During a recent wave of boredom I found myself channel surfing. The flood of poisonous programming was striking:

Reality shows misrepresenting reality. Cartoons blurring the line between fun and danger. News broadcasts spouting biased information like polluted geysers.

It would make previous generations cringe. But really, how dangerous are a few less-than-wholesome programs?

The answer lies in the term itself. Programs. Programming.

Though not named for this particular quality, television programs have a way of sneaking in to our brains and programming us. Like little pixies, the messages sent by these broadcasts enter our minds and begin tinkering with our thinking.

It may be obvious, like young children knocking on trashcans in an effort to find Oscar the Grouch, or be subtle, like the urge to consistently check the weather reports after seeing one too many disaster movies.

And this is not inherently dangerous. After all, where is the harm in believing that green monsters live in garbage cans or being extra cautious when the weather turns gloomy? The danger comes when a warped version of reality is sold as the genuine thing.

The picture that comes to mind is that of a dapper individual, selling gold jewellery in a well-reputed establishment. We purchase a glittering necklace, paying little mind to the salesperson. We wear the piece proudly, and soon it becomes exposed to the reality of life.

And much to our surprise, our lovely specimen of genuine gold becomes tarnished. We seek retribution but our claims are worthless because there is no one to be held responsible. The trusted establishment has asked for proof of purchase, but the bill has been long lost and we have no hope of identifying this faceless salesperson.

In much the same way, television peddles information that will not stand the test of reality. For example, when the armed hero of an action movie encounters a locked door, what does he do? He shoots the lock. Thus, if ever in a similar situation we would most likely shoot the lock as well.

What few of us know, however, is that in reality the bullet will ricochet off the lock without breaking it- a fact proven by the Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters. We end up caught by our pursuer or shot in the nose. And where is the faceless media mogul? Where is the trusted television network? (Please forgive the glaring irony in the fact that I’ve cited a television program to support this point!)

Admittedly, the above scenario is far fetched. However, the misrepresentation of reality affects our daily lives. News broadcasts colour our impressions of various countries, cities or events by presenting us with only one aspect of the subject matter. This deceptive treatment creates a solely bleak or solely positive picture of a multifaceted entity.

Another example lies in reality television. The “reality” of the wealthy, badly behaved or melodramatic stars is not the reality of the everyday person. While this is a large part of the appeal, after absorbing these programs we may subconsciously adopt the behaviour portrayed.

This would not be harmful if the stars acted in a realistic, rational manner. But reality TV seeks to be “entertaining” and so it often highlights and exaggerates poor morals, fights, toxic relationships and general trouble-making in an attempt to grasp our attention.

All in all, this is not to say that we should boycott television. Instead, we should be mindful of the subliminal messages that threaten to submerge us. We should guard against the mischievous pixie programmers by critically analysing what we watch.

Through this analysis we can separate our own perceptions and values from those that we are fed, thereby retaining more control over what we apply to our lives.

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About me:

“Hello! I’m a student from Trincity, Trinidad, and I love to write, read and sometimes draw. I would live in the cinema if I had the choice. I enjoy learning about as many different cultures as I possibly can.

“My dream is to become a novelist and through that, to challenge the stereotypes and constraints of society, as well as to provide thought-provoking material to shed new light on life itself. I believe that if we all shine a little light into the world, it will inevitably become a brighter place.”

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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Commonwealth Youth Programme. Articles are published in a spirit of dialogue, respect and understanding. If you disagree, why not submit a response?

To learn more about becoming a Commonwealth Correspondent please visit: http://www.yourcommonwealth.org/submit-articles/commonwealthcorrespondents/

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Living in Beijing is certainly an experience like none other. It is, in my opinion, one of the few places in the world where you can truly meet people from all corners of the globe, each trying to make it in various ventures.

Even though many Chinese are warm and welcoming, bright smiles and friendly gestures can be fewer and further between when you are black.

Let me be clear, I am not brandishing the “r” word as an accurate description for all Chinese, as some of them are quite open-minded and willing to interact with people of any race.

However, at some point, people who are black and living in China have to actively deal with discrimination, whether it be in intimate relationships, making friends, looking for jobs, and doing business – and arguably less so than those of different racial groups.

It is my contention that if China truly wants to open up its doors and be a place where people will want to live and work, it has to take a strong look at how the people on the ground treat people from other countries and ethnicities. If not, it can impede trade relations and have negative implications on how people view it’s openness, diversity and acceptance of others.

This month, I will share some of the experiences of Africans living in the first-tier cities of Guangzhou, Guangdong province, and the nation’s capital, Beijing, offering a snapshot of what it is like to make a life as a black person in China.

Donald, aged 35

“I thought it was a nice place. Along the line I found a company who I was doing business with, and I decide to settle down here and live here and find a wife here. That is why I decide to come to China. First I come for business, but along the line, I find other things that made me decide to live in China. But in Guangzhou, you meet a lot of pressure. Sometimes you feel so bad, like when they come around and embarrass you asking about documents. Now, they can just harass you, and then they find out everything is in order.”

Larry, aged 30

“Many [Chinese] think that because you are black you are in poverty, it is war and it is famine. And that you are living in the forest (laughs). Related to black people, Chinese prefer to have proof… There are really few open-minded Chinese. Maybe it is because of the media – all they see is Somalia, Ethiopia, somewhere in Sudan, and you see the children dying of famine, and they just correlate directly to that.

“It is also hard to get a job sometimes. We had our first interview by phone and they said I was okay and they said that it was okay, I can come. When I got there, they discovered I am a black and they told me that… ‘we don’t want somebody from Africa’. This one I think it is really racism and ignorance, because I was saying ignorant because it is not your external appearance that will represent what you have as your teaching abilities.”

Denny, aged 28

“There was a Chinese girl who worked in the shop next to me, and I would ask her to come and eat lunch with me as a friend, but she saw this as a sign that I was in love with her… Anyway, the other Chinese in the shops close to ours saw that she was in love with me and asked her what was wrong with her, and why was she in love with a ‘black monkey’. She told me this.

“My colour is not a problem for me. When [Chinese] talk about my colour, I don’t care, ‘cause I like my color; you are the one who does not like my colour and are talking about my colour. I don’t care about your colour, so [Chinese] are the one with the problem, not me.”

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About me:

“I am a reporter for www.barbadostoday.bb. I am passionate about women’s rights issues, theatre arts and cats. I like hanging out with my friends, live for the beach and (sorta) enjoy cooking. I eventually to work in the gender and development field in any part of the world.”

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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Commonwealth Youth Programme. Articles are published in a spirit of dialogue, respect and understanding. If you disagree, why not submit a response?

To learn more about becoming a Commonwealth Correspondent please visit: http://www.yourcommonwealth.org/submit-articles/commonwealthcorrespondents/

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10 March 2012:

After a two day flight from Auckland, with a brief interval in Hong Kong, the plane finally touches down at London’s Heathrow airport (3pm, local time).

I didn’t know it then, but it would be another two hours before I could even present myself at the appropriate immigration queue and proceed through to customs. I can’t say I was impressed with British hospitality. I once thought it was notoriously “on time, every time” and at that point I was sadly mistaken.

However, this was the world’s busiest international terminal, and here I was bitching about a measly two hours. The onslaught of jetlag and sleep deprivation was finally kicking in and I was simply no match.

