This is an extended and edited version of a brief presentation I recently gave at a dinner for the DC Green Muslims, a group of environmentally minded Muslims from around the Washington Metropolitan area. The discussion was geared around the concept of space and my portion of the program dealt with community space. I tried to guide the topic away from the euphoric and existential and focus more on the failures of ‘green’ and to make some criticisms of the green movement’s current community development paradigm, which I see as not taking into account the realities of disparate communities, specifically, the urban poor and communities of color.

At the most basic level, a community space is somewhere that people live and work together. School, mosques, grocery stores and neighborhood are all community spaces in that people come together to create place, and that space is defined by its individual component parts. For example, one can say that a neighborhood is defined by the sum of all the buildings, roads, parks and trees which it contains. Remove any single part of the equation and you have altered that community space to some degree. Of course, altering is not always a negative thing and many communities need to be developed and changed in order to become more sustainable and livable.

In the era of environmental degradation, ‘green’ discourse seems almost unchallengeable precisely because an alternative model is so badly needed. Certainly, those who are not too fond of the environmental movement come up with their usual complaints, but internal criticism if rare, and where it is found, it has yet to pick up any steam. This is because planting trees, opening cafes, building walkways, using recycled bags to do our shopping, planting community gardens, installing solar panels on traffic lights, all these things are needed in order to develop a community space and make it sustainable.

But what often goes unnoticed and sometimes even ignored is the idea that no matter our intentions, the present green development paradigm has dramatic consequences on the urban poor. In order for the green movement to be successful in developing sustainable community spaces, the community which is most impacted and which defines the space MUST be at the forefront of all projects.

In Islam, our deeds are judged by our intentions. Good rarely comes from a bad intention. The Prophet Muhammad (saw) said: “Surely actions are by intentions and each will get that for which they intend.”

But what if a good intention actually produces a negative consequence for some? Examples of this abound here in DC and in urban centers around the country where the dominant green discourse is said to clean up areas and promote sustainability while actually accelerating the process of gentrification. Communities may be developed but seldom do the current residents of these spaces benefit from such development.

The reason that the urban poor are often left out of the equation is because the development paradigm began not as a movement to make cities more sustainable, but rather, to stop the spread of and reverse the process of urban sprawl. This movement, almost from inception was led by the middle and upper class. Susana Almanza, in her article, Removing the Poor through Land Use and Planning published in Race, Poverty and the Environment, asserts:

People of color, the poor, and the working poor were not at the table and thus, the impacts on these communities did not receive meaningful consideration. Urban planners and developers began developing the urban core as if people of color were not living in them. New zoning codes and policies were adopted to make room for the new urbanisism. Communities of color throughout the United States began to see condos, lofts, McMansions, and live/work buildings pop up in low-income and people of color neighborhoods. A tidal wave of gentrification began to engulf people of color communities.

Columbia Heights is but one example.

B. Jesse Clarke, editor of Race, Poverty and the Environment admits to me that the current system is doing nothing more then “greenwashing and smart development at the expense of established poor communities.” The solution, according to Clarke, is to put political power in the hands of the poor and communities of color who have historically been disenfranchised.

In short, “it takes political power to win social and economic rights for communities of color and low income people”, a power which often takes a backseat while we figure out the next project that will make us feel good about ourselves. The fundamental issue is that the green movement is perceived as, and in many ways actually is, a movement of the elite, or rather, to be less critical, a movement that is, more often then not, led by those who have the ability and the time to care.

If we are to move beyond just feeling good about ourselves because we recycle, reuse and reduce and towards developing communities, the urban poor, the residents of these neighborhoods MUST be at the forefront and we MUST work towards their political rights and their power. Unfortunately, the poor often don’t have the means or ends to participate, just as they do not have the means to shop at Trader Joe’s or buy organic products.

