OVERVIEW ON BROWNBAG DISCUSSION

The African Studies brownbag for the fall was inaugurated on September 20 by Professor Abdullahi An-Na'im, Emory University. On this brownbag, Professor An-Na'im discussed different issues with a group of graduate students and KU Africanist faculty. He first explained his work on the basis of universal human rights within Islam in particular, and in general the possibility of broad human rights within particular cultural, religious, and national contexts. He also spoke about three major projects at Emory Law School, all directed by him and funded by the Ford Foundation. One on women and land in Africa which includes Senegal, Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda, Ethiopia, Mozambique. The focus is to study very specific local communities in terms of women's control and access to land as a vital economic source. There is a very strong advocacy campaign in Ethiopia. Unfortunately, the political events of January delayed it, but now everything is finished and on the process of being put in a web-site. In the web-site there will be all the country studies and the advocacy report on Ethiopia. There will also be resource pages, elements relevant to women rights issues, etc. The second project is a global study of the theory and practice of Islamic Family Law. It consists of global studies, not only in Africa, social concern profiles, which is, demographic, social, cultural, and historical aspects about Islam in diverse regions from Southeast Asia to Africa. There are specific studies of 38 countries and their court systems, legal systems, legislation, constitution, human rights and so on. This is already on the web-site. There are also 3 case studies looking more closely on Egypt, Palestine and the U.S. In addition, there is a study on violence against women in relation to the Islamic form of Law and how the Law impacts on this violence against women. It is also a global study (Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East). According to Professor An-Na'im, the idea is to move from this phase to a second phase called "Rights at Home", which will have the women and land approach and implications of that. The next phase will be more advocacy specific.

The most recent project that started this fall is a three year project for establishing a new Islam and Human Rights Fellowship Program that will bring together scholars and activists from around the world to develop human rights scholarship and strategies for advocacy from an Islamic perspective. An-Na'im said there should be 9 fellows from anywhere in the world. Some of the fellows so far are: a political science lawyer from Iran, a Somalian woman who studies the dynamics of social groups of exclusion in Yemen, a Senegalese woman and so forth. According to An-Na'im, there are no deadlines for these fellowships; whoever is interested may approach them. The brownbag was attended by number of graduate students, faculty, and media correspondence that exceeded the capacity of Alcove C.

On October 16, Melissa Filippi-Franz, Anthropology graduate student presented her research on "War Trauma among Somali Immigrants in Kansas City." Melissa argues that clan conflicts and tragedies of the last decade in Somalia have raised questions concerning the healing process. Colonialism, a previous dictatorship, and corrupt warlords have contributed to escalating clan conflicts in the search for power and control. The masses suffer from endemic violence, famine, displacement, and overall societal breakdown. The course of action people take to rebuild their personal identity, along with clan and country allegiance is of central concern. Clan affiliations are the primary force in forming categorical distinctions among people in Somalia. One research question that Melissa has given consideration to is the segmentary lineage system adopted in Somalia--has it transferred to Kansas City, Missouri? How does the segmentary lineage system affect the healing process? Melissa concludes that researchers need to understand the processes of declining societal norms, values, and customs within traumatized individuals and communities. The presentation was attended by fourteen people and found a good discussion.

On October 11, Egodi Uchendu, a Fulbright visiting researcher at KU discussed "The impact of the civil war on the Anioma women in Nigeria." Egodi argued that the Nigerian Civil War provoked a lot of writings in the past three decades but there is a noticeable neglect of women and their experiences in the existing literature. Based on interviews with women in the Anioma, the western Igbo area, Egodi believes that the war represented a unique ordeal and presented a horrendous challenge to Anioma women, who at the time of the crisis were in the Midwest region but now in Delta State of Nigeria. The strong reliance on oral testimonies for her research arises from the death of written primary sources on the subject of research and on the area of investigation during the war. Egodi also said that until the incidents in Liberia and Rwanda, the Nigerian Civil War was assessed as the most notorious conflict so far witnessed in Africa. The war, fought between the Eastern region, dominated by the eastern Igbo and the Nigerian federal government, could be said to have resulted from poor leadership and from the attempt by some military officers, mostly of Igbo origin, to redress the situation through a military coup in January 1966. In the attempt to wrest the region from Biafran control, and during their period of occupation until the end of the war, federal troops subjected Anioma women to untold brutality. Organized massacres of men in most parts of Anioma left women unprotected from the onslaught of crude and unbridled soldiers. Women's experiences during the emergency include: displacement or confinement in "refugee" camps; uncertain deaths; sexual harassment and abuse; suspension of normal economic activities and of education for female adolescents; forced enlistment into prostitution; abduction and forced marriages with soldiers; increase in female headed households.