To my credit, I managed to befriend a fellow arrivals passenger, a South African tertiary student on his way to post-graduate studies in England. Our shared disapproval at our very first “British” experience led us to believe that we bumped into one another for a reason, and fate would have no further discussion. Soon enough we were describing the political climate back home, and even attempted some amateur economic dialogue on the recession and the impact that this was having on our homelands (sadly, we were both masters of the humanities).

It was by most standards an encouraging start to my Commonwealth experience and a fascinating insight into all things ‘South Africa’ – I only hope that I did justice to New Zealand in return. We are still good friends today, with a helping hand from Facebook of course. And I have no doubt that our miserable start to the ‘English Experience’ will tie us together for life!

11 March 2012:

I awoke to the sweet sounds of sanctity, safely tucked into the warm regalia of Victorian accommodation, a five-star hotel, courtesy of the British government. We were in the offcuts of the English winter and the thought of abandoning my new bed so soon sent shivers down my spine. In the end, it had to be done and I was soon fully dressed and ready to face the world, or the hotel breakfast buffet for starters.

In the lobby I managed to rub shoulders with the Scottish ambassadors and greeted them with a scene from Braveheart (chanting “FREEDOM” at 6:15am is probably not the best thing to do if you wanted to leave a positive impression on the hotel staff). Nevertheless, it had the Scottish rebels in fits of laughter and their accents were well and truly on fire at this point (to the enjoyment of my ears, they were in love).

After breakfast, what seemed like a first-class coach had arrived accompanied by a driver with only one instruction – take the ambassadors to Westminster House where they will meet members of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. It doesn’t surprise me at how I can relay the instruction from thin air, word for word, even today. It was our very first instruction upon arrival and understandably the most exciting.

The drive was less than thirty minutes from our hotel but in that time I marveled at the architecture of English urbanism and admired the victorian styled infrastructure especially. We were in the heart of London and my head was literally in the clouds above. I was in the heart of London city for the very first time.

When we arrived at Westminster House, headquarters of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, we soon learnt that Westminster Palace was only across the road. The venue for the latest royal wedding was right before our eyes, a minute’s walk perhaps. We were undeniably star-struck, especially us first-time Londoners. It took a while for us to readjust our composure and eventually we made it through security and inside, away from the bitter chill of the street.

Our warm welcome was a testimony to the organisation of this event and to those involved in its overall delivery. We received keynote addresses from the Secretary General, Clerk of the Parliamentary Journals, and the Right Honourable Kate Hoey (Member of Parliament for Westminster). All travel woes upon arrival were completely and utterly vindicated at this stage, I was mesmerised by our early morning induction and knew at this stage that being there at that moment would prove to be the most vivid encounter of them all, up until that point at least.

12 March 2012:

By far the longest and the most significant day of them all. When I thought it couldn’t get any better, it did. It all started when we were issued personal invitations to accompany the British Royal Family and members of the House of Commons to Westminster Abbey for the Commonwealth Day Observance, observing the anniversary of the Commonwealth of Nations and Her Majesty the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

To treasure the Westminster Abbey from the outside is one thing, but being inside amongst some of the most influential people the world has to offer, that is something else entirely. It was an experience that even my greatest dreams failed to match, an insight incomparable to say the very least.

As we made our way inside I almost gasped at the reality of it all, as we trampled over a trail that the Queen herself would use when she arrived almost an hour later. Composure was probably the last thing on my mind, I wanted to close my eyes and remember everything inside the abbey in picture perfect quality forever.

As the Procession of Flags made its way to the forefront of the abbey we were reminded of the order’s significance. The flags were sorted in accordance to the date of membership. New Zealand’s flag was the fourth to be led into the arena, and it was at this moment that I stood to attention in my pride for New Zealand and all that we stood for. It was a personal moment of reflection.

Those that know me best would know that a solo performance of “Hallelujah” by renowned American music artist Rufus Wainwright would complete my greatest experience ever. And when it actually happened right there at the abbey during the observance, I was in a state of true bliss. It was the perfect conclusion to the perfect observance service.

The entire observance ceremony was all over within an hour and slowly but surely we made our way back to Westminster House for a debriefing workshop. It was well and truly a remarkable ceremony and at this stage I thought that this was it, this would be the highlight of my entire experience in England. I was wrong.

Now in the late afternoon things made a turn for the very best! A ballot was organised and we soon learnt that from the thirty of us, fifteen names would be drawn from this ballot to be personally invited to an Evening Reception with Her Majesty The Queen.

The atmosphere in the room changed almost instantly. We had only just arrived from Observance at Westminster Abbey and here we were preparing for a ballot to decide who should have the honour of an exclusive audience with the Queen later on that evening. My body grew tense and my nervous system went haywire for just a fleeting moment. I struggled to comprehend what was just instructed and my hands felt rather numb.

What would happen a few minutes later changed my course of history forever.

“Alafale Andrew Lesa, New Zealand” – these were the magical words that meant the world to me in that royal room on that royal Monday afternoon in the heart of London. It might sound selfish but it seemed like a moment made in heaven and a moment made especially for me. I recall being in a state of silence, still coming to terms with what it all meant. In less than three hours, the fifteen of us would be hurried into transport and taken along to Marlborough House, a royal mansion fit for the Late Queen Mother, before it was gifted to the Commonwealth Secretariat in 1953 to house its Official Headquarters.

As we arrived at the palace I was expecting the smallest glimpse of Her Majesty in just the slightest second. I was under no impression to think otherwise, and even that was enough to satisfy me for a lifetime. But it wasn’t meant to be, I was happily mistaken. The setting was very formal and in the beginning we mingled with the diplomatic officials who were also present.

I met High Commissioners from across the Commonwealth, former British Prime Ministers Lady Thatcher and Sir John Major, and New Zealand’s very own High Commissioner to the UK. It was a memorable start to the evening with business cards being passed around like American hotcakes and plenty of political banter over current affairs.

I was nervously awaiting my small glimpse of Her Majesty when it was soon announced that she was in the next room and would be making her way into our room within fifteen minutes. Silence reigned as excitement muted all conversation and anticipation for her arrival reached its climax. As the doors flung open in extraordinary fashion, in walked her political entourage, the Secretary General of the Commonwealth and his partner.

We had now gathered into a semi circle and were now being individually addressed by the Secretary General of our Commonwealth of Nations. In due course, Her Majesty The Queen was received and proceeded to follow in the pathway of our Secretary General, closely followed by His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh. It was all so surreal, almost like a scene from your classic movie, and I can still recall being overwhelmed with emotion.

The closer she proceeded to my position in the semi circle, the more control I surrendered to my emotions, or so it seemed. When she did arrive in front of me and embraced me with an outstretched black glove, I responded by acknowledging her presence with a bow (as this was our instruction on arrival). At the completion of this ancient protocol, her host introduced the “Ambassador from New Zealand” to which she replied, “oh, how lovely to meet you. And how far you must have travelled.”

She then enquired as to the progress of the Christchurch Earthquake Campaign, and pacing myself, I responded in quite the same manner by highlighting the national disaster and sharing some of the finer detail around the rebuilding efforts moving forward. It was also a stroke of genius that I recalled her citing the Christchurch tragedy in her 2011 Royal Christmas address, to which I thanked her for in conclusion. For a moment her smile was comforting and radiant, and with that she had moved along to the person beside me.

