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Op-ed: The unsung heroes in peace building

By
Uzra Zeya
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Opinion: Uzra Zeya is CEO and President of Alliance for Peacebuilding and this article was first published in Alliance Magazine.

We live in an era of disruption. Nearly 70 million people are displaced worldwide – the highest number ever recorded – while violent conflict has reached a 25-year high. Hate and polarization are rising even in longstanding democracies, like the United States and India. Peacebuilding is needed now more than ever.

In 2017, violence cost the global economy $14.8 trillion, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace (2018). This figure, while staggering, understates the full extent of the problem. Wars, crime, extremism, corruption, poor governance, and other conflict dynamics wipe out development gains and destroy lives. In 2016, the International Monetary Fund concluded that ‘Syria’s civil war has set the country’s economic, social and human development back by decades.’ Meanwhile in Venezuela – a country which the World Bank classified as upper middle income in 2014 – the murder rate is now the second highest in the world, according to the UN, while the New York Times recently reported the country’s economic collapse to be the worst recorded outside of wartime in over 45 years. Despite such dire developments, peacebuilding, which aims to address the causes of violent conflict, receives only a sliver of government assistance—less than one per cent of US foreign assistance. As the CEO of the Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), I am acutely aware of this shortfall. A recent AfP survey of our global peacebuilding network identified funding diversification as a top priority challenge. As the Peace and Security Funding Index concluded, ‘Peace and security funders do a lot with a little.’ While peacebuilding receives only a fraction of private donations, these resources are critical and offer unique benefits. Fourteen percent of foundation grants for peacebuilding go to general support, giving much-needed flexibility to sustain organizations. Without this critical funding, peacebuilding organizations could work only on short-term projects driven by government donors. It can take years for government donors to assess, design, tender, and fund a project. In contrast, private donors can move quickly to fund ideas. Nimble funding is essential to address conflict dynamics that cannot wait years for action on the ground. At the same time, greater coordination among private donors is needed to leverage rather than duplicate established programs. Further, private funders support risk-taking, benefiting the field as a whole. For example, AfP’s Learning and Evaluation (L&E) work, funded by GHR Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York, addresses one of the greatest challenges to the peacebuilding field: the lack of collective data to prove effectiveness. Thanks to philanthropic support, AfP has been able to build L&E capacity; empower peacebuilders to capture high-quality, actionable data; and encourage the field to become more evidence-based, ultimately delivering greater impact in terms of lives saved. Private donors deserve huge gratitude for their steady help. In recent years, the strongest supporters of peacebuilding have been the Carnegie Corporation, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the Foundation to Promote Open Society, although many others have played pivotal roles carrying new ideas forward. Humanity United recently partnered with AfP and 17 other peacebuilding organizations to launch +Peace, a coalition that aims to make the case for peace to policymakers, politicians, and the general public. Collectively, private funders are unsung heroes in the peacebuilding field. We need their heroism now more than ever. Photo: JasonParis/Flickr

Can online hate speech be cured in the next generation?

By
Kate Roff
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In the wake of a hate-driven attacks in New Zealand and Sri Lanka this year, world leaders are asking: Is online hate something we can cure in the next generation?

“Hate speech has been around for centuries,” says Althea Middleton-Detzner, director of PeaceTech Lab. “But what’s changed—especially as of late—is the widespread access to social media platforms on the internet whereby virtually anybody has the ability to reach a wide audience with their message.”

Middleton-Detzner explains that in the peacebuilding field the Rwandan genocide of 1995 is pften held up as an example of the use of media and technology—in that case it was radio—as a platform and medium to spread harmful messages or hate speech.

Now peacebuilders, NGOs and educators are working to combat hate speech with online technology and groups like PeaceTech Lab and Hatebase monitor it online.

“Interestingly, over the last few years we’ve seen an increase in use cases in… both the public and the private sectors,” says Timothy Quinn from Hatebase. “Everything from big social networks using our data now to identify white nationalists recruiting in their ecosystems to law enforcement using it to stem gang activity in high-risk neighborhoods.”

Online campaigns, such as #sharesomegood, are also actively trying to counter hate speech. Youtube Creators for Change share tool-kits on how to identify hate speech and how to do something about it. But there are challenges.

Identifying hate speech is hard

“Hate speech is very nuanced language; it’s very coded and contextualized language, so simply identifying it in the first place becomes challenging,” says Middleton-Detzner. One way of resolving this issue is through working with local partners and peacebuilders are focused on tracking, removing and combating hate speech.

Tracking hate speech

New technology is emerging to aid the tracking of hates speech, including the use of artificial intelligence (AI). “By combining artificial intelligence and machine learning with social science the online hate index will ultimately uncover and identify trends and patterns in hate speech, across different platforms,” says Brittan Heller from the ADL Center for Technology & Society. “This information and data and the tools that are helping us to monitor online, then help us so that we can design and deliver strategies and approaches to addressing and combating hate speech,” says Middleton-Detzner.

Removing hate speech

Regulating hate speech is a controversial topic, but social media companies are paying attention. “They’re concerned about the toxicity of their ecosystems,” says Quinn, “And they care because [it’s] potentially driving legitimate users away, it’s hurting the potential for advertising and revenue and increasingly there are legal liabilities that these companies have to worry about.” “Most people are familiar with Germany potentially levying a fine of $50 million US for posts that are not removed within a week, the UK has a potential fine of 4 percent of global revenue, and Australia recently followed up talking about a 10 percent fine of global revenue…For a company like Facebook or TicTok or Twitter, that’s a huge amount of money so they are very incentivized to do something about it.”