If the people most impacted by environmental degradation are not considered, then green projects ultimately fail in their goal of sustainability. We must make sure that our good intentions result in good deeds which benefit the poor rather then making their communities unlivable.

photo credit http://flickr.com/photos/baldheretic/, http://flickr.com/photos/carbonnyc/

Joe Le Sac recently published a comment on the state of anarchy in Somalia and how piracy is being painted in the international press. He writes:

Somalia is making headlines for all the wrong reasons. While international eyes scorn the recent hijackings of over 40 shipping vessels off Somalia’s coast and berate the perceived “lawlessness” of the pirates who hold them for millions of dollars ransom, Somalis themselves seem more concerned about the destruction of human life caused by corporations and blood money from Western governments.

Very little attention is given to the fact that Somalia is, by the UN’s own admission, the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa. Rather, the focus on piracy seems to avoid contextualization. Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post analyzes the sensationalist coverage of piracy across the international media.

The AP reports that the commander of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, U.S. Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, is showing reseveration on the recent idea of attacking the pirates by land. Since Somalia has no effective government, there is no international consensus on what to do with the pirates if they are detained. The government they do have seems to near collapse.

The New York Times reported last week that:

Somalia’s transitional government looks as if it is about to flatline. The Ethiopians who have been keeping it alive for two years say they are leaving the country, essentially pulling the plug.

To make matters worse, BBC reports that about 15,000 Somali soldiers and police have deserted. Furthermore:

Mr Kumalo, the South African ambassador, also said most of the Somali government’s security budget – supposedly 70% of its total budget – disappeared through corruption.

The Internet provides us with many things. It allows us ample opportunity and a myriad of channels though which we can communicate with friends and family, find out about local events, organize meetings, stream our favorite shows, listen to NPR, learn a new language, explore a new place, share gift ideas and purchase almost anything our hearts desire. More importantly, the internet offers us a great degree of anonymity, the attendant consequence of which being the ability to develop alternate personalities and interact with the global community in whatever shape of form we so choose. Unfortunately, in the realm of e-commerce, the lack of structure and the fluidity of the net also makes it easier to cheat, steal, embezzle and destroy lives.

My friend recently received a new iPod Touch as a gift from her brother. Content with the older yet still operational model she already had, and looking ahead to purchasing a new camera in order to develop and expand her new-found affinity for photography, she decided to put her gift on the popular Craigslist site. The following is one variant of the myriad of questionable solicitation she received. To do justice to absurdity, all errors have been kept in tact.

Hello
I am very glad to hear back from you. I am a University Senior lecturer residing in brooklyn ,N.Y. I came across this ad on Craigslist and thinking of my Son’s Birthday coming up, I would love to get an awesome present for him, which he really wants, he was currently transferred from Us to West Africa with his team on a research on Human development under world Health Organization.I’ll be paying you through Paypal,it’s secure and protects two parties in a transaction. I will forward my son’s residential address to you for shipping as soon as the payment reaches you. Please kindly get back to me ASAP,so that i can make the payment there.

NB: I will be paying you $520 for item and i will include $ 130 to cover up the cost price for the shipping fee. Get back to me with your paypal email asap.

Regard,

Most people, and luckily my friend included, can see the obvious scam being perpetrated. However, this is a multibillion-dollar industry precisely because unwitting victims do not take precautions to protect their identity nor their pocketbook. While it is often a good idea to avoid absolutes and do away with broad-brush strokes, most of these Internet scams originate from West Africa, and more specifically, Nigeria (most of the available literature focuses on Nigeria, but I’d like to note that I recently received a solicitation from Bolivia.) The scam above seems obvious because the buyer is willing to pay far more than the price of the item.  The Internet is replete with criminals patiently waiting for any opportunity to steal your information. In fact, there are entire websites dedicated to selling fake/stolen credit card numbers.

However, it should be made clear that financial identity fraud can be fought from both directions. Just as the onus is on consumers/buyers to protect his/her personal information, it is equally as important for retailers/sellers to be vigilant against this sort of fraud. For one, most retailers will not ship internationally. For example, if I was staying in Ghana and wanted to buy a new computer so that I could blog for The Melon, Apple would not complete my transaction. They would refuse to ship to Ghana.