Our entire conversation, exactly a minute and forty five seconds. It was by far one of the shortest conversations I’ve ever engaged in, and interestingly, also the most profound.

13 – 20 March 2012:

The itinerary for the next eight days would consist of a combination of London sight-seeing tours, presentations to various organisations with relevance to the Commonwealth, and a personal audience at the New Zealand House (office of our High Commissioner).

Describing the experience on paper is an injustice to the royal occasion in my honest opinion. It fails to reflect upon the true nature of my personal experiences in London, before some of the most exclusive audiences in the world. I’ve seen the definition of a “work of art” up close and personal, simply by appreciating all the sights and sounds of greater London in this two week stunt. It really is the “City of Opportunity” and I am forever grateful for mine.

*** none of this was even remotely possible without the active assistance of my local Member of Parliament who led the charge for community sponsorship that ultimately covered the complete cost of my return airfares. The local cosmopolitan club, local supermarket operators, our local events centre, a funeral parlour, an educational provider and community advocates all contributed financially to the experience. I am forever indebted to these good samaritans for their generosity and couldn’t thank them enough if I tried.

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About me:

“I am an international diplomat having represented the New Zealand youth sector in a host of international initiatives. The completion of my tertiary education at the University of Auckland (BA/LLB) will usher in a professional dedication to diplomacy and foreign affairs.

“My interests include community development, foreign affairs, globalisation, youth empowerment, reading (non-fiction/fiction as well as current affairs), creative/critical writing, chess, debating, history, linguistics and social interaction. My passion for writing has led me to this forum.”

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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Commonwealth Youth Programme. Articles are published in a spirit of dialogue, respect and understanding. If you disagree, why not submit a response?

To learn more about becoming a Commonwealth Correspondent please visit: http://www.yourcommonwealth.org/submit-articles/commonwealthcorrespondents/

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It is every girl’s dream to grow up, get married and have a family of her own, says Josanne Brassey, 24, a young woman from the island of Tobago. But dreams do not always turn out as you imagine, especially when lovers part and a baby comes into the equation.

It is said that real love is supposed to be as passionate as sucking the sweetness out of a nectar and as heavenly as dining on a piece of sumptuous cheese cake.

Traditionally it is every girl’s dream to grow up, get married and have a family of her own, with a dream job to match.

Nothing is wrong with wanting that fulfilment out of life. But life is never a bed of roses. There will always be ups and downs that will take their course.

Some young women may believe that if they are with a guy for two to five years and he does not ‘pop the question’, then they should resort to an old but shameless trick.

When a man says he is not ready for children the message that registers is that this man has the potential to leave soon. And, yes, sometimes that is true. So the woman may believe that getting themselves pregnant is the trump card, or the meal ticket, to future happiness.

But these women fail to realize it’s the most foolish trick in the book. A woman can have a child today and still end up single tomorrow because “baby don’t keep ah man if he doesn’t want to stay”. If a man wants to leave he will walk right out, no matter the circumstance.

But in the time that passes before telling the father, he may have already entered into a new relationship, thereby introducing a new person in the equation. This kind of relationship now places adverse effects on everyone involved. You got the baby mama who is furious, then there’s the new girlfriend who probably feels like she has to compete against an obstacle bigger than herself.

In such a life altering experience the baby mama faces losing a future husband and possibly someone that can take care of her, while the new woman is striving for sufficient time with her man, trying to see if she can give that same love to a child that is not hers.

“In a situation as complicated as the one the guy is facing,” a male friend told me, “the new woman isn’t giving the guy a reason to sort his life out with all the drama with his ex. If the woman really loves that guy and is serious about him she would give him the freedom he needs to clean up his mess”.

Same goes for the guy. “If he really loves his current significant other and wants to have a life with her, he would take the time he needs to handle the mess he got himself into and when things seem much clearer to him and the confusion is over, he can proceed with his relationship to the new woman.”

Giving up may seem like the easiest solution to every problem, but it’s only a practical answer for the weakest link in life. The best advice anyone can take from this life lesson is to give the guy his freedom and let him sort himself out, let him decide what he really wants.

A love that has so many obstacles, trying to knock its walls down, is never that simple, as nothing good in life comes easily.

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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Commonwealth Youth Programme. Articles are published in a spirit of dialogue, respect and understanding. If you disagree, why not submit a response?

To learn more about becoming a Commonwealth Correspondent please visit: http://www.yourcommonwealth.org/submit-articles/commonwealthcorrespondents/

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Kenya’s development is hampered by its unequal society, in which an increasingly rich elite are polarised with the millions who hover over the breadline.

Social and economic inequality is a key determinant in the stability and prosperity of a nation, and therefore urgently needs to be addressed in Kenya. This is especially evident when reflecting on Kenya’s medical services.

There is no denying that Kenya has some of the most advanced medical facilities available. The Aga Khan hospital in Nairobi is as good as any private hospital you will encounter in the West, with dedicated research centres and a new special cancer care unit available.

Nairobi in particular has a wide selection of impressive hospitals, most of them private and available only to those who can afford it, with consultation fees alone costing roughly $15 in some hospitals, beyond the means of most Kenyans.

However, this is in stark contrast to the millions who rely on government facilities. Jomo Kenyatta hospital, Nairobi’s central hospital, is severely overcrowded and under-resourced. It is not unusual to queue for the entire day for simple medicines and check-ups, albeit for only a fraction of the price of private hospitals.

A Kenyan neighbor of mine is expecting a child shortly, but will only take his wife to the hospital at the last possible minute, as the maternity ward charges patients by the hour. His wife has never had an ultra-sound, and consequentially, her due date is little better than guesswork.

Despite being only a few miles from Nairobi’s best hospitals, one of the most in-demand government clinics in Nairobi’s suburbs has existed for years with absolutely no water supply or even hand sanitizer. There is only one doctor present, and often the clinic lacks even the most basic of supplies such as bandages and soap.

The recent national medical strike hit the poor hardest. For weeks, government doctors and nurses went on strike in protest over pay and working conditions. Hospitals and clinics literally shut down as negotiations reached an impasse, and patients were actively sent home. Unless you could afford private health care, Kenyans simply had to wait.

The situation was so dire in one town that nurses refused to treat a pregnant lady who subsequently bled to death, and had to be evacuated by the police to protect them from an outraged public.

Kenya needs to address the fundamental inequalities which plague its’ medical facilities in order to continue on the road to development. Whilst there is no doubt that Kenya has at its disposal some of the finest medical facilities, the real challenge lies in raising the standard of those available to the bulk of the population, the poorest.

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About me:

“After spending time volunteering overseas inbetween my studies, I started working for an international NGO in New Zealand, and now I find myself living in Nairobi, Kenya.

“After completing my MA in International Development, I am very passionate about working in the development and political sector, and being in Nairobi helps me to pursue these ambitions.”

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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Commonwealth Youth Programme. Articles are published in a spirit of dialogue, respect and understanding. If you disagree, why not submit a response?

To learn more about becoming a Commonwealth Correspondent please visit: http://www.yourcommonwealth.org/submit-articles/commonwealthcorrespondents/

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The Commonwealth’s existence is based on the promotion of the shared goals of democracy and development among its member states. Historically most nations in the organisation were former colonies of the Empire of Britain, and as a result governance styles and political structures across these nations still bear the hallmark of British influence.

