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SEPTEMBER 1999, pages 130-132 Waging Peace
Iranians “are trying to make up for lost years,” and have “a tremendous thirst for knowledge and contact with the outside world,” according to Baquer Namazi, who recently completed a Ford Foundation study of community organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Iran. Speaking at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC on July 19, he provided some statistics that reflect positively on Iran. There has been a decrease in population growth, 97 percent of school-age children are in school, 80 percent of Iranians are literate, 95 percent have access to clean water, and 85 percent have access to health care. Discussing independent, non-governmental, non-profit organizations, Namazi noted that there are two distinct classes of NGOs in Iran, the traditional and the modern. Noting that the exact number of NGOs operating in Iran is hard to measure, he estimated the total to be between 1,000 to 1,500 including Muslim, Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian NGOs. According to Namazi, the traditional NGOs are organizations such as charities, while the modern NGOs tend to deal more with development and respond more to international trends than do traditional NGOs. In determining the effectiveness of various NGOs, Namazi said the best measurement is public trust in the organization. The strength of traditional NGOs is their strong affinity with the people and the tangible tasks they perform. On the other hand, these organizations are often accused of creating dependence and being too religiously oriented, according to Namazi. He pointed to a mistrust between the two types of NGOs, with the modern development organizations tending to look down on the traditional charities. He added that modern NGOs are getting increasingly more respect from lawmakers. NGOs are also helping women to have more influence in Iranian society, Namazi said. But Namazi sees President Mohammed Khatami as having a minimal effect on reforms enacted by NGOs, as in the case of women. “Some think reform, with women playing a bigger role, is a result of Khatami, but in fact, it’s just the trend moving that way, and Khatami was able to see that and act on it,” he concluded. —Rob Swanson
Luna Books, above Luna Café and Skewers Restaurant in Washington, DC, hosted a panel discussion July 15 to talk about the U.S. policy in Iraq and the ongoing war and sanctions. Shari Siberstein from the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC) in Washington, DC said that since the end of “Desert Fox,” in December 1998, there have been more than 200 air strikes against Iraq, killing at least 55 civilians and wounding more than 160 people. Since the end of the Gulf war, the U.S. has flown over 100,000 missions and spent more than $7 billion in efforts to contain Iraq, according to the Congressional Resource Center. U.N. agencies have documented over 1 million deaths, most of them children, due to U.S.-sponsored U.N. “economic” sanctions. Phyllis Bennis, a fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, said that the American press is never going to be an ally, but nevertheless anti-war and anti-sanctions activists need to keep mobilizing, putting the word out and putting the issues on the national agenda, especially in election years. After briefly outlining “what the U.S. is up to” with relentless bombings in recent months, she described the vast numbers of Iraqis dying from deliberate sanctions that deny the basic necessities of life: clean water, food, medicines and sanitation. Bennis called for making the Middle East a nuclear-free zone and ridding the area of weapons of mass destruction, including sanctions, which are just as lethal as nuclear bombs. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) media director Hussein Ibish criticized U.S. policy toward Iraq in a broader context. He wondered if it was only aimed at overthrowing Saddam Hussain, or at destroying the ancient civilization of Iraq. “The sanctions remain as remnants of a hideous policy,” he said, and they may even cause Iraqis to rally around their leader. As for Arabs around the world, Ibish said there is now revulsion toward the inhumane economic sanctions that have hurt innocent Iraqi people. “Many deny the linkage of our Iraq policy and U.S. relations with Israel, but there is an absolute linkage,” Mr. Ibish declared. “If what Iraq did to Kuwait is wrong, how is it that Israel sits in Lebanon, the Golan Heights and the West Bank? Why don’t the same rules apply to Israel? Why was there a 10-minute meeting today instead of a full-fledged investigation?” he asked, referring to the July 15 U.N. meeting in Geneva to affirm the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to Israeli-occupied territories. The meeting was boycotted by the U.S. and Israel. From the steering committee of the DC Coalition to Stop the War Against Iraq, Carwil James discussed the sanctions which, he said, are going to wipe out the future of an entire people. Gulf war veteran and director of EPIC Erik Gustafson showed a powerful slide show with poignant scenes taken in Iraqi hospitals. He showed victims of cancer, which has increased five-fold in southern Iraq, where U.S. troops used depleted uranium. “In the past Iraqi hospitals were on a par with those in the U.S.,” Gustafson told his horrified audience, “and now they are barely capable of administering Third World medicine. The second successful heart transplant in the world was performed in Iraq, and now the