Empathy and the Power of Conflict to Make Us Forget

I was traveling during the last four weeks, and it seems as though the world went to hell in a hand-basket while I was away.  Ukraine is getting more complicated, not less; the level of violence in Syria has reached a point where it's not even shocking us anymore; Kenya is spiraling into a level of instability and no one is seriously talking about it; Sudan doesn't even make the news, nor does anything else in Sub-Saharan Africa it seems; and now Iraq has imploded.  And of course, we've totally given up on the kidnapped Nigerian girls. (#bringbackourgirls was nice while it lasted.)  There are so many things I could say about each/all of these, and probably will at some point, but all I can think of today is this:

In each and every conflict, real people are involved.  They bleed.  They mourn.  They fear.  They pray.  They hope.  They suffer.  They die.  They see their lives explode in front of them, but can do nothing about it.  They worry over their children, and panic over their safety and their future.  They see everything they've ever dreamed of, worked for, or believed in go up in smoke.  They find themselves fighting disease, hunger, thirst, destitution, loss, chaos and despair -- all at the same time. 

Because the fact is that most people involved in a conflict are not really involved in the conflict.  They're just there.

Funny thing is, however, the bigger the conflict, the less we think about the human cost.  All this week, I've been following the news from Iraq, and then it hit me.  What is the one thing no one is talking about?  That's easy -- it's the impact this crisis is having on the hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iraqis who were, before now, just trying to live out their lives with some semblance of normalcy.  So just for a few minutes, let's take the time to empathize with them.  And then let's not forget.

Kidnapping in Nigeria and #bringbackourgirls – Are we missing the point? (Part 3)

Kidnapping in Nigeria and #bringbackourgirls – Are we missing the point? (Part 3):  

Now more than a month after the kidnapping, the crisis continues and so does the debate over the Nigerian response. Having conducted a “security summit” this weekend, western powers, Nigeria, and its neighbors are coordinating an intelligence-led, military response, and appear to be on the verge of declaring Boko Haram as an international terrorist organization. The Nigerian President has declared that the entire incident was an "al Qaeda-led operation.”

Is all this cooperation and attention a bad thing? No . . . unless it continues to divert attention from the underlying problem that empowers groups like Boko Haram – governance, or in this case, the lack thereof and Nigerian inability to enforce the rule of law.

The fact is that regardless how good the military is, when a country suffers from unabated crime, corruption, inequality, and governmental ineptitude, just to name a few of Nigeria’s shortcomings, then escalating insecurity will persist. This is not a problem with a military solution. Nigeria has credible military forces that are reasonably well trained and equipped (for the region) with a decent reputation as peacekeepers – outside of Nigeria. Within their own country, however, both the army and the police are routinely accused of major human rights violations; they are poorly and corruptly managed; and they are unresponsive to the security needs of the population. In sum, they are inadequately governed. No wonder they can’t mount a credible response.

But governance, to include security sector governance, can be improved if there is political will and a focused, comprehensive approach backed by internal and external oversight and robust public engagement. This kind of approach is difficult, complex, and long term, so unfortunately, it is not the direction in which things are going. Instead, the dialogue is defaulting to what we know and what we’re comfortable with –declaring war on Boko Haram and formulating a rapid military train, advise, and assist response. It won’t address the governance gap in the north; it won’t address the government’s disconnection with its own people; it won’t strengthen the Nigerians’ ability to criminalize the insurgency and enforce the law; and it doesn’t improve governance and accountability of Nigerian security forces. But it generates a lot of action, and that’s apparently going to have to be enough.

Kidnapping in Nigeria and #bringbackourgirls – Are we missing the point? (Part 2)

Kidnapping in Nigeria and #bringbackourgirls – Are we missing the point? (Part 2):

I said I was going to come back to this topic and talk about a few issues that struck me as a Rule of Law and Security Sector Reform practitioner. In the meantime, I've watched a lot of prominent politicians and policy makers comment on the situation, and the U.S. has now sent military and law enforcement assistance to Nigeria to help find the girls. Which is great, but it still doesn't get to the longer term issues of how to keep this from happening again.

So here’s the first question that arose in my mind when the story broke: You’re a government fighting an insurgency and one of the insurgents’ core ideas, embodied in their name (!), is, “western education is a sin.” Why then, aren't your security forces operating in the contested areas treating schools as critical governance infrastructure? Surely, from a messaging standpoint alone, the war of ideas makes schools a strategic asset. This in turn makes them a strategic target. And since you’re fighting an organization that has negatively extremist views on the value of women that run counter to those of the law of Nigeria, then shouldn't protecting girls’ schools be even more important to affirming governmental authority? Viewed through this lens, the question isn't, why didn't the Nigerian military respond to the calls for help. It should be: Why weren't they already near the school, providing heightened protection in the first place?

I’m dead serious about this. In security system analysis, experience tells you to look first at the threat, then at whether security and justice institutions are postured to address it. It would appear to me that in the case of the Nigerian security system, this fundamental analysis hasn't been done, or if it has, it was ignored. Security force preparation and posturing is about more than train and equip. It is about creating organizations and assets that can assess needs and vulnerabilities, and position themselves to address them accordingly. Clearly that didn't happen here, and hasn't happened in previous, less-publicized attacks on Nigerian schools and the women who attend them.

Kidnapping in Nigeria and #bringbackourgirls – Are we missing the point? (Part 1)

Kidnapping in Nigeria and #bringbackourgirls – Are we missing the point? (Part 1):  Several years ago, I met a Nigerian woman human rights activist.  We were both participating in an effort by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to codify best practices for Security Sector Reform, and I remember her not because she was so personable or experienced, because she was neither.   What she was, was angry.  She was angry with us – so-called Western do-gooders who, in her mind, presumed to know how to provide effective, targeted security and justice assistance in her country, but time and again, skated past the hard issues and left things worse than we found them, especially for women. 

The kidnapping of almost 300 girls by Boko Haram (aka “western education is a sin”) in Nigeria’s unstable north, has garnered world attention as well it should.  But even as we mobilize international pressure on the Nigerian government to find them, we need to ask how and why this happened in the first place and why the Nigerian response was so anemic and ineffective. 

In particular, if I look at the situation from a security sector reform (or “SSR”) perspective, what does it say about U.S. foreign assistance in Nigeria, and particularly security assistance?  Have we been putting the emphasis on the right things?  If I were doing an SSR assessment of Nigeria, there are a few issues that need to be looked at very hard.  And if I were a betting woman, I’d wager they are not the things that underpin current U.S. SSR-related activities.  So over the next few days, I want to think about some of these issues.  The girls are important.  But let’s not miss the larger point.  So are the ones who’ve been kidnapped before them, and so are the ones who may be in the future.  Stay with me for Part 2.