But there is also the influence of coalition politics within and outside of party structures. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) has observed that the recent coalition trend began in India, then in Africa and lately within the Caribbean region.

But how do we understand the identity of different political parties in coalition governments? Internal party elections allow leadership roles to change and challenge the ability of the new leadership to follow the path of the old.

In my country, Trinidad and Tobago, simmering tensions within the leadership of the People’s Partnership administration offers us a suggested agenda item for the next CPA Annual Conference. Congress of the People (COP) elections in late 2011 gave way to Prakash Ramadhar as the new political leader with the mandate to balance the coalition and keep the values of the COP strong. Then, in March, United National Congress (UNC) internal elections included a ‘crossing of the floor’ between the COP to UNC of a prominent member.

Such a move brings into question the unity of the coalition as well as Mr. Ramadhar’s resolve to separate the COP as unique as well as walk the thin line of being in coalition and not be absorbed by it.

In my view, in light of this example from Trinidad and Tobago, the Commonwealth needs to examine election dynamics between coalition governments to prevent situations of “Till elections do us part”.

On the surface, switching parties within a coalition should be a simple process, however it raises the question of division of roles, leveraging of capabilities and leadership dynamics. Successful coalition governments have a fair balance of each party needing one another equally. Recent position negotiations show that this is not the case within the People’s Partnership.

Uneven leveraging capabilities create a perception that member parties are required to either toe the line or their voices are not appropriately heard. A coalition’s longevity becomes a contentious issue that the Commonwealth should address as a part of its mission to encourage adequate governance structure.

Coalition governments tend to be elected with a high approval rating, however they fail to maintain a steady rating. Recent poll ratings in Britain and Canada – showing a decrease in Prime Minister Cameron’s performance as well as a diminishing of the Bloc Quebecois – demonstrate the complex demands on coalition government within the twenty-first century.

With coalition politics rife across influential Commonwealth sates like India, Australia, as well as in the African continent, the CPA should emphasise the importance of coalition dynamics and provide measures to assist coalition governments.

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About me:

In life my goal is to inspire and motivate. My passion lies in youth mobilization with particular focus on politics. I am a spontaneous person and yearn for new experiences. My articles reflect my academic orientation as well as experiences that define my life. The goal is honesty, to applaud where needed and scold where required. I recently graduated.

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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Commonwealth Youth Programme. Articles are published in a spirit of dialogue, respect and understanding. If you disagree, why not submit a response?

To learn more about becoming a Commonwealth Correspondent please visit: http://www.yourcommonwealth.org/submit-articles/commonwealthcorrespondents/

Every single person has the right to pursue happiness and to live a life of purpose and abundance, says Craig Dixon, aka Juleus Ghunta, a 24-year-old social activist and Commonwealth Correspondent from Jamaica.

At its core, D.R.E.A.M.R.I.G.H.T means that every human being has an inalienable and divine right to dream and to duly harvest the fruits of his or her honest labour.

There is no man, family or dynasty that is innately more deserving of this right than another. Each man’s foremost duty is to not only believe, understand and affirm his dreamright, but to exercise it without fear or frail affection.

If a man is deprived of his dreamright by another, he must rebel unrelentingly until he is free to pursue his ambitions. Each human is born as a blank slate – nature does not erect walls of demarcation between men.

Believing this is the first step toward appreciating your absolute relevance to history and that merely ‘existing’ is sinful, since a purposeless life defiles the spirit of an ever evolving universe.

In his book, Secrets of the Heart, Kahlil Gibran wrote: “Ambition beyond existence is the essential purpose of our being”. “The dreamers”, James Allen asserted, “are the saviors of the world”. A man without dreams is like a rootless tree, perched precariously on a hillside. He has no protection against life’s landslides; in fact, he is the landslide.

In order to exercise your dreamright, you must accept, wholeheartedly, that “there is no monopoly on anything, neither freedom, nor the making of heroes, nor dreams”. There is nothing that man has overcome, is overcoming and will overcome, that you cannot conquer within your own life.

It is your dreamright to pursue happiness and to live a life of purpose and abundance.

“The greatest tragedy in life,” quipped Dr. Myles Munroe, author of the Pursuit of Purpose, “is not death, but life without a reason… the deepest craving of the human spirit is to find a sense of significance and relevance”.

I was 12-years old when this concept first came to me. The principles of D.R.E.A.M.R.I.G.H.T have guided me through trying times, and believe me, there were many. Today I share these principles with you.

D = Dream

What is your dream? What makes you bloom like an orchid? Have the courage to dream loftily and do not be afraid to pursue what you love with all your might. Henry David Thoreau wrote in his famous book, Walden: “I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Go in the direction of your heart, and remember the words of James Allen: “He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it”.

R = Right to dream

In as much as you have a right to life you have a right to dream. Do not let anyone take that right away from you. Avoid people who are eager to tell you what they think you are not good enough to do. And mull over these words of Leo Tolstoy: “We should show life neither as it is nor as it ought to be, but only as we see it in our dreams.”

E = Exercise self-control

According to late American author, Marya Mannes, “The sign of intelligent people is their ability to control their emotions by the application of reason.” Never risk missing out on your long-term goal, by over indulging in short-term pleasures. Keep your eyes on the big prize and make the necessary sacrifices to reach it.

A = Attitude/action

Renowned Motivational Speaker Les Brown likes to say that people do not get in life what they want, they get what they are. If you are going to achieve your dreams, you must first believe that it is your right to do so. Be positive and optimistic. You are the complete sum of your thoughts.

Do not take your dreams to your grave. Take steps to achieve them. Do not talk yourself out of your signature idea. The secret of success, according to Dante, is to act. One of my favourite Kahlil Gibran quotes is: “A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle”.  Think about that and get moving.

M = Master your craft

Practice! If you wish to earn from your passion, you need to spend time developing it. Malcolm Gladwell, author of ‘Outliers: The Story of Success,’ said that “practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” Invest in your dream. The phenomenal Albert Einstein said that “only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.”

R = Read

In his essay, ‘How to Read,’ Marcus Garvey, Jamaica’s first national hero, encourages us to “use every spare minute (we) have to read… carry with you a small pocket dictionary and study words whilst waiting or travelling, or a small pocket volume on some particular subject. Read through at least one book every week separate and distinct from your newspapers and journals.”

The mind is like the body, it needs to be fed regularly, and with good ‘food’, in order to remain functional. Read ‘good’ books about history and your interests. Most people do not like to read, but you need to be disciplined, because the benefits are immeasurable. “The mind once stretched by an idea never returns to its original dimension” (Dr. Ben Carson, Think Big).

I = Imagination/individuality

Stay clear of any person or institution that tries to make you think, speak and behave like everyone else. Protect you uniqueness. Co-founder of the London School of Economics, George Bernard Shaw, is credited with saying that “a reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man”.

Shaw also said that imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.” Be yourself at all times. Paint the world with the colours that tickle your fancy.

G = Goodwill to others

Take time to clear the way for others to realize their dreams. It is more pragmatic to live loving than living to live. Nineteenth-century African-American educator Booker T. Washington said that “If you want to lift up yourself, lift up someone else.”

H = Humility

Being humble is not the same thing as being weak. Do not confuse the two. “Pride”, late Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld wrote “humility is concerned with what is right”. Do not try to get even with your detractors; focus on getting ahead. Remember that the fingers of the universe are fickle, so be careful which bridge you burn. Stay cool.