same hospital has flickering lights, inoperable elevators and crumbling steps caused by dragging oxygen canisters and other heavy equipment up the stairs. “Iraq is a beautiful nation with a history that goes back through the millenia,” Gustafson said, but “U.S. policy in Iraq has always been insane.” He related a popular Iraqi joke: “If Germany and France go to war, Basra would be bombed.” This summer’s drought, the worst in 50 years, has brought famine and illness to the land, he said, and raw sewage is dumped into the sharply reduced rivers. “The oil-for-food program was supposed to be a temporary reaction to a crisis, but this administration seems to think it is a permanent solution in Iraq,” Gustafson concluded, “which is like saying breadlines were a permanent solution in the days of the Great Depression.” The Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC) hosted “Iraq Lobby Days” from July 18-21, inviting activists from across the country to visit more than 200 congressional offices in that period to pressure Congress to lift the devastating economic sanctions on the people of Iraq. —Delinda Hanley
When hearing the words “Middle East,” some people may think of politics and conflict, while others culture, religion and history. But one thing that does not immediately pop into mind is the environment. Yet, as the 35-year-old director of an innovative education program based outside Boston is quick to point out, animals don’t respect national boundaries, water does not suddenly cease to be polluted when it flows into another country and, more often than not, workable solutions to environmental problems require the cooperation of all involved. However, where national borders are also confrontation lines, as in the case of Israel and its neighbors, cooperation often seems impossible. Anne-Seymour St. John dismisses talk of “the impossible” with a smile. Even where terrible things happen in the headlines, “there are good people on the ground,” she explains. She knows this from her first-hand experience as Middle East program director for the Atlantic Center for the Environment Quebec-Labrador Foundation, which brings educators and environmental professionals from various Middle Eastern countries together for fellowship programs in Massachusetts which last close to a month. The group learns how environmental preservation is handled in North America and sees how conservation is taught in school. But, perhaps equally important, the professionals get to meet each other and work together, often building personal connections that can circumvent political impediments back home. St. John believes that building a network of Middle Eastern educators and environmental officials can promote cooperation throughout the region regardless of the political differences. In an article appearing in Whole Terrain , a publication of Antioch New England Graduate School, St. John wrote, ‘The most outrageous thing you can do is to introduce people to one another,’ read a bumper sticker I saw recently. This statement sums up my work with Jews and Arabs from the Middle East at its most fundamental level.” This spring, six fellows from Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Egypt attended. Most are teachers or work for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in such areas as wildlife or park management. “The critical component is this,” St. John said. “We’re bringing them together in a very neutral place for an intensive program working together. Although it’s still not comfortable for Lebanese and Israelis to work together,” she noted, the Israelis and Palestinians already are cooperating through the joint Palestinian-Israeli Environmental Secretariat. “People here learn from them,” St. John said. Middle Eastern pollution problems vary widely throughout the region, St. John said. In Israel and in Lebanon, which is now undergoing a building boom, urban sprawl is prompting debates over land use, while in bustling Egypt “the development pressures are just incredible.” Severe air pollution is a problem in both Tel Aviv and Beirut, and the latter “has eye-opening traffic and the environment is not the first priority or even the second or third.” Jordan, on the other hand, has less development encroaching into wild spaces. While water shortages are a reality in all of the countries with which she works, attitudes toward endangered species vary. “I think Israel has been pretty aware of endangered species,” she said, adding that Jordan’s late King Hussein founded the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature in the 1960s to manage wildlife hunting. On the other hand, she is critical of Lebanon, where hunting has long been a way of life. “In 1999 they don’t need to shoot birds which are endangered or take their eggs for food,” St. John stated. As for recycling, “it seems to be a perennial issue everywhere, but the infrastructure must be in place for recycling and solid waste management to work.” The Atlantic Center was founded 35 years ago by an Episcopalian minister to conduct programs on river and sea bird conservation. Gradually it has expanded to include several international programs, encompassing Latin America, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe, in addition to the Middle East. For more information, write to Atlantic Center for the Environment Quebec-Labrador Foundation, 55 South Main Street, Ipswich, MA 01938, or call (978) 356-0038. E-mail is atlantic@qlf.org. There is also an office in Montreal. —David P. Johnson Jr. |
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