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Music Challenging Stereotypes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

By
John Oryang
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When Kelvin and his friends filmed their own version of a US pop song, they never knew it would be such a hit.

Kelvin Batumike knew youth faced a bleak future in his hometown of Goma, DRC. So in 2013, he and his friends founded Kivu Youth Entertainment as an alternative to joining militia groups.

“The eastern part of our country has been affected by conflict and most of the time the vulnerable are the youth. We have grown up in a climate of conflict and that is how other friends and I got the idea to start Kivu Youth Entertainment,” Mr Batumike, Director of Kivu Youth Entertainment, told Peace News Network.

“We recruit a lot of young, talented, artists and cultural performers who are in Goma, to allow the youth do something else other than participating in the conflicts,” he said.

The group organizes concerts and partner the Amani festival, but it was their version of Happy, by Pharrell Williams that earned them YouTube fame.

“Happy from Goma is something that has helped in changing the image of the eastern part of our country, that has faced a lot of conflict. Happy from Goma is a campaign to show that there is something else apart from the conflict and also trying to show the world something else other than the refugee camps and child soldiers.”

They also did a Swahili version of the song, and Kelvin believes multi-media skills can help his peers.

“Art is a way of transmitting a message or changing mentality of people and I think it is something going to contribute in changing the image of our country,” Mr Batumike said.

“In the future, I want Kivu Youth to become a big center – well established, with equipment – and give help where the community needs. We would also like to be seen as reference in the production of multi-media and arts,” he said.

People Choosing Peace: Regina (South Sudan)

By
Peace News Staff
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My name is Regina Gorle. I’m 30 years old. I work in Juba, but am originally from Kajo-Keji, in the state of Central Equatoria.

My state served as safe haven for internally displaced people from many regions of South Sudan, until recently when most of them were forced to enter into the neighboring country, Uganda. Many of my relatives were part of the exodus that is still on-going. Most of them are in refugee settlement camps, where living conditions are dire.

Right now there is widespread insecurity in the state. Most of the areas have become battlefield for the two factions. This seemingly never-ending conflict has caused a lot of suffering to average people. I don’t see an end any time soon, if there are no collective efforts.

Politicians have huge role to play in order to clear all this mess we are in. There needs to be political willingness to settle any differences without the use of guns, but instead through dialogue. Otherwise I believe worse famine, displacement, and economic collapse will happen.

I don’t know when calm will return, to allow normality. But one thing is certain; I believe that in spite of the wide-spread violence in the country, peace will come, because everything has a beginning and an end. There will be an end to this conflict, too.

Kenya’s Election: Can Technology Stop Hate Speech?

By
Peace News Staff
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Kenya’s past elections have been marred by violence, and with citizens heading to the polls on August 8, observers are concerned about the impact of hate speech. SMS text messages, in particular, have been blamed for partially fueling violence that led to 1,400 deaths following the 2007 election.

However, during this year’s election, SMS messages are being used to try to diffuse tension, and social media is being used to monitor hate speech.

What is hate speech?

“The definition we use for hate speech is really the general definition, which is speech that attacks a person or group, on the basis of their race, their gender, their ethnic origin, their religion, or sexual orientation,” said Giselle Lopez, from PeaceTech Lab, who has been researching the impact of hate speech and conflict in the region – including neighboring South Sudan.

“In the case of most of the work that we do there’s another category of speech, called dangerous speech, which is speech that is very likely to lead to violence,” Ms Lopez said.

Mercy Muendo lectures I.T. and the Law at Mount Kenya University and she told Peace News Network that hate speech in her homeland is often directed at particular tribes.

“Right now it’s worse because we have Facebook – if you look at our Facebook sites, you see there are some groups, some people, who just carelessly utter things,” Ms Muendo said.

But, technology is also being used to diffuse tensions in Kenya.

Theo Dolan, Director of PeaceMedia and PeaceTech Lab Africa, said they are keeping a close watch on four “at-risk” counties in Kenya as elections proceed – Nakuru, Nandi, Kisumu and Nairobi.

Response hubs have been set up to monitor hate speech in online media, as part of a project run by Mercy Corps,

“[PeaceTech Lab] are providing some of the response hubs with information so that they’ll be better able to identify what the language is, in what context it could be – really a sign of potential violence,” said Mr Dolan.

This monitoring and analysis is intended to assist communities, security officials, and other response hubs, to respond to virulent election-related hate speech on social media.