Combating hate speech: A case study

Rachel Brown and her team at Sisi Ni Amani used text messages in Kenya to actively counter hate speech during elections. Sisi Ni Amani, which means “We are Peace” in Kiswahili, was a project that aimed to map peace initiatives to help highlight and coordinate positive peacebuilding initiatives in and across communities. The group helped peacemakers connect with each other and help highlight the initiatives and the desire for peace to the general public. “Essentially we took this tool that had been used really effectively to mobilize for violence and we figured out how we can mobilize it to prevent violence, by educating people about the rumors that they might hear, by giving them actions that they could take to address grievances and come together across conflict lines, and by responding in real time to tensions, mis-information, and risks of violence,” says Brown.

What next?

With other popular online movements like: #StopTheHate, #TheyAreUS, #NoHateSpeech, #defyhatenow, it seems the next generation is tackling the issue head-on. Want to know more about combating hate speech online? Check out five sites with tool-kits and information:HatebasePeaceTech LabDefy Hate NowStopping HateYouTube Creators for Change

Climate change seen posing threat to global peace in next 10 years

By
Peace News Staff
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Climate change poses a threat to peace in countries around the world in the coming decade, according to an annual peace index released last week that factored in the risk from global warming for the first time. Nearly a billion people live in areas at high risk from global warming and about 40 percent of them are in countries already struggling with conflict, said the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP).

Read the full story from Reuters here and see our story on the impact of climate change in conflict zones here and in video format below.

Photo: NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response.

Doing business in war zones: Do big corporations have a peacebuilding role?

By
Peace News Staff
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Recent research by the UN and the World Bank points to an urgent need for the international community to refocus on building peaceful societies and preventing violent conflict, which they calculate could save between $5 billion and $70 billion per year. Business, alongside all stakeholder groups, has a key role to play here, but all too often their involvement in building peace is little more than an afterthought. This needs to change. So what can business do to contribute to peace?

Read the full story here.

Monitoring hate speech in South Africa, Part 2

By
Caleb Gichuhi
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Opinion: Caleb Gichuhi is a senior specialist at PeaceTech Lab. As South Africa geared up for the recent election (May 8), he and his team were monitoring and analyzing trends throughout the country to understand and offer insights on the potential relationship between hateful language on social media and instances of violence on the ground. This is part two of a deep dive into the findings, read part one here.

Umlungu and White Monopoly Capital

Remarks like the ones from ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule urging voters in Philipi to not vote for umlungu [white people] and further stating that “umlungu can’t improve the life of a black man” on April 13th set the stage for a polarized racial discourse on social media. By invoking racial divisions that are rooted in apartheid, such remarks have provided an empowerment illusion to the marginalized – suggesting that a simple action they take can “correct” their situation. In this instance, that action was to not vote for umlungu. While the ANC veterans addressed the situation by slamming Magashule, their approach can seem to be self-preservatory as they pointed out their party ideals but failed to advocate for unity amidst a divisive situation. This resulted in interesting discourse on social network platforms: some, such as the Premier of Western Cape Province, Hellen Zille, welcomed the criticism of Magashule by ANC while others agreed with Magashule and didn’t see a problem, instead defending him by accusing the ANC as being part of the white monopoly capital.

What is interesting is the similarity in volume patterns between the term Umlungu and white monopoly capital, at least from April 13th to the 19th. The Lab has witnessed similar patterns in other countries, such as South Sudan, where two hateful terms are used together to emphasize a narrative or are used separately by two groups opposing each other on a specific topic. Here, we see a case of the former, where supporters of Magashule’s remarks argue that there was nothing wrong with Umlungu and that the ANC is just part of the white monopoly capital.

There is however a departure between the two terms on April 20th; white monopoly capital increased in volume on the day that the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) joined the exclusive Inanda Club in Sandton and was accused of being part of the white monopoly capital. Comments were seen on social media such as “Seriously you dumb if you think #juliusmalema is for black people he’s under white monopoly trying to convince us he’s an African child and he’s all for land, wait till he gains power and has to start paying all these loans that keep EFF moving, I’ll vote for my rotten ANC”. Umlungu also spiked on the 24th after President Ramaphosa went to Durban to visit flood victims. Social media users accused him of visiting the white communities first even though they were the least affected. Hateful content on social media in relation to offline activities suggests that South Africans continue to view the activities of their leaders from a racial lens that can be used to stir up divisions.

Coincidence or Incitement

Recently the SA Human Rights Commission decided that remarks made by EFF leader, Julius Malema, were “problematic” but did not amount to hate speech. This came amidst a national debate on whether or not phrases like “kill the farmer kill the boer” sang by politicians like Malema in public gatherings were the reason behind an increase in farm attacks in South Africa.The realization of the utterances as problematic has, however, not stopped the EFF leader from using these phrases. On April 13th, he sang “kill the farmer kill the boer” at Mme Selina Maropeng’s funeral and the following day, the phrase’s volume spiked on social media platforms. Seven days later, there were 13 farm attacks and three farm murders, according to AfriForum. A slight bump in the term is seen as social media users condemned the attacks and blamed them on songs and chants like the one Malema did.

Network map:

The visualization below shows a network of social media users that have used the term umlungu. The color grouping show users who have shared the same content or discussed a similar topic while using the term. Visit PeaceTechLab here for an interactive version to read the content of the posts.

This story was first published by PeaceTech Lab.

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