T = Tenacity

Do not give up. Failure is a stage, not a person. In fact, American businessman Dr Randal Pinkett believes that “success is built upon a foundation of failure.” “Education,” former US president Calvin Coolidge wrote, “will not take the place of persistence; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of human race.” You may have to trudge the highlands and lowlands of life’s labyrinth to succeed, but there is no undertaking more deserving of your time. You must try and try until you get there.

Go in the direction of your dreams. Know that you have a dreamright as much as you have a right to life and only those who gallantly pursue this right will reap the fruit of its benefits and be in a position to change the world or experience its resplendent wonders.

Dream, dream, dream – change your strategy at times, but never give up on your dreams.

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About me:

“I am a Jamaican social activist, ‘Dreamrighter’, transformational speaker, creator of the D.R.E.A.M.R.I.G.H.T acrostic, and two time nominee for the Prime Minister’s Youth Award for Excellence in Service.

“I grew up in a small bucolic village called Pell River, in western Jamaica. I have been to many mountain tops – seen many things, tasted many things, conquered many things.

“I studied public relations and history at the University of the West Indies, Mona. I am an intern at the moment in the Spice Isle, Grenada, working the Roving Caregivers Programme which provides early childhood stimulation for economically deprived infants and toddlers. I want to be an anthropologist, focusing on literacy, peace and reconciliation.”

Contact me at dreamrightmotivation@gmail.com

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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Commonwealth Youth Programme. Articles are published in a spirit of dialogue, respect and understanding. If you disagree, why not submit a response?

To learn more about becoming a Commonwealth Correspondent please visit: http://www.yourcommonwealth.org/submit-articles/commonwealthcorrespondents/

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Gareth Evans was one of Australia’s longest serving Foreign Ministers, leading diplomatic policy negotiations for eight years between 1988 and 1996. The Labor party heavyweight then went on to be President and CEO of the International Crisis Group, a world renowned think tank, and now serves as Chancellor of the Australian National University.

Commonwealth Correspondent Francis Ventura, 21, from Melbourne, recently quizzed the colourful politician-turned-professor on the issues facing today’s world leaders, including North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, the enfolding crisis in Sudan, the principle of interventionism, and the delicate balancing act between upholding human rights and pursuing economic development.

Download the transcript as a Word document here.

Ventura: Thank you very much for joining me today. Libya under Colonel Gaddafi gave up its pursuit of nuclear weapons as the war in Iraq was about to be launched, perhaps out of fear. Is it feasible for the world to negotiate a peace treaty with North Korea that would guarantee it economic assistance and better diplomatic relations, yet be conditional on its abandonment of nuclear weapons?

Evans: I think a deal is doable with the North Koreans. I certainly don’t subscribe to the madman theory that they’re irrevocably determined to commit national suicide by launching a nuclear attack on somebody else and should be treated as mad dogs accordingly. I think we saw back in the ‘90s that the door was open to negotiation, when I was party to the negotiation producing the Agreed Framework. What the North Koreans unquestionably want, more than anything else, is regime survival and security guarantees that they can genuinely believe in. They also desperately need on a continuing basis economic support to keep their citizens alive, and associated with that energy sources that the West in the ‘90s was capable of supplying them and is certainly capable now.

So, I think with all those needs on the table on the North Korean side, it’s perfectly possible to envisage denuclearisation being the price of delivering those goods to them. It’s a matter of recognising that they are extremely difficult negotiating partners but not impossible ones. It’s a matter of maintaining a strategy which has essentially three legs: containment, deterrence, but keeping the door open for serious negotiations.

If that door is ever slammed shut, then I think it would be totally counterproductive. Keeping the door open is deeply frustrating, not least when they break their word, as with today’s satellite launch, which clearly is helping to prove missile technology of a kind which will enable them to deliver nuclear warheads, in manifest breach of the understanding they’d had as recently as a few weeks ago with the United States.

But while the frustrations are immense, I think patience is the necessary requirement. We shouldn’t make the assumption that the entire fault for the collapse of the previous agreement was on the North Korean side: the fault was very much shared. And, equally, we just need to keep our eyes and ears open for the prospect of forward movement, and not get too panicked about catastrophes occurring meanwhile.

Ventura: Looking ahead, do you believe that China will continue to see it in their interest to support the North Korean regime as it has in the past?

Evans: China’s interests are to ensure that there’s no implosion of North Korea, with floods of people coming across its borders and the general destabilisation of the region. I’ve never subscribed to the view that China wants to keep a communist North Korea as a buffer zone between it and the South.

I think China’s interests would be well served by the long-term reconciliation of the North and the South and a stable environment in which reunification is eventually part of the product. China is always unwilling to be seen to be putting pressure on the North Koreans but in fact it has been a fairly steadying influence over the years and we shouldn’t underestimate its willingness to go on playing that role.

Ventura: Equatoguinean President Teodoro has an estimated net worth of around US$600 million, thanks to his country’s vast oil deals, while at the same time 70% of Equatorial Guinea’s citizens live under the poverty line. How can the world better balance the desire for closer economic integration with promotion of human rights?

Evans: Well Equatorial Guinea is one of the most grotesque examples around of pillage of a country by its leadership, a complete absence of accountability, and endemic corruption of a kind that has been fantastically debilitating for the country’s people. That said, it’s not supremely obvious how the situation can be quickly remedied other than by long term application of pressure from the outside world leading to serious internal movement. I don’t think the situation is going to be resolved by the world refusing to do oil deals with countries like this: that’s a very extreme way of approaching these situations.

It wasn’t trade sanctions that saw the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa, any more than it was sports or cultural boycotts. The only external pressure that really mattered in the South African case was the complete withdrawal of financial flows from the outside world, which made it impossible to finance trade, to secure investment and to service international debt. Those sorts of strategies should certainly not be excluded for countries such as Equatorial Guinea, but whether even the most robust forms of international pressure at this time will produce short-term results is very problematic. You just have to basically rely on internal dynamics, with external support, to create an environment which results in peaceful removal of these sorts of leaders.

There’s been a remarkable mood around Africa towards that happening: there are many fewer kleptocracies now than there used to be.  But the best form of pressure is not so much from across the waves but internally, and from the African regional and sub-regional organisations that have shown themselves, in West Africa in particular, to be capable of putting sustained and effective pressure on undemocratic pillaging regimes. There are no easy answers in any of this, and it would be a pretence to suggest otherwise.

Ventura: Hundreds of thousands of innocent Darfurians have been killed, millions are displaced and President Omar Al-Bashir has an arrest warrant against him by the ICC for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Despite a UN Security Council-mandated embargo on arms transfers to Darfur in 2004, China still supplies about 90% of small arms and extensive amounts of other military equipment to the Sudanese Government. Does this represent a failure of multilateralism and why is the international community sceptical about having an authoritative International Criminal Court?

Evans: The worst of the violence occurred in 2003-04 in Darfur. What we’ve seen since then is not so much one-sided oppression by the Sudanese state, which was of course the case at the beginning, but rather a protracted conflict with the state on the one hand and a lot of fairly irresponsible militia groups on the other, with a very large displaced population stuck in the middle and with a not very happy future unless the situation can be fundamentally resolved.

