The People and the Powerful in the Age of Climate Apartheid

The UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty, Philip Alston, has warned of a “climate apartheid” if more is not done to mitigate the potentially disastrous effects of climate change. Following the recent IPCC report that stressed the immediacy with which we must act in order to prevent an irreversible global temperature rise, giving just 12 years to avert a global crisis, Alston’s warnings assert that current actions taken by the UN are “patently inadequate” and will lead to a scenario where the rich pay to escape the worst consequences of a changing climate, "while the rest of the world is left to suffer".

The poorest are undoubtedly already suffering the worst consequences of climate change. Small island developing states (SIDS) are facing existential threats from rising sea levels. More than 1.3 billion people globally live in deteriorating agricultural land, leading to year-on-year poverty increases in areas set to suffer the most in the coming decades. In many cases, natural events are even used as a catalyst to further marginalise the poorest in society, as in the government-led enforced exile of families living in informal settlements in the Philippines following Typhoon Haiyan.

Perhaps the best example of this gulf of consequence between the rich and poor was seen in the Caribbean following Hurricanes Irma and Maria of late 2017. In Puerto Rico, devastated by Maria and “forgotten” by US and international aid agencies, the poverty-stricken population continues its limp towards recovery. Meanwhile, as early as April 2018, just 7 months after the two 1-in-100-year hurricanes, 5-star resorts across the Caribbean were boasting of their newly renovated and upgraded hotels, largely paid for by insurance money following the damage of the hurricane season and attracting more tourist money to line the pockets of their owners.

It may seem obvious that those with the resources to prepare for the worst will weather the storm better than those without. But it would appear that if you collect enough resources and garner enough power, you do not even have to pay to mitigate your own risks. Following Hurricane Harvey, which caused almost unprecedented damage to the state of Texas, big oil firms successfully lobbied for a $3.9 billion grant from the US government’s public funds for three storm barrier projects that would specifically protect oil facilities. The total cost of Harvey was estimated at $125 billion, with 13 million people affected and a dramatic rise in Texans claiming unemployment benefit due to job loss following the disaster, as well as the closure of several dozen schools for over a month while they waited for repairs. That same year, Exxon Mobil alone reported profits of $6.2 billion, and Chevron of $4 billion, which begs the question of why public funding was needed to cover the cost of a storm barrier that would not actually protect those living in the Harvey-affected area.

The potential cascade effects of not tackling the climate emergency are equally chilling. Worsening violence between farmer and herder groups in rural Nigeria as a result of land degradation is already sending shockwaves through the country and the wider world, and increasing evidence suggests that worsening climate conditions will increase the likelihood of outbreaks of identity-based violence (IBV) and conflict. Alongside climate vulnerability, those in poverty are also often the most likely to suffer the consequences of IBV. A less predictable climate also has detrimental health effects, leading to increasing droughts (which also disproportionately affect the poor), and greater chance of disease outbreak (which, you’ve guessed it, has a greater impact on poor people).

Income inequality has risen dramatically between 1980 and today, with the top 1% richest individuals in the world capturing twice as much growth as the bottom 50% since 1980. Those top 1% include the board members of Big Oil companies and the owners of luxury hotel chains like those in the Caribbean, who have their disaster risk reduction costs paid for by insurance companies, tourists, and taxpayers. The bottom 50%, numbering nearly 4 billion people, includes the one-third of the global population who live in what the UN terms “slum conditions” and are not only the most likely to face total destruction of their property in the event of an extreme natural event, but are also least-likely to own the land on which their house was built and therefore to be forcibly relocated after the dust settles. Forced migration in the context of economic instability is likely to result in rising identity-based tension that often spills over into violence.

So Big Oil keeps pumping unimpeded, directly contributing to the climate crisis which we all face, and the poor die.

Philip Alston’s report reinforces the growing “No Natural Disasters” movement, which aims to raise awareness of the human-made root causes of disasters. According to their website, “a hazard will only become a disaster should it impact the workings of a society or community”, and thus it is the decisions and make-up of the society that turn a natural hazard event into a disaster. Christian Aid explained the reality of “natural” disasters succinctly in a 2005 report: “In San Francisco, where tall buildings stand on rollers that move with the tremors, the last major earthquake caused the deaths of 62 people. In Turkey, an earthquake of similar magnitude killed 17,000”. Both are tragedies, but which would we qualify as a disaster?