Here’s how criminals get around these restrictions, and notice how the gentleman who wrote my friend uses a variant of this technique to get his paws on this iPod, which he ultimately fails to do. Let’s say now that I am in Lagos, Nigeria and I have possession of a fake credit card. Impressed with the clothing on the newly formed Melon Store, and knowing how much my children want to wear Melon gear, I use the credit card to make purchase orders. Now, as a precaution against fraud, The Melon store will not ship a sweatshirt to Lagos. What to do?

Find an unsuspecting American to send it to me, of course. Here is where it gets even more sinister. If I want to be successful in my criminality, I need to find a lonely yet hopeless romantic, preferably through a chat site. (With the explosion of social networking sites, the opportunities here are endless.) Let’s say that I meet a very nice middle-aged woman named Kathy who lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. Kathy is lonely and more generally, a very trusting person. I meet her online, and with the fake persona that I have created, I write sweet nothings to her on a daily basis. As our relationship develops, I even promise to marry Kathy eventually.

Essentially, I get it to the point where Kathy is willingly yet unknowingly being used as a pawn in my scheme to get Melon gear. After I communicate with her and get her in my snare, I make purchases and have them shipped to Lincoln. Once there, Kathy then uses her own funds to send the clothing to Lagos and of course, given that I have wooed her with promises of marriage, she pays for it out of pocket.

My aberrant behavior aside, I end up with the gear, my children are ecstatically and rightfully happy with their new fashionable Melon gear, Kathy is still lonely but has now spent thousands of dollars she does not have in the hopes of finding love and the poor person whose identity and credit card was stolen pays the ultimate price. It happens daily, even hourly and it is not just the elderly or the rationally comatose that fall victim to this.  We are all either victims or potential victims.

In her book, AIDS and the Ecology of Poverty, Eileen Stillwaggon asserts that “Global AIDS policy has failed to stem the epidemic spread of HIV’ because the current policy attempts to stop HIV transmission at the last possible moment, instead of grappling with the underlying causes of the epidemic.” HIV is a global pariah, and while it does not discriminate based on color or creed, some 90% of victims come from the developing world. Its prevalence in subaltern societies is linked to the fact that people who are economically disadvantaged are more susceptible to infectious diseases, such as HIV and other maladies found predominantly in the developing world.

Stuart Gillespie, a senior research fellow with the International Food Policy Research Institute, connects the rise of global food crisis to the AIDS epidemic. As politicians and economists continue to discuss the implications of the current economic meltdown, and the looming recession that is expected to worsen in the coming months, what is not often discussed is how the liquidity crisis plaguing Western financial institutions will put further upward pressure on food prices around the world and specifically, in the developing world. Gillespie notes that there is no one singe factor that has caused the current crisis. Several months ago, Professor Dave Balaam from the University of Puget Sound, whose area of interest is in agricultural policy, came on the Melon to discuss the factors that have contributed to the food crisis.

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According to the World Food Programme, the majority of ‘high-risk countries’, meaning those countries that are in most need of the food aid, are in Sub-Saharan Africa, which, not coincidentally, is also the region with some of the highest HIV rates in the world. The link between poverty and HIV seems pretty clear.

Here are Gilliespie’s main conclusions:

• Sudden increases in food insecurity often lead to distress migration as people search for work and food. Mobility is a marker of enhanced risk of HIV exposure, both for the person moving, and for other adults who may remain at home.
• Food insecurity at the household level is likely to translate over time into higher rates of adult malnutrition with possible detrimental effects on immune status.
• Where food insecurity translates into increased rates of maternal malnutrition, we can expect to see a rise in babies born with low birth weight, who in turn may be at higher risk of vertical (mother to child) HIV transmission.

Certainly, HIV and food insecurity are closely related to one another, and while poverty makes the effects of HIV more pronounced and HIV destroys a countries workforce, which worsens poverty levels. What is clear is that there is a vicious cycle between the two. But while billions are going into the developing world in order to treat and curtail the spread of HIV, very little is going towards one of the main risk factors: poverty.  Once credit markets are restored, which most economics do not see happening in the near future, the focus should turn to poverty.  It is only through fighting poverty that the billions spent on AIDS research each year will happen a tenable impact on global health in the world.

