The view from the Al-Qatrawani shrine, a stop along the Sufi Trail in the village of 'Atara in the West Bank. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours/IPS

A reddish-brown dome sits atop an ancient stone house, used hundreds of years ago for prayer. It peeks out from the surrounding trees as the rolling green valleys and hills of the central West Bank stretch out into the distance.

This shrine, known as the Al-Khawass shrine, sits 540 metres above sea level in the Palestinian village of Deir Ghassaneh. It is one of several stops along the Sufi trail, which begins in the valley below and takes visitors and locals alike back in time to when Sufism, a mystical form of Islam, was widespread in the area.

“I want foreigners to know Palestinian culture, our culture. And I want Palestinians to take [steadfastness] from it. This is your home. Be proud of the land, of the homeland,” explained Rafat Jamil, director of tours and a guide at the Rozana Association.

Based in the West Bank town of Birzeit, near Ramallah, Rozana works to restore and refurbish historical Palestinian buildings and strengthen Palestinian cultural heritage. The organisation also established three Sufi trails in the central and northern West Bank.

Participants on the one-day hikes along these trails see half a dozen shrines along the way and take in the distinct landscape of the area. Markers painted every 30 to 40 metres in the colours of the Palestinian flag – red, green, white – tell hikers they’re on the right path.

The West Bank has about 600 Sufi shrines, including some that date back over 800 years, according to Jamil. Many were built during periods of Mamluk and Ottoman rule over historic Palestine.

“There is a struggle over history. For the Israelis, nothing is Palestinian, just Jewish and Israeli. The idea is to get people to talk about the history of Palestine, and want to see shrines or old homes from the Roman and Byzantine and Ottoman periods,” Jamil told IPS.

“Israelis say that all the culture here is theirs. But when people come, they see something else.”

Alternative tourism in Palestine is not a new phenomenon. Dozens of organisations lead tours in the West Bank and Jerusalem, including political day trips, homestays with Palestinian families, olive harvesting, and arts and cultural heritage festivals.

But the gradual expansion and development of walking paths in the occupied territories is something that Palestinians hope will draw them both tourism and international support.

“We want to bring tourism to areas that never had tourism and bring a good economic impact to the community,” explained Michel Awad, executive director and co-founder of the Siraj Centre, a non-profit tour operator based in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem.

If people spend more time in the Palestinian territories, “they will leave with a real understanding of the Palestinian cause and become advocates for justice in their countries”, Awad added.

The Siraj Centre organizes walking, biking and political tours for international visitors throughout the West Bank. These include the Nativity Trail, a path winding from Nazareth to Bethlehem thought to follow in the footsteps of Jesus’ parents, Joseph and Mary, or the Abraham Paths, spanning about 170 kilometres from Nablus to Hebron.

Awad told IPS that Israeli tour operators handle most religious pilgrimage tours – a booming business in the Holy Land – even if these tours go to sites in Palestinian areas. Tourists often visit holy sites in Bethlehem, only to return at night to Israeli-run hotels in Jerusalem, for example.

As a result, community-based tourism is an alternative to these religious tours and plays to Palestinians’ strengths. Israelis can’t compete because these hikes encompass much more than just a walking tour, Awad said. “It’s meeting the community and meeting families. It’s totally different.”

Palestinian village and town councils provide input and direction for Siraj Centre’s walking tours, and families regularly host participants for lunch or overnight stays. Families that cook lunch for participants during weekly walking excursions, for instance, receive 40 Israeli shekels per person they host.

“Our aim is to create a new experiential tourism in Palestine that allows travellers to experience Palestinian hospitality and encounter the many landscapes. We want to create a new type of tourism that is in touch with local communities and brings benefits to the rural areas directly,” Awad said.

From January to June 2012, approximately 3.5 million visits were made to tourist sites in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT), according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, and most visits took place in the Bethlehem governorate.

But hiking in Palestine does more than just generate tourism.

“We love the landscape: the stones, the trees, everything. It is a breath of fresh air, literally,” said Bassam Al Mohor, a photographer and member of Shat-ha hiking collective, based in Ramallah.

Each Friday, Shat-ha organises hikes in different areas of the West Bank, and occasionally to places inside Israel, Jordan, or abroad. The hikes are not difficult, free of charge, and generally last from the early morning to early afternoon.

The group tends to target local Palestinians, although international visitors are welcome, as it aims to connect Palestinian city-dwellers with their counterparts in rural villages and towns, strengthening the bonds between people and their homeland.

“The landscape in the West Bank is shrinking, vanishing, dying slowly. It’s mainly because of the occupation. If we come close to settlements, we risk being attacked. It’s really sad to see tracks that we’ve been walking nicely suddenly off limits for us,” Al Mohor explained.

“But when you walk and see old stone houses or terraces or old towns, as a traveller, what first attracts you is that heritage. We never knew that nature could be like this. You can lose yourself in this.”

An Afghan soldier protects the palace of King Amanullah (1919-1929) that was partly destroyed in the 1992-1996 civil war. Credit: Giuliana Sgrena/IPS

Western fears of a civil war in Afghanistan are growing ahead of the scheduled pullout of international troops in 2014. However, experts here say the situation on the ground is not comparable to either 1988, when the Soviets withdrew from the country, or the mujahideen’s rise to power in 1992, which plunged the country into civil war.

Speaking to BBC’s Radio 4 last month, British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond described the future of Afghanistan as uncertain, echoing a British Parliamentary Defence Committee warning that the country could descend into civil war within a few years.

But locals who have been watching the situation closely do not share this bleak prognosis of the country’s future.

Retired Colonel Mohammad Sarwar Niazai, a military observer, says the situation is different to what it was in the early 1990s when the Soviets pulled out, leaving the communist government of Mohammed Najibullah without support and presenting seven jihadi parties, armed and aided by the United States, with the perfect opportunity to seize power.

This time around, “no one can get the government out forcibly,” Niazai told IPS, referring to the fact that the U.S. and its coalition partners in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have promised to stand by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his government for the foreseeable future.