How we plan our communities, how we build our structures, how we educate people on risks and vulnerabilities, how quickly and effectively we respond when a hazard occurs, and how we channel funding for disaster mitigation and response, drastically influences the outcome of any singular event. With the growing threat of climate change making life far more unpredictable and dangerous for every single one of us, we need to examine the role that we play in our own insecurity.

People are increasingly aware of the threat that climate change poses. The global School Strike for Climate movement, the Extinction Rebellion protests, and movements such as #NoNaturalDisasters, all serve to educate and empower ordinary people to make a change.

It was the power of ordinary people that ended apartheid in South Africa after decades of destructive and inhumane leadership that served only the interests of the powerful.

The power of ordinary people can do the same for the climate apartheid.

Oxfam, Amnesty, and a Collective Crisis of Conscience

The recent Charity Commission report into Oxfam’s mismanagement of serious sexual misconduct by its staff in Haiti highlighted a "culture of poor behaviour" in one of the UK’s leading humanitarian organisations. This poor behaviour included covering up allegations of abuse and a failure to adequately investigate claims that Haiti country-director Roland van Hauwermeiren had been using prostitutes as young as 12 years old throughout Oxfam’s response to the 2010 earthquake. In response to the report, the UK government has now given Oxfam three weeks to clean up its act, or to risk losing hundreds of millions of pounds of funding in programmes.

This catastrophic failure of safeguarding procedures calls into question not just Oxfam’s policies and processes, but those of the entire international humanitarian sector. Arriving on the heels of an independent report undertaken into the “toxic” workplace culture of Amnesty International following the suicide of two employees in 2018,  and the Save the Children sexual harassment scandal in which 1 in 5 staff members reported workplace harassment or discrimination in the previous three years, this report added fuel to the fire of a burgeoning distrust of the humanitarian sector more generally. For a system that aims to uphold human rights and international law, such failures do more than damage an individual’s or organisation’s reputation; they threaten the whole system’s capacity to function.

The Overseas Development Institute hosted an event on the 11^th of June 2019, coincidentally the day of the release of the Charity Commission report on Oxfam, in which the future of the humanitarian system was discussed. Representatives from several big players in the humanitarian sphere, including Mercy Corps, Solidarités International, and Christian Aid, were to debate the merits of merging International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) in order to streamline international aid. The conversation quickly transitioned towards the wider issue of legitimacy in the humanitarian sphere.  

As these recent damning reports against massive global organisations such as Oxfam, Amnesty International, and Save the Children highlight, a scandal in one place can severely damage effectiveness across the entire programme. In the wake of the scandal, Oxfam immediately saw a drop of 7,000 regular public donors, whilst Save the Children saw revenues drop from £406m in 2017 to £303m in 2018. But more than any one organisation, this issue weakens trust in the entire system.

Large INGOs are no strangers to controversy, alternately being accused of cultural imperialism and promoting neoliberalism in developing countries, all whilst impeding development in local actors by preventing growth of local economies and skills. Meanwhile, ODA and government-led agencies are contributing to the politicisation of aid, detracting from the humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality that supposedly guide the sector. As a result, developing countries are increasingly turning their backs on the international humanitarian system.

But it doesn’t need to be like this.

In large part, the current crisis in the sector has been caused by the hubris of some of the big “celebrity” INGOs, whose focus has drifted away from the beneficiaries of humanitarian aid towards their own reputations. This, they might argue, is out of necessity. Oxfam executives might look to justify ignoring allegations of sexual misconduct if the revelation that they were true would prevent the continuation of the other good work being done in the country. For an organisation that requires access to a community of people in need, a good reputation is everything. But a good reputation cannot come at the cost of the principle of “do no harm”. When humanitarian agencies are covering up the exploitation and abuse of local populations, or managers are pushing workers to breaking point in order to achieve results, we must acknowledge that the ends no longer justify the means.

