the headlines. The article explains how workers are suffering 15- to 18-hour shifts, being paid wages below their contracted amounts, and even having paychecks withheld by their employer, Stallion. For a company that prides itself for “[caring] about the wellbeing and safety of its staff,” these allegations should be even more embarrassing.

But it gets even worse: since the reporting of the strikes, Stallion has fired thousands of these workers, many of who believed these jobs were their chance to benefit from the country’s and continent’s first World Cup. Stallion blames the workers for trying to hold the World Cup ransom and accusing them of “not being patriotic [sic].” Honestly, Stallion thinks the workers should just suck it up not to embarrass their nation? I for one believe it is Stallion and the South African officials who are doing their country the disservice.

At a time when world attention is drawn upon a global celebration of talent, how shameful is our collected failure to address these conditions. Though South Africa has ended apartheid, the country remains segregated as the vicious cycle and realities of poverty continue to hold most of the country’s black population. We must not let the abuses continue unquestioned. If we don’t speak up when a company violates the principles enshrined in Articles 23 and 24 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the rights to a living wage and limitations on work hours, we may find our protests fall upon deaf ears when we find any of our other 27 rights enshrined in the declaration are being disregarded. Specifically, contact Stallion at either http://www.stallion.co.za/contact.html or their email info@stallion.co.za and tell them you support workers’ rights!

But maybe it’s just me who believes 15-hour work days are unreasonable?

Every Day Search

A quick Google search on “every day terror” brings several articles about the street vendor in New York City who brought up the suspicious SUV left in Times Square to the cops’ attention. The search on “every day human rights” results in a series of websites demanding action against violations suffered by children and women in developing countries around the world. When searching for “every day genocide,” one can expect a variety of books on how genocide affected the every day lives of those involved in such cases. What surprised me the most was the lack of sources looking to prevent terror, genocide and human rights violations. All search results were based on events that are happening or have already happened. Have we not learned to identify these issues until it’s too late? Or, are we just not looking carefully enough?

I recently heard a story on the radio about Fred Harvey, an Englishman who changed the way the restaurant business was done in the U.S. west in the 1880s. According to a new book on the businessman, "in New Mexico, all waiters at that time were African-American men, and there was an incredible amount of racism." Harvey wanted to change not only the quality of food but also of service. His solution: bring single white women from the Midwest to serve tables.

The Harvey Girls were to become the first female work force in the U.S. Allowing women to earn their own money, came at a high price though. Every girl was to sign a contract restricting her from getting married in the following six months. Furthermore, all Harvey Girls were to live to together in barracks for the duration of their employment.

I understand the context in which this occurred is different from today’s; however, how did the decisions made by Harvey in the 1880s affected women’s right for the years to come? My main concern is expectations of women in the labor market. Marriage and pregnancy have always been a concern for employers hiring women, in Harvey’s case to the point of legally prohibiting the first. It was over 100 years later, in 1993, that The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) made it legally okay for women in the labor force to get pregnant and give birth without having to leave their job. Men were fast to catch up since the Act applies to both male and female.

So, what is my point? My point is that in the 1880s few may have noticed how the Harvey Girls were shaping women’s rights in the labor force. Today, there are many issues we must closely observe AND speak out against before it’s too late. Whether it’s exploitation at Chipotle or a national coffee shop, a flawed education system focused on standardized testing and pleasing teacher unions, the denial of health care for all residents of a world power, or racial profiling in Arizona, we must keep our eyes open wide to avoid terror, genocide and human rights violations.

Of Burritos and Exploitation

A couple of years ago, while still living in Austin, TX, I decided to have lunch at Chipotle. Perhaps due to my immersion in a sociological theory class I had been taking, this visit was unlike previous ones; it changed the quotidian experience of buying a burrito into real life illustration of subtle worker exploitation.

Although the location was inundated with burrito-craving customers, the line moved rather quickly; this encouraged me to stay. As I ate, I could not help but to notice the efficiency and alacrity of the lunch shift workers. The burrito-making process resembled a factory assembly line; in fact, the assembly and sale of my burrito had taken four people, excluding the cooks. It was obvious that the intensity of the process and the productivity of each worker increased significantly at lunch time, while their low, hourly wage did not.