Recently retired ISAF Commander General John Allen, speaking in Washington on Mar. 25, said the U.S. and its allies would retain a presence in Afghanistan big enough to bolster Afghan forces after the withdrawal of international combat troops at the end of 2014.

Still, Kabul Regional Chief of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) Shamasullah Ahmadzai warned that the roughly 336,000-strong Afghan National Army, though highly motivated, is in serious need of the weapons and arms promised by western allies during talks about the pullout.

Strategic interests

As international media reports of “impending” or “inevitable” conflict continue to proliferate, experts here contend that Western countries with a vested interest in maintaining their military presence have conjured the bogey of civil war to justify continued engagement.

“Their…goal is to create fear in Afghanistan,” Ghulam Jailani Zwak, head of the Afghan Analytical and Advisory Centre, told IPS, adding that he sees “no substance” in the predictions of chaos after 2014.

“Over the last 11 years, Afghanistan has built up a functioning civil society and a strong parliament that has shown it can stand up to the executive,” he said referring to the fact that at the end of 2012, 11 ministers were issued summons to appear in parliament or face impeachment for failing to spend 50 percent of their annual budgets in the last financial year.

Abdul Ghafoor Lewal, head of the Regional Studies Centre, believes threats of civil war are a deliberate Western ploy to maintain a military presence here, particularly in the Bagram airfield, one of the largest U.S. military bases in Afghanistan, located in the Parwan province.

Western powers would like Afghans to believe that foreign troops are their “best bet for security,” Lewal told IPS. The government must be “wise, prudent and…protect itself from the machinations of the West,” he added.

Meanwhile, Major General Rahmatullah Raufi, former commander of Paktia Army Corps and erstwhile governor of the southern province of Kandahar, dismisses the fears of war, claiming Afghans are more united now than they were 11 years ago.

A clear example of this was seen at the third ministerial conference of the Istanbul Process, held in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, on Apr. 26.

Originally intended to foster regional cooperation in the so-called ‘heart of Asia’ – primarily between Afghanistan and its neighbours – this year’s high-level gathering delved into a host of social issues, from education to disaster management, to help strengthen the war-torn country’s economic stability.

The independent Afghanistan Analysts Network said the Afghan government’s participation made clear that it saw the regional initiative as crucial to securing its future after 2014.

Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul, who led the delegation, said Afghanistan was “determined to reclaim (its) rightful place” as an economic centre connecting South Asia, Central Asia, Euroasia and the Middle East.

Moreover, according to experts like Member of Parliament (MP) Habibullah Kalakani – a former jihadi commander who fought against the Soviets – Afghan civil society is no longer “pliant” to foreign interests.

Independent media and human rights organisations including the AIHRC, whose president Sima Samar won the Alternative Nobel Prize last year, are widely respected and have earned international recognition for their efforts to build a culture of peace here.

Kalakani also pointed to the increasing number of educated young Afghans who are perfectly positioned to help their country make a democratic transition.

According to the Institute of International Education (IIE), only 4,000 students submitted applications for university admission in 2004. In 2005 this number increased tenfold to 40,000, reached 52,000 in 2006 and finally passed the 120,000-mark in 2012.

Girls now occupy 25 percent of the seats in public universities, a numbers that is increasing annually, while 52 new private universities have popped up around the country.

Defence Ministry Deputy Spokesperson Siamak Herawi agreed that 2014 will be a “year of change” but insisted there was good reason to believe “the change will be positive not negative,” he told Killid, adding that, this time around, “Afghan hands” will help to build the country.

* Lal Aqa Shirin writes for Killid, an independent Afghan media group in partnership with IPS.

One of the students at the Gymnasia Herzliya School checks on the plastic bottles containing samples of a blue-green algae called Spirulina. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS

At the Gymnasia Herzliya School in Tel Aviv, 20 ninth and tenth graders are testing the simplest, cheapest and fastest way to solve the problem of malnutrition among their peers around the world.

Under the guidance of their principal and biology teacher, these Israeli teenagers are attempting to breed a blue-green algae called spirulina, widely believed to contain a miraculous array of vitamins, minerals and nutrients.

Fourteen-year-old Miri Wolozhinski says her involvement in the experiment stems from a desire to help “those in need”, while her classmate, Anouk Savir-Carmon, rails against “the absurdity that in the 21^st century there are still hungry children.”

According to a United Nations report released last October, nearly 870 million people, or one in eight, suffered from chronic undernourishment between 2010 and 2012. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says malnutrition is caused by “inadequate or unbalanced food intake or … poor absorption of food consumed.”

The students here believe they can help rectify this bleak situation. Having studied the various properties of the microscopic algae, Savir-Carmon explains to IPS, “Sixty to 70 percent of its mass is protein; the rest contains carbohydrates, antioxidants, Omega-3 fats, vitamins, minerals – in short, everything needed for nourishment.”

A study published by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in 2008, based on an experiment conducted in Mexico, showed that 10 grammes per day of powdered spirulina supplement were sufficient to combat child malnutrition.

The same study showed that severely malnourished infants admitted to a village health clinic in Togo recovered within weeks of taking 10 to 15-gramme doses of the dietary supplement mixed with millet, water and spices every day.

Known in the scientific community as multicellular photosynthetic Cyanophyceae, the algae is thought to have existed in salt water and some freshwater lakes for over three billion years.

It is considered a “complete protein”, containing all nine essential amino acids that human beings need to survive. Commonly dubbed a superfood, spirulina eclipses all other whole foods such as unpolished grains, beans, fruits and vegetables and non-homogenised dairy products.

Although the algae develops naturally in tropical lakes in Central and Eastern Africa, the derived dietary supplement – sold as flakes, pills or tablets – comes with a hefty price tag and is available only in select natural and health food stores.

Convinced that the prohibitive cost is a result of large-scale and ineffective breeding methods requiring expensive equipment, students at Gymnasia Herzliya are determined to find cheaper ways of growing the cyanobacteria.