It was never going to be capable of resolution by external military intervention. That would have created far more catastrophe for the displaced Darfuris than it could ever have improved their situation.  That’s often the case with calls for military intervention in some of these terrible, human rights violating situations: you have to constantly weigh the balance of consequences and whether or not more harm than good is going to be caused. That has left the international community with only relatively limited leverage to put pressure on the Sudanese Government and President Bashir. Part of that has been the reference to the International Criminal Court, and I certainly applaud that as an entirely useful form of pressure which has I think contributed to significant modification of the worst excesses of the Government side in this conflict. But it has not proved completely successful, of course, not least because of a complete lack of cooperation by a number of the neighbouring countries around whom Bashir has been travelling freely without any sign of anyone being willing to execute the warrants that are outstanding for his arrest.

It does point out the limitations of the International Criminal Court in this respect:  we don’t have an international marshalls service; we have a body that’s entirely dependent on the cooperation of the member countries in the international community if it is to be effective. But that doesn’t mean that we should be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It’s an evolutionary process, developing effective forms of international justice, and I believe that slowly, the institution is gaining real credibility.

It needs a few more runs on the board in terms of effective prosecutions — and a diversity of such prosecutions, not just African ones — before it really will win universal support. But it’s on the way, and I think that the problems that are associated with it are just the familiar realpolitik problems of dealing with a lot of very self-interested countries who are not always willing to put larger issues of human rights or other principles to the forefront.

Ventura: Is it time for an international convention banning the sale of weapons to nations that do not meet strict criteria on human rights?

Evans: Well if you could ever negotiate such a convention, it would be an attractive option, particularly in the case of small arms and light weapons which have been the cause of so much destructive violence in so many of these countries in the past. That said, almost any proposal for limiting the sale of arms, whatever the conditions might be, is barely going to scratch the surface of the problem, which is very much that of huge existing stockpiles of such weapons existing.

Every international effort to ban illicit arms transfers, or the kind of proposal you’re talking about now — difficult as that would be to negotiate but nonetheless highly desirable as it would be —  all stumble on the reality that there’s a large storehouse of such weapons already out there.  Unless you can find ways of taking those weapons out of play, you’re going to have huge capacities all around the world for ugly violence to continue. I don’t want to sound like some ridiculous parody of the American gun lobby — whose basic position is ‘guns don’t kill people, people kill people’ — but the truth of the matter is that it’s people that are the main problem here.

The impossibility, I fear, of removing completely the storehouse of weapons out there suggests that the real effort has to be on conflict prevention, conflict resolution and pressure to avoid human rights violations through whatever leverage the international community can apply, rather than believing there’s any kind of fast way home to salvation here by getting rid of the weapons themselves, as wonderful as that would be.

Ventura: Many thousands of people have been killed since 1962 in West Papua, with thousands more raped and tortured and villages destroyed by the Indonesian military. Does the Australian inaction against the continued oppression of the West Papuan people reflect badly on our status as a good international citizen, given our known support for democracy and human rights in the Asia-Pacific?

Evans: It’s absolutely unquestionable that there has been a lot of oppression over the decades in West Papua, particularly in the early Suharto years, and there’s equally no question that the 1969 Act of Free Choice, so called, was totally fraudulent and absolutely did not represent the will of the West Papuan people. That said, doing something about that now, in terms of securing a new vote of self-determination or some other path to independence, is chasing a will o’ the wisp. Timor was a completely different case for all sorts of reasons, not least that it has a separate and distinct colonial history.

There’s no way that Indonesia is ever going to relinquish its sovereignty in its Papua province, and no way that I can see that there would be any kind of support for that occurring in the UN. There was always a large measure of support for the East Timorese because of the different histories of the two places and of course the way the original annexation indefensibly took place in 1975, but the same dynamic doesn’t apply here. I think it is important to maintain close scrutiny of the role of the Indonesian military in West Papua to make it clear, as organisations such as the International Crisis Group have done, that they are under serious observation and will be the subject of condemnation and international pressure if they misbehave in the way that has been the case periodically, but much less so in recent years than in the early years.

Australia is caught in the dilemma that every real-world country is, of having to live with its neighbours and to recognise the reality, in this instance, of Indonesia’s sovereignty. We just have to do the best we can, with successive generations of diplomats having to make it clear that it is unacceptable when Indonesia does go overboard in its reaction to the residual independence movement that exists, and misbehaves in ways that are just unacceptable by any international human rights standards.

So it’s a matter of scrutiny and pressure. The present Government in Indonesia is a genuinely democratic one, not always in full control any more than it ever has been, of everything its military arm does, but very conscious of its international reputation. While it’s absolutely unwilling to countenance any form of independence for the province, I think it is certainly sensitive to international criticism, and that’s the best string on which to pluck in terms of the Papuan people’s future.

Ventura: In 1975, the Indonesian Suharto dictatorship invaded East Timor and declared it the 27th province of Indonesia, a move that was never recognized by the UN. It was responsible for the murder of up to 213.000 people, or about a third of the population, proportionately similar to the Khmer Rouge genocide. Why did your Government support the Indonesian regime economically, diplomatically and militarily? Rather, wasn’t this a case where humanitarian intervention should have taken place?

Evans: Well when you say ‘my government’, I wasn’t around in 1975, but of course there was a Labor Government in power. I for one was certainly highly critical of the military invasion that took place as successive generations of Labor Party people have been: we’ve never accepted the legitimacy of the way in which the takeover of the country took place. I think Gough Whitlam has been unfairly traduced in retrospect as going along with the military exercise of this kind. While he certainly was comfortable about East Timor becoming part of Indonesia, he was never any more comfortable than any of us about the way that it happened, which was manifestly indefensible.

Over subsequent years, of course, there was a continuation of a very high level of military oppression. The difficulty for the Australian Government, living alongside Indonesia as we do with the absolute critical necessity of have a reasonable relationship with it for our own security purposes, was to maintain as much pressure as we reasonably could on Indonesia not to misbehave in this way in East Timor, but not to completely destroy the relationship between the two countries, which is, was and remains critical for Australia.

We’re talking here about the fourth biggest country in the world, and the biggest Islamic population in the world, and it would just be mindless to say that we could pretend that we can go through life living in this region without working very hard to have a stable and effective relationship with that country.

Certainly, that was the position that I took in government when in a position to take that relationship forward, which I did very productively with my civilian colleague (former Indonesian foreign minister) Ali Alatas, not least on the work we did together on the Cambodian Peace Plan, which is still recognised to this day as having been critical in delivering peace a to Cambodia. (Human rights and democracy, I say in parenthesis, are still very much a work in progress in that country, but we did unquestionably deliver peace.)

Throughout the period of the Government of which I was a member, from 1983 to 1996, constant efforts were made by me to try to persuade the Indonesian Government to recognise the continuing right to self-determination of the East Timorese people,  and to recognise in particular a high degree of autonomy for that province, in terms of getting the military out, getting decent economic resources in, getting recognition for language and for culture, and allowing genuine emergence of a very significantly autonomous province within the country.

Alatas was highly supportive of that approach, as were many, many Indonesians in the civilian Government — but there was much less support in the military and therein lay a continuing problem. In retrospect, I think we vested too much confidence that developing a military-to-military relationship, and giving some degree of training and support for the Indonesian military, would be a civilising influence, and had our fingers burned on a number of occasions in that respect. Perhaps the worst example was the misbehaviour of the military in the 1991 Dili Massacre which was absolutely indefensible. I certainly know, because I broke the news to him at a conference in Tokyo, that Ali Alatas was absolutely horrified and dismayed by Dili, and there were many decent Indonesians who were as appalled as the rest of the world was about some of these continuing things that went wrong.