According to Egodi, there's no doubt that the experiences of women during the Nigerian Civil War varied from person to person and according to their localities. In the same manner, they responded differently to the crisis and the challenges of the war. For many it generated certain degrees of personality formation, the development of inner strength, and the acquisition of abilities to do what they previously could not do. From being their husbands` subordinates, some learnt to assert themselves and to assume greater responsibility than they ever did before the war. The general decline in the foremost female pursuits occasioned a multiplication of alternative economic engagements and the display of various degrees of ingenuity by women. In many ways the war made women break out of their traditional roles to assume new ones. Their exertions for their survival helped destroy the myth of incapability and fickle-mindedness often ascribed to them. Unfortunately, not all men appreciate this change. Some look with nostalgia to the days when women were seen and not heard and when their leadership and managerial abilities were restricted and confined to the kitchen.
Egodi's talk was attended and discussed by 13 people.

On October 30, Garth Myers, Terry Slocum, Johan Feddema and Byron Caminero-Santangelo led a brownbag discussion of the progress of KU's University Affiliations grant with the University of Zambia. These four faculty members are among the ten KU participants on the grant. The lunch discussion centered on an overview of the scholarly and technical outcomes of the summer visit of four Zambian scholars. During the fall, some of the participants on the KU side have submitted grants to further some aspects of the research linkage, and at least one more grant is in the process of being drafted. Myers will be in Zambia, January 7-15 on the first of what will be several trips by him to Zambia on the linkage. This initial visit is what is called a planning visit by the Project Director for KU (Myers), parallel to the Zambian Project Director Imasiku Nyambe's visit here in March. Myers will be finalizing a first draft of a NSF grant proposal with Zambian colleagues, as well as setting up the next series of exchanges. In June, Myers and Slocum will be joined by Dr. Steve Egbert and Dr. Kevin Price from Geography, as well as Brianna Mercier, a Research Associate of the Kansas Applied Remote Sensing Center, in a team trip to Lusaka to conduct a set of overlapping workshops on research techniques with Zambian participants in the University of Zambia Departments of Geography and Geology. Several Zambian faculty members will be coming to KU during the 2002 calendar year, for varying lengths of time. Myers will coordinate these visits with Nyambe during the January planning visit.

PROFESSOR AN-NA'IM'S PRESS CONFERENCE

During his media conference that was attended by more than 20 media agents including TV, radio and print media from Lawrence, Topeka and Kansas City, Professor An-Na'im explained his argument that the United States foreign policy is a major obstacle for the establishment of a common international trial system. Since the U.S. has not been a team player in establishing the International Criminal Court, it is ironic that only now after the September 11th attacks they should call for justice. An-Na'im believed justice must be done, but not by military means. Retaliating against Afghanistan by taking military action will only kill innocent people and offend the rest of the Muslim world. The correct course of action would be to consult the United Nations and charge the perpetrators through some sort of world widely recognized jurisdiction. Professor An-Naim said he would use the same rules that the U.S. uses domestically when he was asked about what he would do if he were in charge of American foreign policy. He agreed that September 11th attack should be considered invading the sovereignty of another country, but he said it has been done by the United States before. Even though there was harsh criticism by the international community, it did not stop the U.S. from doing it again and again. There are other ways of influencing policy and events without damaging the sovereignty of a country.

In response to a question about Islam and its principles, An-Na'im believed Muslims are regular people looking to achieve the same goals as everybody else. They are driven by same needs and interests; looking for peace and stability for themselves and their countries. They are part of a global situation and are also struggling in terms of human rights and women's rights.

In this conference, An-Na'im said the concept of Jihad 'Holy War' is often misinterpreted. It is pivotal to keep in mind that a person can not declare Jihad individually without going against the laws of Islam. There are very specific reasons and rules and Jihad must be an action legitimated by the state. Even when legally declared, Jihad does not justify killing of human counterparts. It does not allow suicide, which is a fundamental sin in Islam. He also stated that the Taliban is not a legitimate type of government. They have committed atrocities against women and the general population. However, during these 7-10 years when the Taliban was in charge in Afghanistan, the international community stood still and did not take any course of action to end the inhumane acts happening in Afghanistan. There is a double standard in only trying to solve problems when they only speak to your own interests. That is why there must be uniformity in human rights internationally.

In answering a question about conflicts that Islamic Americans are facing as a result of September 11 attack, An-Na'im argued that there is basically no conflict. He believed American Muslims have a clear sense of loyalty to the United States because of the security and opportunities this country has given them. There is no ambivalence about that; they are thankful and happy for being here. However, there are worries about the perception that they are not accepted by the dominant culture. In response to the explanation of the title 'Martin Luther of Islam' and whether he could possibly be offended by the label, Professor An-Na'im said he is not the author of the ideas of Islamic reforms, he is just a disciple disseminating them and incorporating them in academics. The founder that truly deserves the title of 'Martin Luther of Islam' is the late Sudanese thinker and Islamic reformer Mahmoud M. Taha. In the following day, more than ten articles appeared in Lawrence's, Topeka's and Kansas City's newspapers. The Kansas City Star published An-Na'im views on 'the Defeating of the Terrorism" which can still be found in our web-site at: http://www.ku.edu/~kasc/