Some individuals caught within larger events

A rather vague theme this time, but I think I'm trying to recognize individuals, who in turn represent the human face of larger forces and events. Hang in there.

A teacher trainee stands up

In Germany, from a report by the German news agency, Deutche Welle, "Tugce Albayrak, a German citizen of Turkish origin, was the victim of a violent attack earlier this month. Reports indicate the student from Gelnhausen intervened on behalf of two girls who were being harassed by three males near the restroom area of a McDonald's restaurant. Thereafter, and in circumstances that have yet to be clarified, the scene shifted to the fast food restaurant's car park, where an 18-year-old male punched her, causing her to fall and hit her head on a stone."

Since that incident (and after this rather dry reccounting), her decision to step in has created a frenzy of attention, right up to the German President, Joachim Gauck, being called upon to posthumously award her the Federal Order of Merit. In gathering a bit of her background, Ms Albayrak, 23, and a teacher trainee, we find the longer story.


Tugce Albayrak, a second generation German citizen, from an immigrant Turkish family. Photo from hellogiggles.com

From an article by the UK Guardian, "The Albayrak family arrived in Germany in the late 1970s – following the route of many a Turkish Gastarbeiter, or guest worker, before them – from an Anatolian village called Bahadin, and settling in the western state of Hesse.

“Tugce’s grandfather had been working at the Opel carplant in Russelsheim for several years ... his wife joined him and decided to bring the five children over,” At the start, life was hard. “It was us, the Turks, and them, the Germans,” she said. “Integration did not exist” said one of the original five children. By and by, all five children gave birth. There were to be a succession of nine boys before Tugce came along in 1991. “She was our first princess,” says Uncle Yasni. “We treasured her all the more for that.”

Tugce’s parents – her father works at a car plastics production plant and her mother as a clinical assistant – were seen as particularly exemplary amongst the Turkish diaspora for the way they encouraged their children’s education – something they had no access to themselves. Tugce was in her second year at university, training to be a secondary school teacher of German and ethics. “She was a very good student and an extremely popular person,” a university spokeswoman said."

A bright light in what is mainly a more somber story of Germany's Turkish workers not integrating well, and not being well received over the past several decades.

Indian girls fight back

In India, where there exists a common sentiment of disdain for women, two young sisters resisted the verbal and physical abuse of three young men on a public bus.

From www.huffingtonpost.co.uk, "footage of two Indian sisters has emerged showing them beating three men with belts who allegedly tried to molest them on a bus. The men are reported to have blown kisses and passed notes before subjecting them to lewd comments.

The sisters, Aarti and Pooja, were then reportedly thrown off the vehicle as it was still moving and further assaulted. No one came to their aid throughout the incident and a fellow passenger apparently said: "Leave these boys or they will rape you or pour acid. They will kill you and no one even get your bodies."


The two sisters, Aarti and Pooja Kumar, 22 and 19, after being discouraged by police from pursuing their case, have suddenly become social media heroines. Photo from http://www.ibtimes.co.uk

Unfortunately, the article continues, ""Passengers in the bus stopped us from calling the police. We were thrown out of moving bus & then conductor told us to file police complaint, but by that time they had all escaped." Police have said the matter is under investigation but have drawn criticism for their slow response. The girl's father, Rajesh Kumar, said officials were even trying to pressurise them not to pursue the matter."

Since the event has become internationally known, we learn (from the ib times in the UK) "The three alleged assailants have been arrested and remanded in custody for 14 days but residents in their village of Kandla have mounted a protest demanding their immediate release. ...Meanwhile, the bus driver has also been suspended for failing to take action during the fight."

A young American boy offers free hugs

In the US, tensions from the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, following a grand jury decision to not indict a white police officer who shot and killed a black teen in an altercation, broke across the nation with street protests. In Portland, Oregon, a 12 year old boy offered free hugs as an alternative to angry actions.


From an article in the UK Daily Mail, a 12-year-old black boy, Devonte Hart, with tears in his eyes, embraced a white police officer, Portland Police Sgt. Bret Barnum (Photo from article)

Kenyan laborers pay dearly

In Kenya, repeating a bus massacre from just 10 days earlier, over 30 Kenyan quarry workers near the northeast city of Mandera where rounded up by al-Shabab extremists, asked what their religion was, and those not Muslim were executed.