As Nasra Ismail, Acting Director of a Somalian NGO Consortium, pointed out in the debate at ODI, some of the brightest NGOs, that produce the best results, are largely invisible in the field. She argues that for the most part, this is because effective INGOs work extensively through local networks and smaller NGOs that are already embedded in the communities they serve. These individuals and groups are far better equipped to deal with the unique complications of their own situation, especially when guided by the backing and technical knowledge of an effective global partner.

Localisation of humanitarian action has the dual benefit of improving the actual work itself – by reinforcing local skills, building on local knowledge, and allowing international actors to learn from traditional and local methods – and reducing the power imbalance between international and local people that can breed misconduct. A strong, well-vetted partnership empowers community members to lead their own response and reduces the capacity for international aid workers to exert undue influence over the affected population. Having multiple organisations involved in the process also limits the opportunity to cover up a case of abuse or exploitation, as was the case with Oxfam in Haiti, because partner agencies can provide oversight of each other’s actions.

The humanitarian system must always make sure that humans are put first in its priorities. Competition for funding, positive headlines, and goodwill has led some of the larger NGOs to lose their way in this regard.

As with many issues facing humanitarian crises globally, the answer is local.

The Political Theatre of the "Buddhist bin Laden"

On the 28^th May, The Myanmar government issued a warrant for the arrest of the ultra-nationalist Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu. Wirathu, who has referred to himself as the “Buddhist bin Laden”, has been widely criticised by the international community for his racist, inflammatory, and dangerous rhetoric aimed at the Rohingya minority of Rakhine State. Wirathu’s Islamophobic speeches are absolutely an incitement to violence against the Rohingya, pouring fuel on the fire of the “textbook ethnic cleansing” undertaken by the military in 2017 and continuing today. Acting as a mouthpiece for the campaign of hatred directed towards the beleaguered minority group, Wirathu has claimed he is proud of being referred to as “a radical Buddhist”.

This is a title that he has made sure he earned. In various speeches dating back to 2012, he has laid plain his disdain for the Rohingya through many hateful and dehumanising comments. In 2013 he compared Muslims in Myanmar to a “mad dog”. In a 2018 interview he claimed that the 1 million displaced Rohingya “don’t exist”, and that the images of destitute and starving refugees in camps across the border in Bangladesh were staged for the camera. In a 2017 interview with the Guardian, where he was asked about the allegations of the widespread rape of Rohingya women in the government-led ethnic cleansing, he responded that it was impossible, because “their bodies are too disgusting”. In 2012, a riot broke out following one of his speeches in Meiktila, resulting in the burning of a mosque and over 100 dead.

And yet none of these incidents led to the issuing of the warrant of Wirathu’s arrest. Instead, the warrant has been issued under article 124(a) of the legal code. This covers sedition, defined as “attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government” [emphasis my own]. He is to be arrested for supposed inflammatory remarks made regarding allegations of corruption by de-facto government leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Not only has he been a vocal proponent of the military-led crackdown on the Rohingya, but he has repeatedly accused Aung San Suu Kyi of not being hard-line enough in her repression of the group. This is despite the fact that she has overtly, and repeatedly, demonstrated her explicit consent and complicity in the violence. Now, his accusations of her supposed corruption has finally seen him fall foul of law enforcement.

The message is clear: Allegations of corruption against a disgraced government official with murky political connections are a crime. Deliberately inflammatory incitements to violence against a persecuted minority are not.

That criticism of the civilian government of Myanmar would result in such a swift backlash is unsurprising. The response to Wirathu echoes the treatment of the two Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were sentenced to seven years imprisonment for their role in uncovering a massacre of 10 Rohingya men by the Myanmar military and Buddhist villagers in September 2017. Though they were later released after international condemnation of the arrest, this action sent an important message at a time of great political upheaval in Myanmar. Accusations of wrongdoing against the government will not be tolerated.

This sort of reaction is to be expected from a government that cares only about retaining the power it has. As Myanmar’s first civilian government following the brutal military regime that imprisoned Suu Kyi herself for decades, it could be argued that the current ruling party has every right to be nervous about threats to their leadership. But it is becoming increasingly clear that such self-interested political manoeuvring directly contributes to the marginalisation of the Rohingya.