The crucial thing was to try and develop a relationship with the Government which would, over time, produce the result of autonomy. The Liberals were the first to formally recognise Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor, and we’ve been criticised for following suit. But it’s worth making the point that something like thirty other countries did recognise Indonesian sovereignty, both de facto, and also de jure by virtue of entering into treaties with Indonesia in which East Timor’s status was clearly articulated, clearly accepted. Even though the UN didn’t follow suit, Australia was by no means alone.

It’s a long and complicated story about what happened in East Timor, but the truth of the matter is that nobody, including the East Timorese leaders in exile like (former East Timorese President) Jose Ramos Horta, really believed that there was any chance of independence for the country. Everyone believed that the only hope was negotiated autonomy. It was only with the absolutely extraordinary series of events that unfolded after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis — the forced withdrawal of Suharto from the fray, the emergence of (former Indonesian President) Habibie and the miscalculation that Habibie made, that if he allowed a referendum, the East Timorese would demonstrate their enthusiasm to remain with Indonesia  (which is the only reason he yielded to a referendum, not because he thought it had a chance of resulting in independence) — that the miracle of East Timorese independence actually occurred.  I wholeheartedly applaud that it did, as did of course the Australian Labor Party, then in opposition.

The notion that any kind of humanitarian intervention, or any kind of military intervention, could at any stage have taken place, led by Australia or anyone else, is simply nonsense. Indonesia is a large country with a large military, so to engage in any kind of military intervention, would have resulted in all-out war, with a catastrophic increase in the quotient of misery that would have been generated. The intervention that did occur in the aftermath of the independence referendum, when the Indonesian military and the local militias engaged in grotesque and indefensible violence, was — it needs to be remembered — done with the support of the Indonesian Government itself. They yielded and consented:  there was a lot of international pressure, but it was with their consent, and it is inconceivable that there would have been such an intervention by Australia or anyone else without that Indonesian Government consent. So, all of these complexities have to be taken into account. In the real world of diplomacy you have to deal with the cards that you’ve got, not the cards that you’d like to have. You deal with the realities of your own national interest and what that requires, and life is a complex process of stepping between idealism and realism in terms of what is actually achievable. It’s the whole process of foreign policy, and it will forever be thus.

Ventura: So given the fact that genocide did take place, at what stage does a state lose its legitimacy and claim to sovereignty over a particular country and when can a country justify humanitarian intervention? For instance, in this case, despite all-out war being possible, many people were dying.

Evans: Well let’s use the terminology of the ‘responsibility to protect’ which has now, for all practical purposes, replaced talk about ‘humanitarian intervention’. Humanitarian intervention is a one-dimensional, wholly military, response to these sorts of situations which is always going to be as controversial as it was in previous decades. The responsibility to protect, with which I’ve been closely associated in its development and is a doctrine unanimously adopted by the General Assembly in 2005, has by contrast a number of dimensions. First, it says that the primary responsibility upon a sovereign country is to protect its own people: sovereignty carries with it that responsibility.

Secondly, it’s the responsibility of other countries to assist those who might otherwise be incapable of protecting their own civilians from domestic conflict. Thirdly, the doctrine says that if a country is unable or unwilling to protect its own people, the responsibility shifts to the wider international community to take whatever action is necessary to offer that protection. You’re not necessarily talking about military intervention as the only way in which the international community can act: you start with persuasion and negotiation, and you work your way through the possibility of non-military forms of coercion producing the result of sanctions, targeted sanctions, threats of prosecution by the International Criminal Court, arms embargoes and so on, hoping that those will force a change of behaviour by the country in question.

It’s only as a last resort that you contemplate military action. But even when it does comes to this — even when other forms of response have proved inadequate and the country is still violating its sovereign responsibilities — you still have to apply a whole series of criteria before you can justify coercive military force. One is legal, support from the Security Council:  unless we’re prepared to tear up the whole rule-based international order, a Security Council resolution must remain, self-defence apart, the only basis on which military action can ever be taken against anyone. But it’s not just a legal criterion that has to be satisfied:  there are a whole bunch of prudential criteria as well. Although these criteria have not been adopted yet by the Security Council, they’re very much part of the international debate and have been since my Commission put out its report on this subject in 2001.

Those criteria are the gravity of the harm feared; the intent of those potentially intervening, whether it’s genuinely to protect other individuals or whether there’s some other motive like oil proceeds;  whether the nature of the response is really proportional to the nature of the harm that’s occurring, or whether it’s way beyond that, as some of these regime-change interventions have arguably been;  whether  other measures have either failed or would inevitably fail to produce the protective result (‘last resort’); and finally the balance of consequences, whether a military intervention which satisfied all those other criteria would nonetheless cause more harm than good.

As to the East Timor case and the question of last resort, I do think negotiated autonomy was possible, and I do think we were moving towards that certainly in the early to mid-‘90s. Suharto was on the verge of accepting a very significant autonomy package around about 1994. What killed that proposal, unfortunately, was a very overt public statement being made by Bill Clinton, with the best intentions in the world, at the APEC meeting in Indonesia that year — that this is what the President and Indonesia should be doing and that the world was demanding that this occur — which proved to be counterproductive because, in classic Asian fashion, the Government said that it were not going to succumb to such American pressure. Many people who criticise the absence of strident international pressure and completely discount the utility of so-called quiet diplomacy, sometimes  completely overlook this point:  in some cultural environments such stridency, although it makes us feel a whole lot better and is very satisfying to domestic constituencies, can be very counterproductive indeed.

So I genuinely believed that a negotiated package was achievable. We’re talking about different circumstances and different times. At the time of the 1975 take-over and some of the atrocities that were perpetrated subsequently, I don’t think there was any sense in which any of the criteria for coercive force were satisfied and could have justified a military intervention. The main stumbling block each time — this being the case all the way through to the intervention that did occur in the aftermath of East Timorese independence when the place went up in flames — being that in the absence of consent from the Indonesian Government to external military engagement, you’d be facing full-scale war.   Indonesia is and was then a big and powerful country, with   hundreds of thousands of men under arms, and you just can’t embark upon military interventions, whatever the justification for that otherwise might be.

That’s why there’ll never be a military intervention against Russia for whatever it does in the Northern Caucasus; that’s why there’ll never be a military intervention by the rest of the world against China for whatever it might do to the people of Xinjiang or Tibet.  However unconscionable and however many other criteria might be satisfied, the truth of the matter is that intervention in these circumstances would catastrophically raise the stakes and generate infinitely more human misery even than that which you are trying to avoid. That was the kind of reasoning that was applicable in Darfur and a number of other of these cases over the years.

So the bottom line in all of this is that, these days, sovereignty is not a licence to kill, whatever might have been the case in decades and generations past. Everybody now acknowledges that sovereignty carries with it responsibilities not to perpetrate or to allow mass atrocity crimes against your own people. Everybody now acknowledges that the international community has a responsibility to take appropriate action if a sovereign state does abdicate its responsibility in that way. There will always be argument, debate and discussion about what form that international engagement should take. Only in the most extreme and exceptional circumstances will it be both possible and desirable for military action to take place. Such circumstances did arise in February/March last year in Libya.