Accustomed to the economic rationale under which businesses nowadays operate, we may not think much of this, if any. To us, it is just a burrito. However, absorbed in theoretical readings, which included Marxist theory, I noticed that these workers satisfied Marx’s maxim that “the worker becomes poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and extent” (in Alienated Labor). The number of burritos they produced per minute, per hour, or whatever measure, was not positively correlated to their hourly wage, which remained constant. Hence, each additional unit of output translated into diminishing earnings per unit of input effort. To illustrate, while the restaurant owner profited from forty burritos the first hour and from one hundred the second, the workers continued to make the same hourly wage throughout, but worked harder.

Despite our proclivity to view this as a triviality of the labor market, one should consider that in other jobs, employee compensation increases with the amount of input effort, measured in some specific way, such as number of insurance policies sold or number of baskets of tomatoes collected. In a profit-driven world, the employer’s choice between hourly wage and fixed compensation per unit of something is economically rational: reduce costs, maximize profit. Usually, the worker, limited by his/her immediate skills and trade, abides by the method chosen without his/her best interests in mind and enters an exploitative relationship.

At the time of Marx’s writings, the world economy was dominated by the manufacturing industry, the factories; hence Marx mainly discussed physical labor or labor that can be externalized and objectified into a tangible good. However, with the rise of the tertiary sector in the world economy, other aspects of labor first overlooked my Marx must be taken into account to clearly understand how this current exploitative relation also encroaches on what we consider our non-marketable humanity.

Biting once more into my burrito, I thought of Arlie Hochschild’s work on the commercialization of human feeling and the growing service sector. Sitting in my booth, with Hochschild in mind, I noticed that some of the workers not only made burritos but offered smiles, kindness and thanked patrons. They in fact conveyed an emotion for a wage. As noticed by Hochschild in other studies, what the worker ought to feel is decided in advanced by the company. Already not entitled to directly benefit from their labor and productivity, the burrito workers, as other service workers in America and worldwide, have also given up part of their humanity, of their private life, for the economic gain of the owners. Not being tangible, I must note, emotions remain non-measurable in units of output and therefore subject to subjective compensation, subject to exploitation.

While writing this piece about what I know should have been a trivial experience, I feel as if I should ask the reader not to reach conclusion I am not in exploring this area of everyday life. While I recognize that many workers would not consider their employment relations as exploitative, that many workers consider their compensations fair and that many workers do have some level of choice, I am noting that many can find themselves exploited, if subtly, and lacking a choice. If a worker voluntarily enters an exploitative relationship, is this any less exploitative? Is this any less of a human right violation? I do not yet have a concrete answer to this question and leave it open to discussion. However, whether having a burrito, a hamburger or a pizza, one should not forget that something as ostensibly trifling as a lunch choice can have significant human rights implications.

Everyday Stories of Terror, Genocide and Human Rights: The Barista

   Please, do not misunderstand me when I relate the story of an employee of a nationally owned coffee shop in our Baltimore neighborhood as a way to approach the object of our studies – there ARE graver and imminently more violent, more terrifying events and issues to cover. But there are also more everyday approaches to consider, more mundane objects to identify and different perspectives to explore.

   I was just standing in line, waiting to place my order, watching the three clerks or “partners” on the morning shift go about their business, taking customers’ orders, filling them, thanking us for our business, when I asked for water. I ordered a hot drink first, probably a coffee, maybe an espresso or tea, too. But then it struck me that the barista who was serving me pushed a button on his register to make note of the order for a tall water [I assume they do not also make note of the size of the cup of water]. Without looking up, the barista began to explain this computation to one of the other two baristas standing nearby that the water did not cost the customer anything extra (my reaction: whew!), but it was still important to register this transaction for water. So I asked why, after we had completed my transaction, and it turns out that registering water, as my barista explained, is a measure of the baristas’ work, which is used to determine how many baristas the company needs to employ – not (!), I might add, to augment employees’ wages. In response to my follow up questions, other such transactions that require more effort from the worker as well as incur more cost for the owner, but do not result in a higher cost to the customer include using the oven to heat pastries and sandwiches. Other baristas do not always make note of these transactions because they do not cost the customer anything more, but my barista said that his coworkers should note these transactions more often.

   Why (I thought out loud)? Registering more work does not directly benefit the employee – the one who does the extra work - even this minuscule task, taking time and effort to complete it. It means more work and requires workers to police each other in more detail in their work. If there are benefits for the worker, they must be more indirect. Knowing the right number of employees needed for the work, one could argue, may even translate into more workers for more work and therefore, a more humane and socially just corporation – just not more wages. Such measures are clearly intended to increase the efficiencies of the business. in favor for the owner, and perhaps, over time, the benefit of its "partners."  All pennies, but pennies add up. To me, it is just coffee and a free water.