I wrote in 2017 that Aung San Suu Kyi had been forced into a corner by the military action to remove the Rohingya from Rakhine because to condemn such action would be an unpopular move in a political climate defined by mistrust of Muslim groups within the majority-Buddhist country. Such a political climate has been curated by extremists like Wirathu, meaning that since her rise to power in 2016 he has been quietly pulling the strings as she makes decisions designed to consolidate and solidify her position.

Now, with her political future challenged by allegations of corruption, she is forced to act against a figure who has at least to some degree dictated her tenure in office so far. The ugly head of the Burmese ruling class emerges as the ultra-nationalists and the government butt heads. The tit-for-tat attacks between the populist hate-monger Wirathu and atrocity-apologist Suu Kyi plunges Myanmar deeper into turmoil and confusion as the military continues its ethnic cleansing unimpeded.

The rich and powerful scramble for supremacy whilst the Rohingya die.

Suu Kyi will let them die for as long as it is politically expedient to do so. She will also continue to let the likes of Wirathu spew their vile hatred, providing they leave her name out of it.

It may be the military that are acting with genocidal intent. But it is the words of Ashin Wirathu and the complicity of Aung San Suu Kyi that make their actions possible. Now that they have turned on each other the waters of political discourse in Myanmar become murkier and the complicated web of conditions that allow this violence to continue becomes more impenetrable.

Whoever wins, humanity loses.  

The International War on Women

A report from the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, released on the 20^th May, has shed light on the devastating consequences of the violence in the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo on girls and young women in schooling. Between 2016 and 2017, dozens of schools across the region were attacked by militia groups, and children were massacred, recruited as child soldiers, or forced from their homes.

Whilst the fighting affected all children in the area, girls were particularly harmed. As the report states, girls were abducted and “used as “magical” forces that would ward off bullets despite being unarmed, and raped and forcibly “married” to troops”. Spiritual beliefs on the part of militia fighters led them to believe that the kidnapped girls would protect them in fighting with the government forces. As a result, these girls were gunned down, having been used as human shields. Those that survived were more likely to suffer with psychological consequences of the trauma, less likely to return to school, and more likely to have suffered other medical consequences such as sexually transmitted infections than their male counterparts.

Sexual- and gender-based violence is prevalent in all conflicts globally. From the high-profile cases of SGBV such as the kidnapping of girls by Boko Haram in Nigeria, down to the fundamentally different experiences of male and female civilians in warzones, the fact remains that women and girls are more exposed to threats and vulnerable to harm in times of crisis. They are also drastically underrepresented in peacebuilding and development activities, despite the fact that increased female participation in such programmes consistently leads to longer, more sustainable peace.

But the restriction of the agency of women is not unique to warzones. Over the last few weeks, the US state of Alabama has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons. State Governor Kay Ivey passed the Alabama Human Life Protection Act into law on the 15^th May 2019. The law is the toughest piece of anti-abortion legislation in the country, punishing abortion doctors with up to life in prison for performing the procedure, with no exemptions for women who are victims of rape or incest. The Bill was passed with a majority of 25 – 6 in the Alabama state legislature. All 25 Republicans who voted on the Bill were men.

Eric Johnston, Chair of the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition, explained that the inclusion of victims of rape and incest in the legislation was acceptable because the Bill needed to send a message, saying: “If this exception was added to the bill, it would have killed the bill. Whether you were raped or a victim of incest or get pregnant by consent or accident or even artificial insemination, [the foetus is] still a person. We could not argue to the court with a straight face that it’s a person in one instance but not in another.” But what about the person who will now be forced to carry the baby of their rapist?

In Alabama, Missouri, Georgia, and other US states trying to pass these laws, the fertilised egg and developing foetus are given more rights than the woman bearing them. But it would appear that the right of the egg doesn’t matter unless there is a woman who can be punished as well. In response to a question regarding the fate of IVF clinics under the new law, Senator Clyde Chambliss responded that the destruction of fertilised eggs in clinics would not result in criminal conviction, saying “The egg in the lab doesn’t apply. It’s not in a woman. She’s not pregnant”. So this really isn’t about the fertilised egg or the foetus that will grow into a person at all. This is about the woman’s body in which the egg resides.