They began by diluting a culture sample, obtained from the ‘Adama’ algae farm located in the Negev desert, with chemicals like sodium bicarbonate, potassium nitrate, sodium chloride, phosphate sulphate and magnesium sulphate “for optimal breeding and mandatory alkalinity,” explains a ninth grader named Fea Hadar.

Using the Internet as their guide, students taught themselves everything they could about the algae’s taxonomy, structure, nutritional benefits and growth conditions.

At first, each pupil was assigned the care of one recycled plastic bottle containing a sample of the culture. Since spirulina, like any other plant, needs carbon to photosynthesise, the students would simply “shake the solution every two hours,” recalls Savir-Carmon.

Four months ago, their algae advisor Boris Zlotnikov devised a more efficient system, arranging rows of bottles on a discarded wooden stand and hooking them up to an electric system of pumps, pipes and thin hoses that breathe air into the solution, stirring the algae constantly. “It now grows very fast,” notes tenth grader El’ad Dvash.

Last week, as the solution took on a dense emerald colour, they celebrated their first harvest, drying the biomass outdoors.

“With 650 litres of algae culture, we produced the equivalent of 65 kilos of dry matter,” boasts Dvash.

The class retained some algae in a makeshift reservoir in order to test more archaic breeding methods, without using electricity.

“We’re busy formulating a protocol for ultimate spirulina breeding – in pools, bottles, under various weather and economic conditions, with or without electricity, instruments or resources,” 15-year-old Ori Shemor tells IPS.

“We still have to conduct a series of experiments which will take into consideration light, temperature and humidity variations,” Shemor explains.

Already the project has generated a buzz, with researchers at the Bar-Ilan University’s Algae Biotechnology Centre volunteering to help the budding scientists devise a model to increase the algea’s protein concentration.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has offered to help the students circulate their protocol through its Associated Schools Project, a global network connecting nearly 10,000 education institutions in over 180 countries, while Rotary International has shown a willingness to partially fund the project.

Last month, an Ethiopian education official visited the breeding premises in Tel Aviv. The governments of South Africa and Lesotho have also expressed interest in the project, said Ze’ev Degani, the school’s principal and the brains behind the initiative.

He told IPS the pilot project has the potential to reach between 700 and 1,000 schools around the world. “Half a million children will be growing spirulina in pools and bottles for themselves within two years,” he predicted.

Though the students have registered their experiment under a start-up company entitled Algeed, they are determined to resist the laws of the free market.

Rather than sell the supplement, Savir-Carmon says he and his classmates will “transmit our knowledge to help other pupils around the world grow it for themselves.”

Some have criticised the experiment for having lofty goals, but Degani believes it has a clear rationale – to create a new kind of food chain based on solidarity, until food autonomy prevails and malnutrition becomes extinct.

A student of the renowned educator and philosopher Paulo Freire, Degani is of the firm opinion that teaching and learning must go beyond the walls of a classroom to touch the lives of those who struggle to survive war, poverty, and inequality.

“We’ll make protocols, not money,” he vows.

Maasai villagers in traditional clothing and jewellery in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. Credit: William Warby/cc by 2.0

The Maasai tribe of Kenya and Tanzania has long been a beacon of traditional culture to many Africans – and for Westerners on safari through Maasai Mara, Samburu or Amboseli, a familiar face.

But familiarity and travels aside, the tribe faces many of the same roadblocks on the path to development as any other marginalised community around the world.

William Kikanae, community leader of his Maasai village in Maasai Mara, recently spoke with IPS in New York during the launch of an initiative to provide economic opportunities for local tribeswomen by the Spanish footwear brand Pikolinos.

“First, I know for myself that women are the most important part of the family,” Kikanae told IPS. “(But) for Maasai people, women are not important. They don’t have power like a man.”

As an Adcam director for Kenya, Kikanae works with brands overseas like Pikolinos to cultivate projects that allow the women of his community to earn money.

Through the Maasai Project, local women embroider sandals that are then sent to Spain for finishing and sold all over the world, with the proceeds going back into community development projects such as schools, clinics and housing.

“Before, the men of my community thought that I supported women to be in power more than them,” Kikanae said in regards to the Maasai Project.

“We’re not going against anyone. I can say now that even our politicians are proud of the project,” Kikanae added.

The middlemen

According to a female government officer and doctor from the Maasai tribe, who asked that her name be withheld, supporting women and propelling them to the forefront of development is a significant way to achieve change among the Maasai.

“Women cannot own livestock they look after, but if educated these things will change. All is not lost for those who did not go to school, however. If allowed by their men to trade in milk, handicrafts, they can generate income for their families,” the Kenyan officer told IPS.

Poor communities are always subject to exploitation and misrepresentation when it comes to aid, so when a tribe like the Maasai partners with an organisation abroad, it is only natural for scepticism to arise.

“I think the problem here stems from the middlemen. These are the guys who are supposed to connect the community with the ‘helpers’. These people will use the opportunity to exploit the community to realise their own ambition with very little of the help reaching the beneficiary,” the officer told IPS.

“Since education has lagged behind, the few educated individuals have used the ignorance of the majority to their own benefit. So, in a nutshell, the common villager may not be able to differentiate this.”

Homework by firelight

The women of the Maasai are hardly in denial when it comes to their lack of education. They understand that the more people are educated within their community, the fewer will fall victim to exploitation.

But old patterns persist. In many local African villages, it is a well known fact that only if a young girl is rendered useless to her family – unwilling to marry young, reluctant to perform household duties and chores, or go to the garden and dig – would she be sent off to school to study. This caused a division in opportunity and kept education inaccessible to those who desired it.

A tradition-versus-modernisation issue is still visible today.

Additionally, the lack of basic needs at home such as electricity or transportation to school greatly hinders the performance of a rural student. As the officer told IPS, “You can imagine trying to do homework by firelight or walking long distances to and from school.”