A look at Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s foreign policy experience from the Russian perspective. Russia Today is the first 24/7 English-language news channel to present the “Russian point of view on events happening in Russia and around the globe”.

Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has wasted no time in casting a cloud over Russia. In her keynote speech to the party convention in Minnesota, the Alaskan Governor accused Moscow of using energy as a weapon in its disagreements with the West.

Chad at Buzz Flash has more on Palin and her foreign policy experience vis-a-vis Russia.

from themuslimwoman.org

The nation of Mauritania faces a myriad of social, political and economic problems, which has greatly impacted it’s ability to develop. While most Mauritanians live and work in urban centers, a sizable number still depend on agriculture and animal husbandry, specifically in rural areas where the government has had little influence in affecting policy. One area where this is most apparent has been with gavage, or the practicing of force feeding. In his book Mauritania, Alfred G. Gerteiny wrote this of gavage:

Women are subjected to gavage-that is, forced feeding, in order to gain weight. Fathers send daughters 10 or 11 years of age to live with herdtending dependent aznagui who see to it that the girls gain weight … often by being tied to the ground, and, to expand their stomachs, given nothing but water for three days. Then they are crammed with milk, usually camel’s milk.

Though decades have passed since Gerteiny wrote of the practice, gavage still occurs. In Mauritania, women who are overweight, or in some cases, obese, are considered beautiful and alternatively, women who weigh what we here would consider a healthy weight are shunned. In recent years, the government and NGO’s have forcefully led a campaign to discourage the practice. The forceful feeding of adolescent girls creates a plethora of health complications as the young girls mature into women. In the larger cities, the practice has visibly been cut, both by a changing of the times and by the discouragement of the practice. However, things are different in the desert, where people continue traditional practices.

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Watch the amazing video.

La Razon reports that Bolivia and Libya have agreed to establish diplomatic relations. The agreement, signed in the Bolivian capital of La Paz by Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca and his Libyan counterpart, Foreign Minister Mohamed Matri, strengthens the position of Bolivian President Evo Morales and his fledgling MAS government, which faces a political impasse as several Departments (states) seek regional autonomy.

A close relationship between the two states would dramatically help the impoverished Andean nation, which has large natural gas reserves and is attempting to draw foreign investment not specifically from multinational-corporations but from oil and gas exporting countries.

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Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain recently spoke to reporters about the on-going conflict in the breakaway Republic of South Ossetia. What is interesting about his statement is that while McCain often chides presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama for his foreign policy inexperience and reliance on diplomacy, McCain offers much of the same prescription, although he does add a few veiled threats into the mix. Moreover, earlier today, McCain told Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili that “all Americans back his country’s efforts to thwart military attacks from Russia.” Is that really the case? McCain went on to say “I know I speak for every American when I said to him, today, we are all Georgians.” Calling for diplomacy but suggesting that Russia be reprimanded, perhaps by being kicked out of the G-8, McCain said that Russian leaders must understand that they risk loosing “the benefits they enjoy from being part of the civilized world.” All the political grandstanding aside, Congressional Quarterly blogger Taegan Goddard has the scoop here… that apparently, segments of McCain’s speech were lifted straight from Wikipedia.

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As expected, Evo Morales easily won the recall referendum. Early results estimate that Morales received more than 61% of the vote, above the 54% which he received in the 2005 election. While these results, which is not surprising one bit, strengthen Morales, the results indicate that the opposition state governors also received high support. As always, McClathcy offers the best and objective analysis of the situation and all that has surrounded this tumultuous day in Bolivia.

Morales survives Bolivian election test, but foes also gain

LA PAZ, Bolivia – President Evo Morales scored a split victory in a national referendum Sunday when Bolivians voted to keep him in office but also ratified governors who are his implacable foes, according to television exit polls.

The result will mean continued division along political and geographic lines over Morales’ efforts to push through Socialist policies meant to give greater political and economic power to the indigenous majority, analysts said.

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