Much like the militiamen in Kasai, the female body is viewed by these legislators as something spiritual and sacred, inextricably linked to life itself. In the Congo, the body of a girl can save you from bullets. In Alabama, the body of a woman is the factor that decides if a fertilised egg is a human life or not. In both cases, this seemingly makes the body far more important than the person inside it.

The issues women and girls face in Kasai and Alabama are vastly different, and in many ways incomparable. But they both stem from a desire to control a body without the effort to understand it. They are symptoms of a system built by and for men, in which women play a role to create life and to protect it, without regard for their own.

When a girl is considered a “magical force” that can protect a man from death, she has been dehumanised.

When a girl is abducted and forced to marry a soldier, she has been dehumanised.

When a woman is viewed as a vessel for a new human life, without regard for that woman’s own feelings, she has been dehumanised.

When women are legislated against, discriminated against, and ultimately told that their own experience does not matter, that is dehumanisation.

If we value the rights of human beings to control their own destinies, then we must acknowledge that 50% of the global population are systematically prevented from taking ownership of the things they should have control over; their own body and their own future.

From boardrooms, to battlefields, to government offices, women’s perspectives are drastically underrepresented and misunderstood. For a world striving for peace, justice, and fairness, this is a failure.

An Attack on the Amazon's Indigenous Population

A recent UN report has confirmed many of our worst fears concerning the effect that human activity is having on the natural world. A tenfold increase in plastic pollution since 1980. A doubling of greenhouse gas emissions in the same period. 1 million new species at risk of extinction. More than a third of the world’s land surface and nearly 75% of freshwater resources are now devoted to crop or livestock production.

We are no longer blind to the effect we are having on our planet. The global climate strike movement, led by the inspirational Greta Thunberg, has resulted in an increased pressure on governments across the world to take measures to meet climate targets, and connected disparate climate activists and ordinary citizens in a way previously unseen. But as international attention turns towards finding solutions to this crisis, the fate of one of the planet’s largest and most precious natural resources grows increasingly precarious.

A few days before the release of the UN paper, Amnesty International reported on an imminent risk of violent clashes with Indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon unless illegal logging and land seizures are curtailed in the area. The Amazon, home to 10% of the world’s wildlife species, is at greater risk of the effects of land degradation and climate change than almost anywhere else in the world, and little is being done to protect it. About 3,050 square miles of the world's largest rainforest was destroyed between August 2017 and July 2018 – an area roughly equivalent to five times the size of London – mostly due to illegal logging.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who now controls the 60% of the Amazon which falls into Brazilian territory, is no friend to the climate activist movement. Rising to power on a platform supported by what he refers to as the “Three Bs” – beef, bullets, and bibles, representing his base of supporters in the agribusiness industry, military, and religious right – Bolsonaro quickly moved to position himself as a pro-business leader. In a Tweet shortly after his inauguration he stated that “More than 15% of national territory is demarcated as indigenous land... Less than a million people live in these places, isolated from true Brazil, exploited and manipulated by NGOs. Together we will integrate these citizens” [emphasis my own]. In doing so, he not only aligned himself with the agribusiness industry but very firmly in opposition to the Indigenous people of the Amazon. The suggestion that such groups are not a part of “true Brazil” demonstrates a political stance based on identity politics set to divide the urban majority from the Indigenous tribal population.

Bolsonaro’s attitudes towards Brazil’s Indigenous peoples are well documented. In a 1998 interview he compared the Brazilian situation with that of the United States, saying “It’s a shame that the Brazilian cavalry hasn’t been as efficient as the Americans, who exterminated the Indians”. His attitude did not become more conciliatory as he began his assent to power in Brazil. In 2015, he stated in an interview with Campo Grande News “There is no indigenous territory where there aren’t minerals. Gold, tin and magnesium are in these lands, especially in the Amazon, the richest area in the world. I’m not getting into this nonsense of defending land for Indians”.