Let the women lead

From an outsider’s point of view, it may seem that the Maasai women cannot catch a break, from lack of health services – especially in regards to maternal health where many women still die during childbirth – to the spread of HIV/AIDS, a topic that most do not feel comfortable talking about.

“Men go to towns, sells cows or work, have relationships with town women and bring the virus home,” the officer said. “The women have not heard of condoms or negotiating for safe sex.”

As in other societies around the world, the spread of HIV/AIDS is directly linked to education, and when children don’t receive information on sexual health, the perpetual cycle of disease continues.

Added to these concerns is the growing problem of displacement.

“Large tracts of Maasialand are being sold by men, sometimes without the knowledge of their wives. From Kitengela to Namanga on the border this is happening. This land is being bought by other communities and before long the Maasai will be in the back of beyond in extremely hard to reach areas. The current leadership is too short-sighted to see this catastrophe in the making,” the officer added.

Asked what is needed to facilitate development among the Maasai, the officer said, “There is need to for good leadership to guide this process so that there is no exploitation.”

With education and good leadership, the obstacles that the tribe face are slowly tackled. One by one, Maasai women are more likely to reassess the needs of their entire families and surrounding community, whilst working together with local and international organisations to bring about measurable change, she said.

Mu Kyi, a migrant worker in Thailand, fears for the future of her children. Credit: Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau/IPS

In the hustle and bustle of Thailand’s capital, Bangkok, a small learning centre located in the Bang Bon district is helping children hailing mostly from the war-torn provinces of Myanmar (Burma) gain access to a basic education.

Established by the Foundation for Rural Youth (FRY), the learning centre is one of the few that offer Thai language lessons to migrant youth, and prepare children for entrance into Thai schools, by “introducing them to Thai culture”, Pao Hom, an organiser with FRY, told IPS.

Most other learning centres for migrants lack methodologies specifically targeted at early childhood development, and few are recognised by the Thai Ministry of Education.

Although teachers that come through FRY are “trained in early childhood development under the supervision of the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security,” according to Hom, many of the teachers do not have formal educational qualifications.

Hom says migrants who come here to avail themselves of low-paying jobs in Thailand’s many garment, textile and furniture factories struggle to educate their children. Immigrant communities and neighbourhoods are some of the “worst environments for learning,” she said.

Dr. Panadda Thanasetkorn, a professor at Mahidol University’s National Institute for Child and Family Development, told IPS that without professional training for teachers and a better formal education system, migrant children will remain trapped in the cycle of poverty and unemployment that plagues these border zones.

Located in the heart of Southeast Asia, Thailand has long been the final destination for massive human migrations, as hungry, unemployed or war-weary residents from neighbouring countries flock to its industrial border towns and bustling urban centres.

Recent statistics from the Labour Ministry estimate that there are nearly 2.5 million migrant workers from Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Cambodia in Thailand – nearly half of whom are undocumented.

In addition, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said there are some 84,900 registered refugees and an estimated 62,000 unregistered asylum-seekers in nine camps along the Thai-Myanmar border.

At least 10 percent of this population are estimated to be children. A 2011 report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) suggests that there were approximately 377,000 children from neighbouring countries residing in Thailand.

Lacking social protections and legal status, migrant children represent one of the most disadvantaged groups when it comes to early childhood development, a critical period that the World Bank defines as occurring between birth and eight years of age, during which a child’s rapid brain growth forms the basis of their future physical, emotional and cognitive development.

Although migrant children are eligible to attend state schools in Thailand, a number of barriers prevent them from fully accessing their right to education.

According to Thanasetkorn, “Most parents of migrant children do not speak Thai, are without legal documents and fear discrimination, which prevents them from approaching public social services (such as education, health care and the justice system).”

She said children who fall in the “low-income” bracket – meaning from families who earn between five and 10 dollars a day – often sacrifice going to school in order to work and support their families. The shrimp industry, fisheries, sugar cane plantations and garment factories have all come under scrutiny after a 2012 PBS documentary exposed widespread use of child migrants in these sectors.

According to Thanasetkorn, preventing child labour requires early intervention in the form of education, to equip children with the skills they need to “improve their quality of life”.

In 2005, under the Education for All (EFA) policy, the Thai government extended the right to education for all children in Thailand regardless of their legal status.

However, a recent report by VSO International Thailand/Myanmar suggests that less than 20 percent of registered migrant children attend Thai schools. This estimate is likely to be lower for early childhood development.

In comparison, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) suggests that the national gross enrolment rate for lower secondary education was over 90 percent and for upper secondary education it was about 60 percent in 2010.

VSO International Researcher Hattaya Wongsaengpaiboon says there is a major disconnect between policies that seem to exist solely on paper, and practical barriers to accessing educational facilities.

“Thai policy clearly states that anyone, regardless of legal status, can attend Thai schools but in reality very few do,” Wongsaengpaiboon said. “Many of the Thai schools we approached would request a birth certificate or a letter of recommendation from either a Thai person or a local organisation” before agreeing to enroll a student.

Given that only a third of the migrant children born in Thailand have birth certificates, the stringent admission rules lead to questions “about child protection and the right of every child to have an identity,” she stressed.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), nearly five percent of all births – or roughly 40,000 children – go unregistered in Thailand every year, most amongst vulnerable groups including migrant children and those from ethnic minorities.

Thailand has taken some steps towards confronting this issue, particularly with tools like the 2010 Civil Registration Act, which grants all children born in the country the right to birth registration regardless of status.

This also aids migrant children in accessing the educational system, health care and better employment opportunities in the future.

But here again, activists and advocates have found that while such policies look good on paper, things are not nearly so rosy on the ground.

“What we discovered in our research was that families were not always informed by the hospital staff that they had the right to provide their children with birth certificates,” said Wongsaengpaiboon.

Migrant learning centres like the one in Bangkok have been taking the first steps towards bridging this gap. According to Hom, civil society “partnerships with government-run schools break any barriers to migrant children receiving a Thai education. By taking this route, children are far more likely to enter the university system and break the cycle of poverty.”