Another tool being used is SMS text message programs, which were used by NGO’s in the last election.

“Basically what it is, is using an SMS platform, to which people subscribe in at-risk areas for election violence,” said Mr Dolan.

“And then we work with local community leaders to train them as, basically, sensors. We have people on the ground, entrenched in their local communities, looking for cases of rumors, or mis-information, or brewing violence, and then they text into the central hub, with that information,” he said.

“In which case, then there can be a very targeted peace message that’s sent out to a specific community to try to diffuse the tension, or debunk the rumor or mis-information.”

Op-Ed: The Cost Effectiveness of Peacebuilding

By
Melanie Greenberg
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Opinion article by Melanie Greenberg, President and CEO, Alliance for Peacebuilding. The Alliance for Peacebuilding represents a community of over 100 peace and development organizations that protect the US by eliminating the root causes of violence worldwide.

Recently proposed cuts by the US administration have raised serious concerns in the peacebuilding community.

Investment in peace is so relevant now because the world is becoming increasingly violent. Over the past 15 years, political, criminal, interpersonal, and social violence, along with violent extremism, have all increased dramatically. We now understand that violence spreads like an epidemic, and that people who are exposed to violence are more likely to become violent themselves. Additionally, violent conflict lies at the root of other global threats, such as forced migration, disease, and famine that directly impact national security and the global economy.

A report produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace estimated the total economic impact of violence to the world economy in 2015 at $13.6 trillion. This equals 13.3% of world GDP. If violence containment were an industry, it would be one of the largest in the world.

The costs of conflict dwarf the amount that we are spending to prevent it. In fact, peacebuilding and peacekeeping expenditures combined represent just 2% of the cost of conflict. The Institute for Economics and Peace estimates that for every dollar invested in peacebuilding now, the return could be as high as $16. Doubling the minuscule amount of international investment in the peacebuilding sector could save $2.94 trillion in direct and indirect losses from conflict over ten years.

Despite minimal resources, peacebuilding practitioners have developed a wide range of successful programs that reduce violence by addressing the multiple root causes of conflict. Alliance for Peacebuilding members have proven their ability to reduce violence from the Central African Republic to Chicago. Violence reduction works to address all types of violence: land disputes, religious conflict, ethnic conflict, gang violence, gender-based violence, and violent extremism.

At a time when governments are considering pouring more money into the military, and less into cost-saving foreign assistance, we need to recognize the powerful preventive effect of peacebuilding and invest in these tools. Cutting development assistance in a time of increased violence would severely damage the ability of the US to respond to global threats and would weaken our power to prevent deadly conflict.

An investment in building peace and reducing violence will pay dividends for years to come. If we can pay a dollar for prevention, why pay sixteen times more for violence containment? And if peace can be built so much less expensively than war, we need to invest in the tools that keep us safe at a fraction of the cost.

Photo: U.S. Marine Corps

Can Peace be Secured in Iraq?

By
Peace News Staff
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With the defeat of ISIS in Mosul, citizens and observers are asking: What will happen to Iraq after ISIS?

Iraqi’s struggles don’t end with ISIS, and while immediate aid for the people of Mosul has been crucial, there are long-term barriers to peace.

“Places like Mosul and Raqqa, populations have lived under ISIS control for three years in some instances, there are reals concerns about who constitutes an ISIS sympathizer, or not, and how are these people going to be treated,” Mona Yacoubian, USIP Senior Policy Scholar, told Peace News Network.

“So I think there are real, legitimate concerns, about tensions not only between various sectarian communities, but even within the Sunni community,” Ms Yacoubian said.

“There I think local-level reconciliation efforts is going to be essential, and some sense of understanding that people were living under ISIS not by choice in most instances,” she said.

“We need to think really creatively about how to ensure families are integrated back into the social fabric of their community.”

What could help build peace?

Dr Elie Abouaoun, USIP Middle East and North Africa Director, said peacebuilding in places like Mosul has many layers.

“I think that the immediate – short term – concern is to prevent revenge operations against some civilians, or some groups, tribes etc. and the second one is to work on de-confliction mechanisms for local conflicts,” Dr Abouaoun said.

“Now, think on a longer term, we mentioned the issues of the barriers to return, so ‘what would prevent IDPs from returning?’, and this takes us into the reconstruction aspects, the security aspects, and the governance model,” he said.

“So these are the main aspects that peace-building [initiatives] need to be thinking about, in the case of Mosul – but also in other places in Iraq.”

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