Victims being removed from scene of the attack. There were no heroics here, just innocent workers caught up in a vicious war where militants perpetrate incidents and the security forces apparently not up to the task. Photo from www.independent.co.uk

The incident like most of the above has quickly mushroomed into a larger event. From the UK Independent, "Kenya’s President, Uhuru Kenyatta, has scrambled to restore confidence in his leadership with a security reshuffle after Islamist gunmen shot and beheaded 36 labourers at a quarry in north-eastern Kenya in the second such massacre in less than a fortnight.

Amid growing criticism over his failure to tackle the security threat, Mr Kenyatta fired his Interior Minister, replacing him with the opposition figure and retired army General Joseph Ole Nkaissery, and accepted the resignation of the national police chief David Kimaiyo. ...

The attacks have highlighted the Kenyan government’s failure to provide security in vulnerable and remote border areas, where decades of underinvestment in public security have left the police thinly spread, and militants are able to move easily across the porous border from war-torn Somalia, either by paying off underpaid police officers or by avoiding the scarce patrols."

PS. Kenyan President Kenyatta, of course, is himself in danger of being tried by the International Criminal Court in the Hague for his role in inflaming ethnic violence after the country's 2007 presidential election.

Teatree can think of many others who could have been noted here .. a list of individuals caught up in larger struggles, some emerging as momentary heroes, while others dying.

Islamic extremist attacks in Africa bookend the past week

First, there was the horrific attack in Kenya's capital city on Saturday, September 21. A shopping mall targeted by al-Shabaab extremists, the carnage ending four days later with nearly 70 dead and 200 wounded. The coverage was extensive in the world press highlighting Kenya's visibility as the economic hub of East Africa. What also stood out in the attack is that while al-Shabaab took credit for the bloodshed, they had recruited ideologues from many countries, including the West.

Eight days later, Sunday, September 29, another Islamic extremist group, the notorious Boko Haram (fluidly meaning "Western education forbidden") attacked a college in Nigeria's troubled northeast state of Yobe, killing at least 50 students, many in their sleep. In this instance, the coverage will likely be much briefer and certainly less intense.

At the risk of sounding like a drum once again, the common thread, in Teatree's opinion, is the vigorous, violent religious-directed action of Islamic fundamentalists. It seems like many years ago (in the 1990s) that the world heard a host of excuses for the first attacks on Western targets - "it is what happens when the West ignores the plight of the poor, it is because of the West's oppression of the rest of the world, it is the presence of Israel and its occupation of Palestine," etc. Over time, with fellow Muslims taking the brunt of the bloodshed, these rationales have fallen away. What remains is an extremist vision of utopia - Sharia law - and the use of force to achieve it, and an equally bewildering hesitance in so much of the world to focus on it clearly.

Westgate shopping mall, Nairobi, Kenya

The attack of the Westgate mall was horrific, though what stands out most in Teatree's mind is the incredible acts of bravery by outmatched police and volunteers to lead individuals out of harms way through the corridors of the mall itself. Muslim, Christian, Hindi, others all helping each other. There is something so powerful to witness bravery in action, then and there, when so much is on the line.

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Rescue efforts broke past racial space, and human bonds emphasized. Photo from tv.msnbc.com by Amanda Sakuma

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Photo from Yahoo news, by Jason Straziuso

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We've learned that this individual in the police force is a Muslim who is credited with many acts of bravery and compassion. Photo from nydaily news by Philip Caulfield

Photo from terrorfreesomalia.blogspot by rahm Warsame

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Likewise, outgunned plainsclothes police and detectives - all races - worked together in the fluid situation. www.dailymail.co.uk

Later, there always plenty of stories and analysis, much true, much simply repeating stereotypes. The New York Times captured one thought well - that while Kenya showcases much of what is modern, its depth of security is overstated. While the "wananchi" shown, there remains the spectacle of rivalry between police and security forces. And all that overshadowed by the spectacle of Kenya's President and Vice President both facing charges over their influence in violence during the 2007 elections when 1,200 people died and more than 500,000 were uprooted from their homes.