However, unlike FRY, which receives generous funding from major donors like USAID, Save the Children and the European Union, many informal institutions that are not recognised by the Thai government and receive little to no funding are unable to provide services like the state’s free lunch programme, forcing many migrant children to attend school without proper nutrition.

A Roma stall for used clothes in Bucharest. Segregation in schools means Roma children grow up to find few decent jobs. Credit: Claudia Ciobanu/IPS.

As the Czech government comes under fire for apparently backtracking on commitments to inclusive education, Roma children and teenagers continue to be systematically shut out of Eastern Europe’s mainstream education system.

A string of recent court rulings has revealed the depth of the problem – and should have forced governments into action to redress the situation.

But despite these, and calls from bodies like the European Court of Human Rights for authorities to ensure Roma have proper access to mainstream schooling, there has been a lack of any serious action, NGOs and rights groups say.

“Research has been done in a number of countries documenting segregation and court judgements have confirmed that discrimination in access to education is a common practice.

“Governments need to take quick steps to stop discriminatory practices,” Jana Vargovcikova, Advocacy Coordinator at Amnesty International Czech Republic, told IPS.

Roma segregation at schools has been well documented with reports by Amnesty International and other groups highlighting widespread systematic segregation at schools across the former Eastern bloc.

Meanwhile, recent court rulings have confirmed individual cases of educational discrimination of Roma in countries such as Croatia, Greece, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.

The discrimination ranges from overt segregation where Roma children have been taught in separate classes at mainstream schools, to the placement of Roma children in schools for the mentally handicapped – noted by the European Court of Human Rights as being widespread – because of systemically flawed and discriminatory testing.

One study by the Open Society Foundation claimed Roma children in Slovakia and the Czech Republic were 28 and 27 times more likely, respectively, to be put in special schools than non-Roma pupils. Another study by the Czech School Inspectorate from 2011 suggested that more than 3,000 pupils in such schools had been placed there without any testing at all.

Children as young as six or seven can be sent to these schools – renamed ‘practical schools’ recently in what critics say was a merely cosmetic change to the education system – and they have been repeatedly criticised for offering a limited curriculum and effectively preventing children reaching their education potential, deepening a cycle of poverty and deprivation among Roma.

According to a 2009 study from the Czech Institute for Information on Education and the Ministry of Education, only 1 percent of Roma children from practical schools go on to secondary schools providing full school-leaving qualifications as opposed to 30 percent of Roma children from normal elementary schools.

Ciprian Necula, a 32-year-old Roma activist living in Bucharest who works on projects to help end discrimination against the Roma in Romania, told IPS what happened to Roma children placed in special schools in his country.

He said: “Just as one example, in Dumbraveni, central Romania, around 500 Roma kids go to special needs schools although they are normal. This is because they only speak the Roma language and would not fit in at normal schools and their parents are happy because their kids go to a school where they get a warm meal.

“But when they get to high school age they do not know how to read or write, only how to draw.”

However, Roma parents are often happy to send their children to such schools because they are poorly informed of what it will mean to their child’s educational development to attend such a school and also out of fear of their child being bullied in a normal school or because the costs of sending them to a mainstream school further away would be too high.

The Czech government had previously pledged to phase out ‘special schools’ as part of a commitment to inclusive education.

But comments just a few weeks ago from the Czech government’s plenipotentiary for human rights, Monika Simunkova, suggest that the process of closing ‘practical schools’ will have to be pushed back from an original target of 2015.

NGOs fear that the government is now backsliding on its commitments to ending discrimination under pressure from non-Roma parents, teachers from practical schools and special psychologists who recently garnered over 70,000 signatures for a petition against the closing of practical schools.

They say though that fear of closing the schools is irrational as the phasing out of the school should be carried out in conjunction with mainstream schools being given the support to allow them to provide children with the necessary help to meet their individual needs.

Amnesty International, the European Roma Rights Centre and the Open Society Justice Initiative last month sent an open letter to the Czech government calling on it to implement a moratorium on placements of Roma children with disabilities in practical schools, and undertake a comprehensive review of the system to ensure compliance with international and regional standards on education and non-discrimination.

The government has yet to respond to the letter.

However, there have been some examples of positive recent change on educational discrimination in the region. In Sarisske Michalany in Slovakia, one school where Roma children were until last year taught in separate classes on separate floors and were served separate lunches, has now fully integrated all non-Roma students following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.

And local NGOs say that, as they had hoped, the situation there is ‘positive’ with Roma children being provided fully inclusive education.

Stefan Ivanco of the Centre for Civil and Human Rights (Poradna), told IPS: “The school has started the process of introducing inclusive education principles and desegregation and what is also positive, so far there has been no indication of any ‘white flight’ or non-Roma pupils leaving to go to other schools.”

School children in Gaza face early gender segregation. Credit: Mohammed Omer/IPS.

The Islamist resistance group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, is being accused by its Palestinian Authority (PA) rivals in the West Bank of Talibanising Gaza and turning the coastal territory into a new Muslim Brotherhood neighbourhood.

Earlier in the year Hamas launched a “virtue campaign” aimed at spreading Islamic Sharia and fighting against “Western dress and behavior.”

Following a recent law passed by Hamas, when the new school year begins from September this year, it will now be illegal for male school teachers to teach Palestinian girls in Gaza’s schools. Furthermore, girls and boys from the age of nine upwards will be forcibly segregated throughout the Gaza Strip, including those in private and Christian schools where co-education exists to a certain degree.

The law will affect the seven percent of schools in Gaza that are private, including Christian schools. They will need to finance the expansion of their buildings to be able to hold special classes for each gender. Gaza has 690 schools with 466,000 students for a population of 1.7 million.

Another article of the law regulates relations between Palestinian educational institutions and Israel, by banning schools from receiving aid meant to encourage or promote the normalisation of relations with Israel.

This latest crackdown on civil liberties follows earlier campaigns which have seen women banned from riding on the back of motorcycles, a common form of transport in the territory where fuel is scarce. Women have also been banned from smoking water pipes in public, and couples on the streets have been subjected to interrogations by Hamas security members.