Such rhetoric empowers agribusiness to take more extreme action in achieving its goals. As Amnesty describes, Indigenous leaders have reported receiving death threats for defending their land from developers. One incident noted in the report is as follows: “Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau people told Amnesty International that on 11 January 2019 they confronted about 40 invaders, who were armed with sickles and machetes, cutting a path into their territory... When told to leave, the intruders allegedly replied that more intruders would be coming and threatened to kill the Indigenous children.” In April, the intruders returned, this time with numbers estimated at around 500 people. The Indigenous groups no longer feel they can rely on the government to protect them from illegal loggers, as Bolsonaro has promised to allow continued exploitation of lands near their homes and to rollback Indigenous rights.

This is a two-pronged attack on the lands of the Brazilian Amazon, against its wildlife and resources through the loosening of regulations around agribusiness and against its people through an increasingly toxic discourse aimed at turning public sentiment against them. As some environmentalists have noted, thanks to the coalition government in Brazil it is unlikely that Bolsonaro will be able to convert all of his campaign promises into policy, but the language he uses to attack Indigenous people only serves to embolden the illegal loggers that threaten their homes, who now have ever-less reason to fear reprisals.

If Bolsonaro cannot enact his deforestation policies himself, it seems he will simply turn his back while the Amazon burns.

In another territory, a 26-year-old Karipuna man told Amnesty “If government doesn’t act, we might lose our territory, it might be the end of the Karipuna. I don’t know if there are new paths, because we don’t patrol so often to avoid contact with intruders. They are armed with guns.”

This is an attack on a civilian population who are now afraid to stay in their own homes.

But this is also an attack on all of us.

The Amazon is one the great wonders of the world. It is home to over a million Indigenous people who just want to live. It is home to 10% of the world’s biodiversity. Its 5.5 million square mile landmass absorbs a massive amount of global CO2 emissions, helping reduce the effects of climate change.

It must be protected.

See what can be done to protect the Amazon here. Find out more about the ongoing global climate strikes here.

A Cry of Despair and an Unheeded Warning

To walk through the gates at the infamous Birkenau II death camp in Poland is to follow the footsteps of around 1.5 million murdered human beings who were deemed to be “undesirable” by a perverse political movement that had lost its mind. To see the hair of the inhabitants of the camp, shaved off upon their arrival and used to create sleeping bags and clothing for Nazi officers, or the little shoes of the thousands of children, barely old enough to walk, gassed because they were too weak to work, or the urn of ashes of just some of those that were wiped from history on this desolate piece of ground, is to witness the depths of what humans can do to one another. This is us at our very worst. And the overwhelming question that burns throughout the journey into the darkness is simply how? How could we have let this happen?

The monument in Auschwitz-Birkenau to the 1.5 million people murdered in its grounds begins “For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity”. And yet this is a warning we have not heeded.

After the scale of the horrors of the Holocaust became clear, the international community was unequivocal in its condemnation. Never again. Since 1945 we have witnessed the “killing fields” of Cambodia claim 2 million lives, the vicious massacre of 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda decimate a whole country, over 8,000 souls murdered whilst under UN “protection” at Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the systematic murder of over 300,000 civilians in Darfur. Today, over 1 million Rohingya people have been and continue to be forced out of their homes in Myanmar by the ruthless military regime. The phenomenon of identity-based mass murder, in the forms of crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, is ubiquitous across the globe. And still we say never again.

Seeing first-hand the mechanisms by which the Holocaust was perpetrated is a shocking reminder of the efficiency with which humans are capable of killing each other. But it should not be a viewed simply as a horror of our past. The camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau was the logical conclusion of years of systematic marginalisation and dehumanisation of the Jewish people in Europe by the Nazi party. When Hitler rose to power in 1933 the idea of a death-camp run by German soldiers in Poland was laughable. But by May 1940 it was sickening reality.