College of Agriculture, Yobe state, Nigeria.

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The northeast provinces of Nigeria have for more than a decade been battered by a series of Islamic extremist attacks, the local Boko Haram demanding a state of their own, framed in Sharia law. This latest incident was in the state of Yobe. Graphic from www.rte.ie

In the comparatively sparse reports on Sunday's attack, up to 50 mainly male students at a local college were killed in their sleep by West Africa's premiere jihadists. Very few if any pictures have turned up yet - a testimony to the difficulty of media to get to these sites, and perhaps not the urgency ... As we read in allAfrica.com, "Residents believe the attack has the imprimatur of the extremist Boko Haram sect which has in the past three years slaughtered thousands of innocent Nigerians in attacks on schools, places of worship, media establishments and security installations.

Academic activities only resumed last week in schools across Yobe state following 10 weeks of closure after the brazen attack by members of the violent sect on two secondary schools, which led to the death of 29 students and three teachers. The state government ordered the closure of all schools in the northeastern state after the attack by members of the sect on Government Secondary School, Mamudo. But Government Secondary School, Mamudo, remained closed for another two weeks for the conclusion of ongoing reconstruction work in the school, the state Commissioner of Education, Mohammed Lamin said.

The Boko Haram sect had on Wednesday and Thursday murdered at least 27 persons in two separate attacks in the border towns of Borno State, government officials and security sources said. ..."

July 6, 2013, 30 killed in a Boko Haram attack on Mamudo Secondary School

In the latest AP report, "The extremists rode into the college in two double-cabin pickup all-terrain vehicles and on motorcycles, some dressed in Nigerian military camouflage uniforms, a surviving student, Ibrahim Mohammed, told the AP. He said they appeared to know the layout of the college, attacking the four male hostels but avoiding the one hostel reserved for women. "We ran into the bush, nobody is left in the school now," Mohammed said. Almost all those killed were Muslims, as is the college's student body, Usman said.

Much was made over al-Shabaab gunmen in the Kenya attack asking people if they were Muslim or not, and if so, they could flee. Yet in this tragedy in Nigeria, with no westerners around, Muslims were given no pass, rather were focused targets to make the extremists point (men, not women - who will find their rightful place later). And in fact, while western victims provoke a large international outcry and coverage, it has been the Muslim populations around the trouble-spots of the world who have borne the brunt of Islamic extremists.

As with Kenya, secondary reports just now starting to filter in include some disturbing news of a system out of whack. The necessary investment and discipline in providing security is simply not reliable or sufficient. In this case, the Nigerian government had promised police protection for schools if they would reopen after the July attacks. While the schools did, apparently the police protection did not come through, at least at this school.

In any case, it seems to Teatree that a struggle for Islam itself is underway - it is the central question underlying both the visible attacks on westerners and on the more frequent and less covered attacks on fellow believers of Allah. From recurring unrest in Tunisia, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, and even Sudan itself, the internal struggle rages on this continent, and on into the Middle East.

Kenya MPs agree to legislate a withdrawal from the International Criminal Court

Last week, Kenya's lawmakers agreed to draft a bill that would withdraw the country from membership in the international criminal court, situated in The Hague, Netherlands.

The motion was approved by the allies and party of the country's current president, Uhuru Kenyatta, who is scheduled to face trial in that court by the end of the year for crimes against humanity based on, as the BBC describes it, "the disputed elections in 2007, in which more than 1,000 people were killed and 600,000 forced from their homes."

Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta. Photo from the BBC

His Deputy President William Ruto is also being tried. Both winners of the most recent Kenyan presidential election have combined their supporters into a "Rainbow Coalition" in the current Parliament.

The article continues, "MPs from the opposition Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (Cord), led by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, walked out of the debate, calling the motion "capricious" and "ill-considered". Kenya's withdrawal would not bring "honour to the nation and dignity to our leaders", Cord said in a statement. "Kenya cannot exist outside the realm of international law," it said."

This would be the first country to withdraw its ratified support for the ICC.