Male hair stylists are forbidden from styling women’s hair while female runners were banned from taking part in a marathon organised by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, leading  UNRWA to cancel the event.  The marathon went ahead in the West Bank, attracting international competitors and Palestinian women.

In the West Bank there is no law segregating boys and girls in early school. However, apart from some schools including private and Christian schools, there is a general segregation of the sexes in high school.

But choice is an issue for many Palestinians, and Hamas legislation on “how to be a good Muslim” is seen as enforcement of the Hamas political agenda.

“This is ridiculous. What is wrong with boys and girls learning together? As a Muslim and a parent I want the choice as to whether I send my children to a mixed school or a gender segregated one,” says Rana Atta from the Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC) in Ramallah in the West Bank.

Atta, who wears a head scarf, says that the new legislation introduced by the Hamas authorities not only violates human rights but is contrary to the spirit of education which should be promoting gender equality and an inclusive society representative of all.

“It’s illogical that male teachers will now be forbidden from teaching girls. Just as boys should be exposed to female teachers as an integral part of our society, so should girls be exposed to male teachers. I seriously wonder about the educational background of the people who are introducing these new laws in Gaza,” Atta tells IPS.

In a press statement, the Gaza Centre for Womens’ Legal Research and Consulting condemned the decision as “gender-based discrimination.”

When Hamas took over full control of the Gaza Strip it promised to respect the civil liberties of Palestinians, a promise that the Islamic movement has increasingly broken with growing militancy.

“Hamas is slowly engaging in a process of the Islamisation of Gaza. A process which is not constitutional on the one hand and neither is it popular with Gazans on the other,” says Dr Samir Awad, a political analyst from Birzeit University, near Ramallah.

“They have gone so far as to threaten the Palestinian contestant of Arab Idol with legal action and accusing him of engaging in illegal and immoral behaviour,” Awad tells IPS.

“Hamas’s draconian legislation is unwarranted, neither by the constitution nor the Palestinian population. These latest developments are further entrenching the political divide between the West Bank and Gaza.

“Those schools in Gaza were there long before Hamas and will be there long after Hamas is no longer around. Palestinians have stated repeatedly that they want self-determination and that applies to Gazans too.”

Schools must teach students to learn how to learn, says Divina Frau-Meigs. Credit: Courtesy Mila Petrillo/ANDI

A new social contract is needed in education, that would fully incorporate informatics and the 21st century conception of human rights, French professor Divina Frau-Meigs says in this interview with IPS.

The professor of American studies and media sociology at the University of Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle says teachers and students must assume the challenge of transliteracy.

Transliteracy is the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media, from handwriting and print to TV, radio, film and digital social networks. A transliterate person is one who is literate across multiple media.

On a visit to attend a seminar in Brazil, Frau-Meigs, who is an adviser to the Council of Europe and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), was interviewed extensively by Clarinha Glock.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Q: What is transliteracy?

A: It is knowing how to read, write, calculate and compute. But “compute” includes understanding these three categories of information: code, document and current events/press. Students and teachers must be trained. The role of school is to clarify and help people understand all kinds of contents, modify them, and comment on them.

Q: What is the main obstacle?

A: Students think they know everything, from their perspective of dealing with computers and tablets. And professors say that if students have good knowledge to read and write, it is enough.

It is necessary to break down this resistance to awareness-raising, in hands-on practical classrooms. For example: I ask students to look for the information they need for their projects. They respond: “There are millions of pieces of information, I don’t know where to start.”

Teaching students to eliminate, evaluate, assess, change – that is the role of schools. It’s a way of learning to learn, which is what we must put again at the centre of the curriculum.

Q: How can these proposals be applied in countries where educators are still poorly paid?

A: I’m not sure that salaries should be put in first place. That’s why I talk about the need for a new social contract.

We have to decide once again that school matters, that literacy matters, and that today digital literacy is indispensable.

Once we agree on what is our mission, then we can discuss salaries and conditions inside and outside the classroom.

Transliteracy doesn’t only occur in schools. School rhythms are changing, because students can now connect at night, outside the school premises. The role of teachers will also be different. Their salaries must be enhanced, but knowing what they need in terms of training, and the new conditions of schedules, rhythms and resources.

The decision must be assumed by teaching staff, government ministries, trade unions, companies and students – as a new social contract.

Q: And what would that new social contract consist of?

A: Since the 19th century, the social contract has been free, public – even though many schools are private – and secular education.

And another characteristic has to be incorporated: “open” – through informatics, which gives access to many contents from other countries and cultures. With informatics, ideas can be developed to the maximum. And if we use it well, it can empower everyone.

The contract also has to be amplified with the concept of human rights, which did not exist in the 19th century. Universal human rights emerged in 1948 and the Internet started to emerge after World War II. The two tools – moral and technical – were born around the same time.

Young people must become participants in a positive future. That is done by spreading values. We want to be creative, expressive, decent, participative, educated people. That is what will motivate people to go to school, and also to change it. Once a consensus is built, the discussion of salaries and resources will happen.

Q: And how is this new social contract being implemented in France?

A: The problem in France, as in other countries, is the change of scale. There are small-scale experiences already functioning in schools. But a secular, public, open and free system has to be accessible to all.

In May, we’ll have a meeting in Lyon (France) with officials from the ministries. We have to convince decision-makers, because if they aren’t with us on this, we won’t bring about this change.

Q: It’s not just about providing schools with computers…

A: Absolutely not. Even in poor countries, many people have a laptop. Prices have been coming down, there are more and more free and open applications, everything can be downloaded, and the more, the better.

But people need to be trained in transliteracy to understand the design of platforms, how to edit the contents and how to use, evaluate, save and inform about what already exists.

To that end we have people who have been trained, who are invisible to the system: librarians. They have had computer skills for a long time. In France, they are being trained so they can also be educators/trainers.

The official expression is “teacher librarian”: they are not only assistants, but they can show children information as code, as document, and as current events, something that teachers don’t generally do.