As Philip Gourevitch writes in his excellent, if harrowing, account of the Rwandan genocide We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow we will be Killed with our Families, “What distinguishes genocide from murder, and even from acts of political murder that claim as many victims, is the intent. The crime is wanting to make a people extinct. The idea is the crime”. The idea is the crime. The so-called “inhuman” violence witnessed in countless crimes against humanity perpetrated globally is the product of an idea that has festered and spread among a population. One of the biggest questions following the Rwandan genocide, where there were no death camps but rather the killing was done with machetes by mobs in the streets, was how on earth it was possible to seemingly turn an entire population against one another over the course of just a few short weeks.

But the Rwandan Genocide did not occur just between the 7^th April and 15^th July 1994, in which the majority of the killing took place. Intergroup rivalry between Hutus and Tutsis had been instilled in the population by the German and Belgian colonial powers over 100 years before the massacres of 1994. These tensions were exacerbated by economic hardship and an increasingly inflammatory political landscape that culminated in a civil conflict between 1990 and 1993. The process of turning Tutsi people from neighbours, friends, and family members, into “cockroaches” and “tall trees” took decades. The process of dehumanisation, of turning a Jewish person into a “rat”, or innocent Bosnian civilians at Srebrenica into “hardened and violent criminals”, does not occur overnight. You do not pick up a machete and murder your neighbour after hearing a news broadcast telling you to do so. The thoughtcrime of identity-based violence is far more insidious than that.

So when you hear Donald Trump equating economic migrants at the US-Mexico border with criminal gangs and “animals”, or Nigel Farage standing in front of his infamous “Breaking Point” campaign billboard, depicting refugees and migrants as a looming existential threat to the UK, remember that this is a deliberate incitement to hatred. Left unchecked, that becomes an incitement to violence. Indeed, with the Christchurch mosque attacker citing Trump as a “symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose” in his manifesto, and a shocking increase in white extremist hate crimes across the US and Europe since 2015, it would appear that the more volatile and antagonistic political landscape we find ourselves in is already having destructive consequences.

In the UK, attacks on politicians have increased amidst the increasingly toxic debate surrounding Brexit. The murder of Jo Cox in 2016 appears to have heralded a new dawn of violence aimed at those with differing views. When two of the biggest political scandals in party politics concern accusations of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party and Islamophobia within the Conservatives, we have to ask ourselves where political discourse in this country is headed. Toxic identity politics are not new. We have been here before.

The monument at the death-camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau undoubtedly elicits a cry of despair from those who visit. But as a warning, it appears to have been less successful. It is up to every single one of us to pay attention to the stories of those who have been persecuted solely because of who they are. Because its very easy to say “never again”, and to genuinely feel it and to mean it. But it has happened again, and it is happening again, and it will continue to happen again unless we make a change.

The world around us has already taken its first baby steps down a dark road that we have walked a hundred times before. There is still time to divert our course, but it will take every individual person to pay attention to what is happening and to call out the behaviours that push us further down the path. Calling out this hatred now, while it is still relatively safe to do so, is the only way to prevent the physical crime from occurring down the line.

In visiting Krakow, I also heard the inspirational stories of Oskar Schindler and Tadeusz Pankiewicz, who saved many lives and gave hope to thousands of people in the ghetto at the time of the Nazi occupation. But they risked their lives, their livelihoods, and the lives of their families in order to do so. That kind of heroism is rare and extremely commendable. Those names should be remembered and celebrated to the same extent that Hitler’s, Eichmann’s, and Rudolf Hess’ names are remembered. But even those acts of incredible courage and strength could not turn the tide of history. By that point it was too late.

Right now, it is not too late.

Little changes now can prevent catastrophic ones later.

Never again.

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” – George Santayana.

Cyclone Idai and the Importance of Public Health Preparation

Cyclone Idai devastated Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Madagascar as it tore a path through South-Eastern Africa between the 4^th and 21^st March 2019. It was one of the worst cyclones ever to affect the southern hemisphere, with an estimated 1.7 million people directly affected by the storm and over $1 billion in damage caused. Flooding in the immediate aftermath caused the majority of deaths in Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and the overwhelming destruction led to a revised appeal on behalf of IFRC to cover the cost of the immense scale of the response.

Although the flood waters have now long subsided, the true magnitude of the disaster is still yet to be fully understood. Recent reports from agencies active on the ground in Beira, one of the worst-affected areas, have raised concerns over the potential for tremendous health crises in Idai’s wake.