Still this is not Kenya on its own.

The BBC article goes on, "In May, the African Union accused the ICC of "hunting" Africans because of their race. The ICC strongly denies this, saying it is fighting for the rights of the African victims of atrocities. The ICC was set up in 2002 to deal with genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. The court has been ratified by 122 countries, including 34 in Africa.

It is even more ironic that the ICC's Chief Prosecutor is Fatou Bensouda, from The Gambia who took over the position after the first prosecutor had served a 9 year term. According to other accounts, in 2011, the African Union strongly supported and lobbied for Ms Bensouda, hoping for a more evidently fairer to wider selection of cases to pursue.

New ICC Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda. Photo from the BBC

So this is all rather murky, and certainly under-reported.

AllAfrica.com - a news service - has plenty of details on the case. Noting that President Kenyatta has asked for postponements 4 times, requested a change of venue from The Hague, and in some ways, his legal counsel seems to be turning the protocols inside-out to avoid or postpone the proceedings.

The Washington Post did run an editorial back in May, 2013, noting the following. "Almost 15 years ago, delegates from more than 100 countries gathered in a crowded conference room in Rome, cheering, chanting and even shedding a few tears. After weeks of tense negotiations, they had drafted a charter for a permanent court tasked with prosecuting genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes around the world.

Kofi Annan, then U.N. secretary general, cast the new International Criminal Court in epochal terms: “Until now, when powerful men committed crimes against humanity, they knew that so long as they remained powerful, no earthly court could judge them.” That earthly court is now rooted. Its glassy headquarters on the outskirts of the Hague houses more than 1,000 lawyers, investigators and staff members from dozens of countries. Judges hail from all regions of the world.

But for an institution with a global mission and an international staff, its focus has been very specific: After more than a decade, all eight investigations the court has opened have been in Africa. All the individuals indicted by the court — more than two dozen — have been African. Annan’s proclamation notwithstanding, some very powerful people in other parts of the world have avoided investigation."

So while the case of Kenya's President and his Deputy likely has strong merits, there is certainly some uneasiness over the broader history of this court. On the other hand, the ICC is not at all shy of describing the cases before it at the institution's website, http://www.icc-cpi.int/EN_Menus/icc/Pages/default.aspx

The Washington post article goes on,

"Great-power politics are the key here. China has a veto over Security Council action and wants the court to stay well away from North Korea, for instance. Russia will not permit an ICC investigation in Syria. And when violence in Iraq was at its most intense, the United States would have blocked any move to give the court jurisdiction there. A stray comment by an Iraqi minister in 2005 suggesting that the country might join the ICC produced nervous phone calls from U.S. diplomats. They got the assurances they wanted: Baghdad would not become a member.

Much of the responsibility for the court’s skewed caseload therefore falls outside the institution — but not all. The court has chosen not to open several non-African investigations that it could have taken on. As a senior Rwandan official has argued: “There is not a single case at the ICC that does not deserve to be there. But there are many cases that belong there, that aren’t there.”

Afghanistan is the most glaring example. Thousands of civilians have been killed in that country since the court began operating, most by the Taliban and other extremist forces but also by NATO troops and aircraft. The court has not moved to investigate. The ICC also stayed out of the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict, which produced thousands of deaths and injuries and well-documented war crimes. It has not opened a full investigation of rebel and paramilitary violence in Colombia. The prosecutor’s office has moved extremely cautiously on accusations against Israel by the Palestinians, who attempted to give the court jurisdiction in 2009.

Still fragile, the ICC has no desire to provoke Washington, Beijing or Moscow. A full-blown confrontation with a major power could threaten the court in ways that tussles with Sudan and Kenya do not. It’s not so much that the court is biased against Africa as that it is reluctant to meddle in cases in which the geopolitics are intense. But the result is the same: stricter justice for one part of the world."

Yet again

Teatree remains unclear about the ICC focusing only on African cases. How separate is the ICC from an international war crimes tribunal for Yugoslavia, the ICTY - also based in the Hague - that prosecuted several leaders of the Balkans War. A lot of careful stepping and avoidance of snap judgements is probably needed.