Stacey Dooley – Kids with Guns

550x350_staceyboysIn her latest journey abroad, Stacey visits the Democratic Republic of Congo to look at the process of demobilising child soldiers. Personally I love Stacey’s ‘what can I do to help right here and right now approach’, while at the same time being painfully aware of the fact that her efforts are a drop in the ocean compared to what needs to be done to resolve the underlying causes of conflict in Africa, if, indeed, we can ever really figure out what those underlying causes are with any level of certainty.

One of the blog comments below criticises Stacey and the programme for failing to report on the complexities of the crisis of the DRG. Stacey clearly isn’t an academic – but she is genuinly compassionate –  and I’m moving towards the idea that what the developing world really needs is less westerners researching and analysing its problems and potential solutions and more people actually going out there and just bloody well doing something.

A couple of comments on the programme –

One

I was just watching this program, and i think that Stacey Dooley is doing a absolutly a wonderful thing for those people in the program.
I would just like to say that while i was watching this i got a bit emotional, i really really felt for some of these children and what they have gone through.
I think what Stacey Dooley and the bbc are doing is amazing by making this issue more known.
I would love the chance to help people from situations like this.
🙂 xxx

 

Two – 

1. At 4:14pm on 07 Oct 2010, dakar110 wrote: This is now, what? …the fourth programme that Dooley has fronted exposing child labour/ abuse in conflict zones for the BBC?

While I wish her every success in her burgeoning broadcasting career (better than flogging perfume at Luton airport, which I understand was her previous occupation) I cannot help but wonder what kind of contribution these programmes are really making to the development debate.

I dont doubt Dooley’s passion and sense of injustice about what she has encountered, but is it really appropriate to send someone like her, with clearly such limited knowledge of the subject, to report from places like the DRC, Nepal and West Africa?

The fact is that Zaire/ Congo has been in a state of huge internal conflict/ full blown war since independence.
And, like most African nations, the country is NOT intrinsically poor. It’s home to one of the world’s biggest deposits of coltan, the mineral used in mobile phone production, as well as some of the continents biggest timber and rubber reserves. (The Belgians didnt go there for the climate)

But it’s suffered from the ruinous reign of a series of despots, most recently President Mobutu Sese Soko, one of Africa’s most corrupt and kleptocratic rulers.
He bankrolled the genocide in Rwanda, while at the same time ripping off vast inflows of international aid, the like of which Ms Dooley is already promoting here in her blog. (More charity from the West being the perpetual answer to Africa’s problems, of course.)

These situations are NEVER simple and more money is ALMOST never the answer.
Sorry Stacey, but we cant save these people – more to the point they dont really want us to.
It’s fifty years now since independence. Africa has to get it’s own house in order, and we have to let them.

 I think I might ask some students which of the above they would be more inclined to agree with.

This post – relevant to the ‘war and conflict’ section of the our Global Development Module.

Tory Budget shifting women’s economic independence back a generation?

An extract from an excellent documentary, aired on 6th Oct on Radio 4, on the continued relevance of Feminism in Britain today – focussing on how the budget cuts are likely to affect women more than men. You can read the full transcript of the programme here ([Whatever happened to the sisterhood) – or the gernal web site with comments is (30 minutes) here

‘We know that the emergency budget (earlier this year) raised about 8 billion in revenue – of which over 5 billion, just over 70%, is going to come directly from women’s pockets. This will impact on all women, but particularly some of the women who already have least – single parents, black minority ethnic women, women who are living in poverty. It could literally shift back women’s economic independence a generation.

Until now, the recession has hit the private sector, mainly affecting male employees, but now that the budget cuts are hitting the public sector, which employs twice as many women as men. In addition, women draw more of the benefits that are being slashed as well: pregnancy grants, obviously, but also child and housing benefits.   The budget cuts are now hitting the public sector, which employs twice as many women as men. In addition, women draw more of the benefits that are being slashed as well: pregnancy grants, obviously, but also child and housing benefits.

Further analysis in the programme suggests that part of the reason women are likely to be affected by the forthcoming budget cuts is that they are much more likely to do caring jobs than men – teaching, social work, nursing, and these are public sector jobs (health and education are huge employers – approaching 2 million people!) – and many of these are in part- time positions – this reflects two things – firstly, that women have failed to move out of their stereotypical traditional gender roles as carers and secondly that women are still more likely to be finically dependent – either on their male partners who are more likely to be in full time work, or on the state, which many part-time working women rely on to top up their wages.’

For AS students – this is directly relevant to the ‘conjugal roles’ part of the AS Family course – this analysis reminds us that woman generally do not have as much financial independence as men.

There is more in the programme than the extract above – I suggest you listen to it!

Sociology in the News – Squatting and crime as a social construct

 

According to Schews – ‘On Friday 1st October, an historic ban on squatting in all circumstances comes into force in the Netherlands. All Dutch squatters will be instantly criminalised – in a country where squatting used to be largely legal. The new law, voted for by the right-wing, Christian-dominated Dutch government, makes squatting a crime punishable by up to 2 years and 8 months in prison.’

This is a great example of how a government can criminalise a group of people overnight and clearly demonstrates the ‘social construction of crime’ and the ‘power of the authorities to label certain acts as criminal’.

Here a couple of clips of squatters taken from youtube – ‘squat – breaking in Amsterdam in 2006 – note the jovial atmosphere of the neighbours and police – at the time they were not criminals in setting up a squat – but now they are!

Here is a second video which provides the history of squatting and the rationale for doing it –

 

One thing the women in the above video mentions is that it is up to local councils to enforce the ban on squatting, which some will not do, but if some local councils do choose to evict certain squats this will probably be resisted by squatters – which in turn will be met with some degree of force by the police – this this might result in a classic ‘deviancy amplification spiral’.

 

 

 

 

 

 From Wikipedia – Squatting consists of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building, usually residential,[1] that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use. According to author Robert Neuwirth, there are one billion squatters globally, that is, about one in every six people on the planet.[2] NOTE – that most of these six billion are those living in slums in large cities in the developing world – we will look at this aspect of squatting as part of our Global Development module.