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Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK): A different kind of peacebuilder

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When Martin Luther King Jr. was 6 years old he was friends with a white boy, but they were separated by segregated schools and banned from playing together. MLK never forgot the feeling.

After growing up in racial segregation, MLK went on to fight for civil rights through non-violent protests and marches. While many called for violence in the face of injustice, MLK believed non-violence would be more effective.

“Non-violence does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent but to win friendship and understanding,” MLK said.

The movement challenged white Americans to see African Americans as equals, and inspired people such as US President Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

“Their cause must be our cause too,” President Johnson announced. “Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.”

MLK was instrumental in advancing racial equality, not only inspiring peace and justice in the US, but goodwill around the globe. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize.

While MLK was assassinated in 1968, his legacy continues and his call for national healing and unity continue to be as relevant as ever.

“And so, together we will work, until we make America one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr. (quoting the US Pledge of Allegiance)

Pierre-Claver Mbonimpa (Burundi)

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As a child, growing up in a small village in Ngozi Province in northern Burundi, Pierre-Claver Mbonimpa never thought he would grow up to fight for human rights.

The now 67-year-old activist writes in his recent biography, “Rester Debout” (Stay Standing), co-written with journalist Antoine Kaburahe that in 1994, Mbonimpa, then a police officer, was arrested and jailed after firing a colleague’s service weapon to scare off potential intruders. He was held for 18 months without charge. He discovered that 3000 inmates were squeezed into a facility built for 800, where dozens of people shared a single toilet, and inmates were given only a few hundred grams of rice and manioc each day.

“I couldn’t stand to watch people live this way,” he recalls.

When he was released, he became a full-time prisoners’ advocate. He founded the Association for the Protection of the Human Rights of Prisoners (APRODH). The group developed a deep-rooted network of informants which stretched across the country, and soon went beyond monitoring prison conditions and began investigating other human rights violations. Mbonimpa was rearrested in 2014 after revealing in a radio interview that Burundi’s ruling party, the CNDD-FDD, was training militia members over the border in Congo.

In May 2015, when president Pierre Nkurunziza announced his decision to seek a third term, despite a constitutional provision restricting presidents to two terms, thousands of people in Bujumbura took to the streets. Mbonimpa and other civil society leaders endorsed the peaceful protests. But after an attempted coup d’état rattled the leadership, authorities began responding with violence.

“My colleagues and I encouraged people to stand up for their rights,” Mbonimpa recalls. “We were surprised and saddened when the regime started using force.”

On Aug. 3, 2015, Mbonimpa nearly paid the ultimate price for his work — he was shot in the face while returning from an event. In critical condition, he was evacuated to Belgium. While he was still in hospital, his son was assassinated.

“I couldn’t even go to the funeral,” he recalls with a pained expression — a rare departure from the matter-of-fact tone with which he describes the regime’s abuses. Although he still speaks with some difficulty, his recovery has gone well.

“It’s very frustrating being so far away from home,” he says. “As soon as the doctors have told me that I’m fully recovered, I’ll go back.”

It is uncertain what kind of country he will go back to. Those who continue to expose abuses face growing risks; several researchers for APRODH and similar organizations have been arrested and detained on dubious charges, or without charge, over the past several months, according to the World Organization Against Torture.

Mbonimpa believes the keys to building a durable peace are respect for human rights, youth engagement, ending reprisals, building a strong internal judicial system, and ensuring the respect of the Arusha Accords, the agreements signed in 2000 that ended decades of conflict in Burundi.

“Killing Nkurunziza is not how we ensure a peaceful transition. Launching a coup d’État is not how we ensure a peaceful transition. We ensure a peaceful transition by making sure the Arusha accords are respected…the important things are not to hold onto hatred, and not to take revenge.”

“In my neighbourhood in Bujumbura, Hutus and Tutsis live together. I’ve never seen someone say, ‘I’m from this ethnic group, this person is from that ethnic group, we should kill each other. It’s always been the people in power who have incited the population. The country belongs to our young people…career politicians aren’t going to change anything.”

He plans to return home and continue his work documenting human rights violations, along with researchers who are on the ground even now.

“Officially, we don’t exist. But we believe an illegal government can’t declare our organizations illegal. So we continue to make our reports and gather our evidence. We rely on the people…and now, with mobile phones, anyone can take a picture of something that’s going on and speak to us on WhatsApp. It’s risky but important work. We haven’t given up. We have the truth, and the truth always wins.”

Image: Courtesy of Human Rights Watch

5 Times Peace Broke Out in 2017

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As we look forward to 2018, we take a moment to remember some success stories for peace in the last year, around the world….

1. A peace deal in Colombia 50 years of civil war in Colombia ended with a peace accord in November 2016. Throughout 2017 former fighters were participating in reintegration and landmines were being cleared, paving the way for sustainable peace.