Epa! Epa! Arriba! Andale! Andale! and the Mexican Immigrant Plight

“Andale! Andale! Arriba! Arriba!” Most Americans readily associate these words with the Warner Bros character, and “fastest mouse in all of Mexico,” Speedy Gonzales (or Gonzalez). This abnormally fast, heroic and sneaky sombrero-wearing Mexican rodent repeatedly defeats Sylvester the Cat and Duffy Duck to save the day. In thinking about what seem to be trivial representations of everyday life and their relation to terror, genocide and human right abuses, Speedy Gonzales caught my attention. While still popular, in recent years, Speedy Gonzales cartoons have been criticized (even banned by Cartoon Network between 1999 and 2002) for their stereotypical portrayal of Mexicans as slow, lazy, drunkards and always ready for a good fight or fiesta (very often, Speedy’s friends are shown celebrating Cinco de Mayo). The promotion and internalization of these stereotypes are likely to lead to prejudice and even discrimination against Mexicans. The show also depicts other Mexican mice as highly dependent on Señor Speedy to get the food they need, often from across the northern border, making this fast mouse a migrant of sorts. Such depiction, in my opinion, is likely to promote a misguided view of Mexican immigrants, of their experience and of their social role in the United States.

Is Speedy Gonzales a migrant? In the strict demographic sense of the word, Speedy is not a migrant. In fact, he does not permanently reside in the United States; his home is Mexico, without a doubt. Yet, as his short trips across the US-Mexico border demonstrate, Speedy is a sojourner, i.e. “an international migrant seeking temporary employment in another country” (as noted by demographer John R. Weeks). Just as a large portion of Mexican immigrants to the United States, Speedy eventually (quite rapidly in his case) returns home. Yet, instead of bringing back laboriously earned money, Speedy brings back stolen cheese from an American cheese corporation.

What does Speedy Gonzales tell us about the Mexican immigrant experience? In Speedy Gonzales’ second TV appearance, his help is requested by a group of border-town mice who are trying to get cheese from a factory across the fence. The fence, however, is not the only obstacles to their ultimate goal, as Sylvester the Cat guards the factory from the perseverant Mexican mice. Many a mouse have lost their lives attempting to cross the border, but despite the many traps (including anti-personnel mines!) set up by Sylvester, the fast and cocky Speedy crosses the border and brings back the cheese as if it were a kids game. In addition to the many stereotypes about Mexicans that Speedy Gonzales’ cartoons have been criticized for promoting, they also advance the following about Mexican immigrants: firstly, that they only take from the United States and do not contribute anything in exchange; secondly, that they steal American resources (cheese); and finally, while some of them fail to make it across the border, nothing can stop those most astute from crossing the fence.

In reality, the Mexican immigrant experience could be referred to, for some, as a plight. Historically, rapid population growth in Mexico led to more job seekers than jobs available, motivating Mexican to cross the northern border seasonally to get jobs. Most recently, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which greatly affected the livelihood of Mexico’s small farmers, has continued to push outward and northward migration from Mexico. Undocumented immigrants who cross the US-Mexico border by foot face great dangers, ranging from being robbed by gangs and the coyote to falling off moving trains to dehydrating in the dessert. Once in the United States, immigrants face fear, discrimination, exploitation and poor living conditions. While some economists have concluded that immigrants benefit the American economy others argue that they drain it (as noted by James H. Henslin). Despite this ongoing debate, it is certain that Mexican immigrants are not economic parasites. Many of them pay taxes that they cannot later collect and fill jobs that many Americans cannot afford to have.

Using modern standards to judge old cartoons can certainly be a questionable approach. However, misunderstanding and stigmatization are at the base of terror, genocide and human rights violations. The fact that a cartoon was created decades ago and reflects ideas of the time does not necessarily exempt it from scrutiny today, especially when what is portrayed in it relates to issues of much relevance today, such as immigration. While many of us would like to continue to enjoy the hilarious adventures of “the fastest mouse in all of Mexico” and his singular “Arriba! Arriba!,” it is important to consider that beyond the jokes and parodies remains the predicament of a people.

*This entry was inspired and based on a class on Latin American Politics at The University of Texas at Austin.