Cases of cholera were reported in Beira just a week after Idai made landfall, as a result of water being contaminated by sewage in the flooding. By 4^th April, there were an estimated 4,000 cases of cholera in and around Beira, resulting in at least 7 deaths. Medecins sans Frontieres reported an estimated 200 new cases per day at the height of the response, with the Red Cross describing the threat of further outbreaks as a “ticking bomb”. Though cholera currently appears to be the biggest health threat to victims of Idai, a severe lack of clean drinking water means threats of typhoid and other diarrheal diseases remain high. The stagnant flood water also acts as a prime breeding ground for mosquitoes and other vectors, leading to an increased risk of malaria, which has seen 276 new cases reported in Mozambique as of 2^nd April.

These emerging health crises have been exacerbated by the massive damage to infrastructure in Beira and other severely affected areas. Beira’s main hospital suffered serious damage in the storm, leaving several of its operating theatres unusable, and an estimated 55 other health centres across Mozambique were affected. International NGOs and the World Health Organisation have responded quickly to try to plug the gaps, with the WHO distributing nearly 900,000 cholera vaccines and MSF doubling down on its programmes in the affected region, but the spiralling health implications of Idai are simply too large to contain completely.

As the recent Preventionweb report on Idai’s health consequences reports, the interruption of health services for communicable and non-communicable diseases is another major concern in affected communities. Mozambique has around 2.1 million HIV patients, many in hard-to-reach communities that may no longer have access to antiretroviral drugs. Similarly, those who require medications for long-standing diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and tuberculosis are facing medical shortages. The World Health Organisation, alongside many other international actors, are also increasingly focusing their attention on the treatment of the mental health consequences of disasters, which can have catastrophic effects on the development and resilience of affected communities.

The longer-term health implications of Idai are proving to be more destructive than the storm itself. The spiralling risk of epidemics, dramatic loss of health infrastructure in-country, and poorly understood mental health effects of a disaster like Idai demonstrate the importance of viewing disaster response through a public health lens. Medical assistance is one of the key life-saving priorities both in the immediate response phase and as affected populations start to rebuild their lives. Effective health and sanitation programmes make the difference between a one-off destructive natural event and a protracted, complex humanitarian crisis.

But as the scramble to find increased funds to meet the needs of the population also shows, a key focus for the future of disaster management needs to be in preparation and prevention, rather than in response. The speed with which the WHO was able to distribute almost 900,000 cholera vaccines was possible thanks to the Oral Cholera Vaccine Stockpile, administered by an international coordinating group and organised in preparation for quick response in areas at risk of epidemic. Around the world, hospitals and health providers are developing emergency preparedness plans to ensure they are able to continue working during and after a crisis. As the humanitarian sector more widely continues to acknowledge the importance of preparation in ensuring effective response, the factors that contribute to a resilient health system in developing countries must take priority.

IFRC estimates that for every $1 spent on preparation, up to $4 can be saved in recovery. The almost unprecedented fury of Cyclone Idai helped to demonstrate the snowball implications of a hazard that strikes an unprepared community. Building resilience to future disasters does not just mean building stronger structures (though that is obviously extremely important), but developing strategies to cope with disasters at a local level, implementing preparedness plans, engaging in health education and ensuring that at-risk communities know what to expect and where to go to get help in the event of a crisis, long before it occurs.

With climate change increasing the likelihood of more frequent and more destructive weather patterns globally, the need to make sure that everybody is prepared becomes increasingly pressing. When a system is vulnerable to disaster, threats can multiply exponentially. A compromised healthcare system has knock-on effects on those who may not have been affected by the initial event itself.

Disaster response must focus on long-term resilience as well as immediate life-saving care. It is not easy, but building long-term resilience will save money, time, and ultimately lives.

Building local communities’ resilience to disasters is a key focus of the Agenda for Humanity and of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. Viewing disasters through a holistic lens can help to identify vulnerabilities to be addressed, and also potential partnerships between sectors to tackle complex crises around the world.

QSAND is a shelter and settlement sustainability tool that provides a holistic framework to support resilient reconstruction following disasters.