Their role is to know how to search, have a critical eye, and ask good questions, and afterwards, when results are found, it is to select, save and add all of the ideas to make the student’s own document. We’re not starting from scratch. The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), based in the Netherlands, is strong and has branches in each country.

Q: What directives does the European Union use to regulate the media?

A: The Television Without Frontiers directive was revised and transformed into the Audiovisual Media Services directive. European companies couldn’t, for example, advertise products in films. They protested because they were losing the battle against (businesses from) the U.S., which were able to do that.

They were granted that right, and they were also given more space for advertising. In return, we decided to encourage countries to carry out education on the media. The European Parliament made a recommendation, and the directives have been in force since 2010.

The idea is moving ahead, but more resources were not earmarked for it, so we have to stretch existing funds to cover the new task. The risk is that education on the media could end up being privatised, because schools can’t do it.

Q: And what does Hollyweb do?

A: Hollyweb is an association between the biggest classic media and broadcasting producers and the main digital media, like Google, Disney, General Electric, Microsoft, Apple.

Some of them are becoming editors of content, they have schools and are making headway in others. They were already doing it before, but with the opportunities for self-publication and low-cost production of contents, they are taking advantage of the situation to sell their services.

It’s a system that is becoming semi-privatised. The problem isn’t whether the contents are good or bad, it’s the principle, the way their distribution is being organised in schools. It isn’t free, it has a price that we have to evaluate in terms of values.

The message, which continues to lure some vulnerable Muslim youth across the globe, is powerful, simplistic, repetitive, deceptive and violent. It appeals to alienated and angry youth because they see in it a reaffirmation of their self-articulated religious narrative even though such a narrative has very little basis in objective religious teachings.

Of course, the tipping point of moving a young man from anger into killing innocent people varies from case to case. Once he accepts the universality of Bin Ladin’s message, he proceeds with plotting to terrorise regardless of place and cause.

When I was in government, I frequently briefed senior officials on the long-term danger of Bin Ladin’s message because it charted a path for individual radicalisers and radicalised alike without traceable connections to international terror organisations.

We also briefed them that more and more “lone wolf” potential terrorists who would be receptive to the Bin Ladin message live in Western societies and are usually “under the radar”. Part of my responsibility at CIA was to analyse all Bin Ladin’s messages for senior policymakers.

Bin Ladin’s simple articulation of Jihad, which continues to be propagated in the blogosphere by Al-Qaeda and its franchise groups, includes four key themes. First, the Islamic faith and territory are under attack, as exemplified by the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Western-led wars on individual Muslim countries, he told potential recruits, are part of a global “Christian-Zionist” war against Islam.

Second, Bin Ladin asserted that U.S., Western, and “Zionist” policies are anti-Islamic, as evidenced by what’s happening in Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir, the Philippines, Sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere.

Third, in response to these attacks, he argued all Muslims are duty bound to engage in Jihad against the “near” enemy (Muslim regimes) and the “far” enemy (the U.S., European states, and Israel). In addressing his followers through so-called fatwas and media messages, Bin Ladin claimed such “jihad” is an existential fight for the survival of the global Muslim community or umma. His successor, Ayman Zawahiri, has repeated the same message.

Fourth, the war between Islam and the “infidels” and the “apostates” will last until the “final days” when the “enemies of Islam” will be defeated. Islam will emerge victorious awaiting the coming of the “Mahdi”.

For Bin Ladin and Al-Qaeda, infidels and apostates included, in addition to non-Muslims, Islamic majorities who disagreed with this radical ideology and terrorist methods.

The four-pronged message is theology at its most simplistic level. Many grade school graduates, high school dropouts, and other youth with limited knowledge of their faith tend to accept it blindly as immutable truth. Many mainstream Muslims, including clerics and scholars, have had difficulty refuting Al-Qaeda’s calls for violence because radicalised youth have no interest in reasoned discussion or in learning about their faith.

Many Muslim youth, like their counterparts across the globe, have grown up with the new social media and a worldview grounded in the Internet, Facebook, short texting, and tweets. Longer treatises on religion or any other subject for that matter turn them off.

When Western governments began to implement so-called strategic communications strategies in an attempt to engage mainstream and “moderate” Muslims and refute extremism, radicalised youth were already inculcated with Bin Ladin’s violent rhetoric.

My analysts and I frequently briefed senior policymakers on the need to study Al-Qaeda’s radical rhetoric and fight it with more convincing messaging. Accomplishing such a goal should have been easy since vast majorities of Muslims worldwide rejected violence and extremism. But it wasn’t.

Radicalisation did not succeed because of religion or values. Terrorist groups have cynically used Muslims’ disagreements with specific Western policies to spread their message of terror. They also used the politics of nationalism – including in Bosnia, Chechnya, the Arabian Peninsula, Kashmir, Western China, and Sub-Saharan Africa – for their global Islamic agenda.

They stoked opposition to the United States and other Western countries by exploiting popular anger on the “Islamic street” against invading Muslim countries, Guantanamo, drone strikes, and other “dirty wars” tactics.

Some Muslim youth, immigrants or children of immigrants who live in Western societies find it difficult to adjust to life in their adopted countries. As alienated adolescents and even college-age kids, they become easy prey to radical recruiters, whether in person or on the Internet.

Where do we go from here? The news from Canada about the role of Canadian Muslims in foiling the recent terror plot to blow up a train is a useful guide on how to proceed.

Canada, the UK, some European countries, and Australia have done a commendable job making their Muslim communities feel a sense of belonging to the country where they live. Several U.S. cities, especially New York City and Las Vegas, Nevada, have implemented similar policies.

Real engagement of Muslim communities in Western societies usually begets a sense of belonging, especially if it is accompanied by official condemnation of hate crimes and rhetoric, such as “Islamophobia”. A well-grounded feeling of belonging empowers mosque imams and other community leaders to spot signs of radicalisation in their community and report them to the authorities.