Most of the time, we’ll be forced as an international community, to deal with a much less robust form of response, whether it’s diplomatic persuasion, negotiation of the kind that Kofi Annan successfully conducted in Kenya in 2008 and is trying to conduct now in Syria, or we’ll be reduced to non-military coercive measures like sanctions and ICC prosecutions and so on. These can be effective in some contexts, but are often less effective than we would like. The real world is going to make life less than ideal in terms of our effective delivery of decent responses to these issues. But these are the cards that we have, and these are the only cards that we have to play.

Ventura: Do you believe that Australia’s standing in the world, particularly the Asia-Pacific region, would be strengthened if we were to become an independent republic?

Evans: I’m not sure that I’d go that far, because I’m not sure that how a country chooses to appoint or elect its Head of State is something that ever really impacts hugely on others, especially when the Head of State position is a non-executive position and that person is not the head of government. That said, there’s definitely a widespread perception around the region that it’s very, very odd for a country to have as its Head of State someone living half a world away and in the Australian context in particular, it certainly does reinforce the lingering perception that Australia is still a prisoner of its history rather taking advantage of its geography.

I think it would help at the margin in terms of elite perceptions of Australia in the region, but as strong a republican as I am, I can’t pretend that this would make a fundamental difference to the conduct of our international relations. The reasons why we should be a Republic have everything to do with our own sense of national pride, dignity and appropriateness in terms of having a home-grown sovereign rather than this pale reflection of the imperial glory that once was. However, the notion that this is the key to our future in the Asian Century is a bit of an overstatement.

Ventura: Thank you very much for your time today.

Evans: Thank you. My pleasure.

Professor Evans’ response to Noam Chomsky on East Timor: http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2011/11/03/East-Timor-and-me-A-response-to-Noam-Chomsky.aspx

Photo Credit: Gareth Evans by the Library of the London School of Economics and Political Science

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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Commonwealth Youth Programme. Articles are published in a spirit of dialogue, respect and understanding. If you disagree, why not submit a response?

To learn more about becoming a Commonwealth Correspondent please visit: http://www.yourcommonwealth.org/submit-articles/commonwealthcorrespondents/

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As she lay bloodied and lifeless everyone stared frozen in shock. How could this have happened? Not on this island!

Why the shock when for months her screams echoed and resonated in the morning dew and floated and meandered in the evening breeze. But no one did or said anything, as it was ‘just another domestic’.

The blows to her body had proved insignificant in everyone’s perspective. Now staring in shock at the ultimate end result, her murder was now, finally, significant.

Why do we turn a blind eye to domestic violence? Is it really none of our business, just another domestic? Something the couple will sort out? But we shake, shiver and shrill in horror at the obvious end result. Now it’s our business, for as a society we have failed. No one is no longer safe. Anything can happen. How did this happen?

Why are we so impacted by this eventuality when we could not have cared less for the beginning of the situation? The emerging patterns. The first steps. The first punch.

How do we turn a blind eye to the elaborate and embossed makeup that covers our daughter’s, sister’s and friend’s faces? Painting an illusion of a happy face, which fragments of the truth break through giving light to the reality under the dense cover?

Now there are echoes that we need to keep our society safe. Is everyone not society? Was the victim not society, but we turned our backs not wanting to be involved. Is it only our problem when the issues bubbling under convulse and explode in our faces?

It’s too late now for this victim that lays broken, with her eyes spread open like she finally saw her situation. Her eyes wide open as if she was searching for someone to help her, that in her last moments someone would finally here cry for help. She was blinded, but in the end her eyes were opened and embedded with the harrowing truth.

As communities, should we not look out for each other no matter what? Should we not support and up lift each other? Is it fine for a woman or man to be abused once it is behind closed doors? That way we don’t have to deal with the ills that exist everyday. Once they stay alive is society doing fine?

What about the woman that goes to sleep every night thinking it’s her last? What about the children that know no other life than one with violence, who later in life manifest the only thing they know: abuse, victimhood, or self hate through drugs and addiction as a means to block the memories?

Should we not care about the broken souls, who roam aimless with no other purpose in life than to exist? Broken by the beatings to their body, the corruption of their thoughts and a violation of their whole being. How are they to save them selves when they have lost who they are!

Domestic violence should never be seen as a personal matter, when the consequential event of murder is taken so personally.

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About me:

Born on the beautiful island of Montserrat, I currently reside in the UK. I hold a degree in Law and currently work in the commercial division of a large financial institution. I have a keen interest in the creative and performance arts, and have been part of drama groups and choirs from an early age.

I am interested in creative writing and have written poems, short stories and skits from an early age. The rhythm of words and creating imagery has always engrossed and enticed me. In May 2011 I released a self published book called The Ill Concepts of The Caribbean Woman.

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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Commonwealth Youth Programme. Articles are published in a spirit of dialogue, respect and understanding. If you disagree, why not submit a response?

To learn more about becoming a Commonwealth Correspondent please visit: http://www.yourcommonwealth.org/submit-articles/commonwealthcorrespondents/

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In the East African nation of Uganda, every ethnic group has its own cuisine, helping to define not only its tastes but also its cultural identity. Diana Phoebe, 25, living in the capital city Kampala, reports.

Uganda has more than 52 tribes. Each of these tribes has its own culture, and a staple food that totally defines them.

I come from the Buganda tribe, and we eat a couple of foods, but our staple is ‘matooke’. This is what most people refer to as green bananas. You get them from the garden, and they have a sticky white sap that can be messy. So you have to either wear gloves or remove jewelry when peeling off the skins.

The fruit is wrapped in banana leaves and tied with the fibres and placed in a saucepan. The midrib, or main stem, of the bunch is cut into pieces and added to the bottom of the saucepan to stop it from making the banana watery or soggy. This allows only the steam to get to the fruit.

It is then covered with other banana leaves and left to boil for about 45 minutes. At that point it is taken out and mashed. You mash it using your hands, turning and pressing the food in the original banana leaf. Then it is put back on for another 30 to 40 minutes on low heat. It is then ready to serve with any sauce.

The steaming method is very healthy, because you do not have to use extra fats – all the nutrients are retained in the food in their natural amount. Sauces, like groundnut sauce, can be prepared through steaming, as can chicken and beef (this we call luwombo), placed in smoked young banana leaves and tied with fibres, and then eaten with mashed green banana leaves.

But this is just my tribe’s cuisine. ‘Malewa’ is a dish made by the Bagisu in eastern Uganda made from bamboo shoots. The Banyankole from western Uganda meanwhile have ‘eshabwe’, an appetizer made out of ghee, rock salt and small pieces of smoked meat.

The Batooro, another tribe from western Uganda, enjoy a dish called ‘firinda’, which involves peeling off the skins of boiled beans, mushing them into a thick paste, then adding cow butter and salt to the paste. This goes well with millet.

Most tribes in Northern Uganda love millet and ‘ugali’, the main staple food there. Indeed many tribes share their staple foods and you will find millet across northern, eastern and western Uganda.

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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Commonwealth Youth Programme. Articles are published in a spirit of dialogue, respect and understanding. If you disagree, why not submit a response?

To learn more about becoming a Commonwealth Correspondent please visit: http://www.yourcommonwealth.org/submit-articles/commonwealthcorrespondents/