2. Coming together in the USA After violence in Charlottesville shocked the world, people from both side of the political divide showed solidarity against racism with candle-lit vigils.

3. Cross-border conservation in the Middle East Despite war between Israel and Palestine, three nations (Israel, Jordan, and the Palestine Authority) were all involved in a nature conservation project, working together to protect Barn Owls in border regions.

4. Peace offering between China and India China and India were disputing Himalayan territory, but when an Indian boxer Vijender Singh won a title fight he gave his prize to his Chinese opponent, Zulpikar Maimaitialias, a gesture of peace between the countries.

5. Meeting hate with love in the UK After the Manchester Arena bombing, people came together for One Love Manchester – a concert organized by singer Ariana Grande – to show solidarity against the violence.

People Choosing Peace: Mohammed (Pakistan)

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Peace News Staff
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Mohammed Arif Urfi is a journalist and filmmaker based in Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistani-administered side of Jammu and Kashmir. Along with three other filmmakers, from either side of the divided region, he has made a series of films highlighting the need for collaboration across the Line of Control (LoC).

As a journalist, I have spent a lot of time travelling along the Line of Control; seeing and hearing the stories of divided families.

From 1989-2004, when India and Pakistan were fighting over the Line of Control, I was a war reporter. I experienced dead bodies, burned homes and broken families and I wanted to do something that could help to neutralize the tensions. When I heard Conciliation Resources wanted to support connections across the LoC, I volunteered myself to help share the stories of the people living on the divide.

Jammu and Kashmir is an active conflict. You may have some talks, some confidence building measures, but people are dying on the Line of Control. There are people who are actually suffering.

In active conflict, it is hard to discuss sensitive things without having some negative reactions. So films are a good concept to start discussions with the community, I think media is an important tool to create dialogue.

At the time of making the first film, I did not have a single connection with anyone on the other side of the Line of Control. It was fascinating when I first met Pawan, my fellow filmmaker from the Indian-administered side of Jammu and Kashmir. Growing up, I was told that people from the other side are our enemy, and that we were their enemies. So it was difficult to have confidence in the person who was my enemy for so many years.

But we began to discuss many things and I realized she is not the enemy, she thinks like me, she has the same emotions. The more people I met from the other side, the more my perceptions changed. We may have different languages, education and culture but we can accommodate these differences. This is a great learning, it has given me confidence that we can move forward.

Source: Conciliation Resources

Challenging Hate Speech on Social Media: The case of Nigeria

By
Mohammed Ibrahim
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Hate speech on social media has been blamed for widening divisions between ethnic, religious, and tribal groups in Africa’s most populated country.

“The definition we use for hate speech is really the general definition,” said Giselle Lopez from PeaceTech Lab.

“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.”

“Hate speech is a problem – a serious problem – not just in Northern Nigeria, Nigeria as a whole,” said Abdulazeez Abdulkadir, a social media user in Northern Kaduna.

“Because on a daily basis, when you go online, look at the social media – the kind of things you read – from a religious angle, from an ethnic angle, we have a lot of ‘ethnic profiling’,” he said. “When you see people who have never seen each other before profiling each other just based on the name, or based on their assumed faith the opposite belongs to.”

“Sometimes you have people in a circle – or clique – the people that follow you are probably people that think like you, so when you post these things they “like” or make comments to further encourage such speeches,” said social media user Mustapha Bulama, also of Northern Kaduna.

“I think it’s majorly because of peoples’ insecurities,” said Halima Bashir, another Nigerian social media participant. “I think sometimes they want to feel ‘among’, or they want to feel like they have something to say but I think it’s a terrible thing.”

Hate speech has been identified as a contributor to actual violence, even if it doesn’t directly refer to it.

“Even if it’s not directly calling for violence, from what we’ve seen, it’s still worrisome and it can still escalate tensions,” Ms Lopez said.

“Some people don’t sit down to verify the facts of anything,” said Mr Bulama. “The moment they get a message and it says share – they just share, and it keep going around, and that also led to a lot of anger, a lot of hate – it kept spreading so I think mainly the problem is lack of regulations.”

What do Nigerians believe could reduce hate speech?

Opinions on the ground vary on what could reduce hate speech online in Nigeria, from education to criminalization, with a controversial proposed law entering the debate.

“I think people need to be educated – civic education,” said social media user Abdulganeeyu Abdulrahman Giwa. “They have to be given responsibility to know the importance of the country in which they live in, know the importance of peace, to know the negative aspects of conflict, or war, or whatever it is – to know what hate speech can cause.”

“Until you have a law – a concrete law, you cannot say the government is serious about it,” said Mr Abdulkadir.

“I think that the owners of social media themselves, or the people who work with them, should be able to restrain these things,” said Ms Bashir. “For instance, when passing on comments that have plenty [of] hate things in it, words that you think might be offensive, shouldn’t even be allowed to go online.”

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