As one Muslim resident of New York City once said, “This is my city and don’t want anything to happen to it.”

The good news is that vast majorities of Muslims oppose terrorism and focus on improving their lives. As the Afghan war winds down, and as Al-Qaeda Central weakens, a time should come when Guantanamo is closed and “dirty wars’’ become subject to public scrutiny. That is when Bin Ladin’s message becomes irrelevant, the threat of radicalisation wanes, and the “See Something, Say Something” slogan gains acceptance among Muslims.

*Emile Nakhleh, a former director of the CIA Political Islam Strategic Analysis Programme, is a Research Professor at the University of New Mexico and author of “A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World”.

Students rally in front of University Hall on Nov. 29, 2011. A special committee on divestment recently suggested that Brown withdraw its investments in the country’s 15 largest coal companies. Credit: Brown Divest Coal Campaign

Nearly a dozen U.S. cities have announced their interest in withdrawing municipal investments from fossil fuel companies, joining a fast-growing movement among colleges and universities that supporters say is allowing citizens concerned with environmental degradation and global climate change to act in lieu of federal action from the U.S. Congress.

On Tuesday, the San Francisco board of supervisors unanimously voted to recommend that the city’s retirement fund formally “divest” of any oil-and-coal holdings, some 583 million dollars’ worth. Next week, the nearby town of Berkeley is set to vote on a resolution that would request the enormous California state pension system to do the same.

Now, these initiatives have coalesced into a nascent movement. On Thursday, 11 mayors and city councils stated that they would be urging their cities to divest from investments in the 200 largest fossil fuel companies, while advocates say similar petitions are reportedly taking hold in 100 additional cities and states.

“This started [Thursday] with eight cities and by the end of the day we were already up to 11, and we’ve seen more interest since then,” James Irwin, a senior associate with the Mayors Innovation Project (MIP), a national network that is organising the new city divestment push, told IPS.  (The group’s municipal divestment guide can be found here.)

“That was after only a light first wave of outreach, so we expect to see more joining on now that the movement has begun,” he continues.

“This is part of building a moral argument that profiting from the wreckage of climate is wrong, that we shouldn’t be benefiting from climate change. Hopefully, this can be the start of a narrative highlighting how these companies are bad actors.”

By any measure, the divestment initiative has taken off surprisingly quickly. Substantive discussion began with regards to university investments only late last year, spearheaded particularly by the environmental advocacy group 350.org, and already petitions have reportedly sprung up at 300 institutions.

Expanding the movement to cities was an obvious next step, and related talks began in January. The following month, the city of Seattle – whose mayor has been at the forefront of the movement – announced that it would be encouraging its two-billion-dollar retirement fund to shed its stocks in companies that contribute to climate change.

“It’s the cities that will take the brunt of climate change, and that’s whether we get any federal or state funding – it’s up to us,” Larry MacDonald, mayor of the small town of Bayfield, Wisconsin, one of the municipalities that has pledged to divest its retirement fund, told IPS.

“A lot of the mayors I’ve spoken with feel very strongly that we only have one chance to act on this issue, and that we really can’t wait for federal or state officials. That said, of course, it’s also easier at the local level than at the federal level to make and act on these types of decisions.”

Trickle-up theory

Thus far, the majority of cities that have expressed interest in the divestment initiative have been politically left-leaning. Yet MIP’s Irwin says he’s confident this is solely an early dynamic, and points to similar experiences in the past.

“We very much view this as the vanguard – it’s the liberal college towns that often lead on issues that end up becoming mainstream, for instance recycling and today’s focus on green energy,” he says.

“These are also the cities where the mayors feel the safest, but really there’s very little downside politically, especially if you look at this issue economically. Staying invested in fossil fuels won’t make sense, for instance, when federal authorities finally do get serious on climate change – say, by putting a price on carbon.”

Indeed, on Thursday the U.S. Senate Finance Committee published a white paper that discusses the possibility of instituting a national “carbon tax”. For now, however, such proposals are still considered dead on arrival at the federal level, but in that void local-level officials are increasingly seeing both an opportunity and a responsibility.

“We certainly believe that cities are where innovation is happening – the politics are less difficult and there is often a greater concentration of people who want to see action on certain issues,” Irwin says.

“Over the last decade, we’ve seen mayors taking many important steps on climate change, and those activities have trickled up to the national level. This new movement is clearly about laying the foundation for working on the larger state and federal levels later.”

Re-alignment

Taking its inspiration from the anti-Apartheid movement of the 1980s, when some 155 U.S. schools came out against the South African government, the current divestment momentum began on college and university campuses. In addition to hundreds of schools currently being petitioned to withdraw their fossil fuel-related investments, dozens have reportedly started administrative processes to look more closely at the issue.

Endowments at these schools can be tens of billions of dollars each, and thus represent very significant potential leverage for those wanting to make both symbolic and substantive statements on behalf of environmental impact and climate change. Further, many of these institutions have notably forward-looking, altruistic mission statements.

“With Congress and international climate talks deadlocked, universities are at the front of this issue in that they have such high visibility – we have the opportunity to break this deadlock and create the political will necessary to help people take action on climate change,” Daniel Sherrell, a student leader with the Brown Divest Coal Campaign, at Brown University, told IPS.

“Right now, Brown’s investments in coal run counter to the university’s commitments to human rights. Those investments are also out of alignment with the science coming out of our own departments, which have consistently reinforced previous findings on human-caused climate change.”

A special committee on divestment recently suggested that Brown withdraw its investments in the country’s 15 largest coal companies. That recommendation may be voted upon by late May, and on Friday Sherrell participated in a preparatory subcommittee meeting to smooth the way ahead of the vote.

“Universities are about investing in both the future and the future of students – it doesn’t make sense to be spending money on my education if that money is also being spent on something that will threaten that future,” he says.

“More fundamentally, universities have long been a source of societal dialogue, and we’re trying to lead here. The more that cities, universities and individuals start standing up and saying this doesn’t make sense anymore, the more Congress will hear. This can shift the dialogue.”