Nici Marx on speaking, media and all things Nici
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“War violates every right of a child – the right to life, the right to be with family and community, the right to health, the right to development of personality and the right to be nurtured and protected.”
Graca Machel (Expert to the Secretary General of the United Nations) The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, UNICEF, 1996.
The car stopped at the makeshift checkpoint that cut across the muddy backstreet in Musa Qala. A sentry appeared. "Are you Sunni or Shia?" he barked, waving his Kalashnikov at the driver. "Are you Pashtun or Hazara?"
"Hazara," the driver said. "Wrong answer," shouted the sentry, almost gleefully. "Get him!"
The high metal gate of a nearby house was flung open and four gun-toting males rushed out. They dragged the driver from his vehicle and held a knife to his neck. Quickly and efficiently, the blade was run from ear to ear. "Now you're dead," said a triumphant voice, and their captive crumpled to the ground.
Then a moment of stillness before the sound of a woman's voice. "Come inside boys! Your dinner is ready!" The gunmen groaned; the hapless driver picked himself up and trundled his yellow plastic car into the front yard; the toy guns and knives were tossed by the back door. Their murderous game of make-believe would have to resume in the morning.
Ali Reza and his five younger brothers, aged between six and 12, should have been at school. But their mother, Sayeeda, like thousands of parents in Musa Qala, now keeps her boys at home. Three weeks ago, armed men had intercepted their teacher's car at the school gates, then hauled him out and slit his throat. Just like in their game.
An entire generation of Afghans has grown up knowing nothing but invasion, war, bombing, repression and insurgency. Those years of war have left a terrible legacy in Afghanistan. It has always been a poor country; today it faces huge challenges. According to UNICEF: Afghanistan has the second highest infant mortality rate in the world; one in seven children is an orphan; only 28% of adults are literate; average annual income is $US250; and 30% of children aged 5 to 14 years are forced to work.
The future for Afghanistan’s children then, looks anything but bright. The legacy of decades of war is having an untold effect on their psychological, as well as their physical, health. Most who have been affected by violence this year say the violence was not related to the insurgency.
According to the Asia Foundation survey, only eight per cent of those who had suffered violence attributed it to the Taliban. However, civilian casualties as a result of military operations by international forces have been a lightening rod for public anger, and Mohammed, a resident of Kabul, explains the roots of this anger and why deaths caused by the international forces stir more anger than those by the Taleban: “ We know what to expect from the Taleban, but we don’t expect the same from the international forces. They are the ones upholding the rule of law and establishing democracy. They can’t be the ones killing innocents,” he said.
This willingness to hold the international community to higher standards of accountability is seen as a positive sign and evidence that Afghans still have great hope for change.
Right to life is a phrase that describes the belief that a human being has an essential right to live, particularly that a human being has the right not to be killed by another human being. Under the Council of Europe’s Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, “Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.”
But war has been the background and context for widespread and serious human rights abuses in Afghanistan. The conflict has been fuelled by outside powers who have provided political and military support to their favoured Afghan armed groups, advancing their own geo-political and economic goals at the expense of the suffering of millions of Afghan civilians. Children will be bearing the brunt of such intervention for their entire lives, and even though development and reconstruction programmes aim to provide the infrastructure for medical, educational and engineering facilities, it is an inside out approach that is necessary to rebuild the minds of a shattered generation.
Parents, teachers and doctors contacted by the International News Sentinel over the past three months cite a litany of distress signals sent out by young people in their care - from nightmares and bedwetting to withdrawal, muteness, panic attacks and violence towards other children, sometimes even to their own parents.
There are lessons to be drawn from the experiences of children and the child psychologists working with them in Iraq. During the height of the conflict there, Sherif Karachatani, a psychology professor at the University of Sulaymaniya, said:” Every day another innocent child is orphaned or sees terrible things children should never see. Who is taking care of the potentially enormous damage being done to a generation of children?” There are well-founded fears, he said, that the “relentless bloodshed and the lack of professional help will see Iraq’s children growing up either deeply scarred or so habituated to violence that they keep the pattern going as the enter adulthood.”
During the conflict in Iraq, organisations like UNICEF had only a skeleton presence in the country. Save the Children closed its operations after 15 years in Iraq, and the Iraqi Red Crescent Society was forced to suspend a programme for children suffering from war trauma owing to a lack of funding. The picture is looking similarly bleak in Afghanistan, where the overstretched hospitals cannot cope with psychological trauma and many of the best doctors have either fled the country or been killed. The problems are compounded by the stigma that psychological and psychiatric care carries. Parents do not take their children in for treatment, fearing they will be labelled as mad. The danger is that they internalise the violence they have witnessed and then reproduce it later.
In 1997, UNICEF revealed the findings of a first study of its kind in Afghanistan. It showed that the majority of children in Kabul were suffering serious traumatic stress. Some 72 per cent of children interviewed had experienced the death of a relative between 1992 and 1996. Almost all of the children interviewed had witnessed acts of violence. Two thirds of them had seen dead bodies or body parts and nearly half had seen people killed during rocket and artillery attacks. A disturbing 90 per cent believed they would die during the conflict.
Amidst the devastation of conflict, children’s educational and developmental needs have been forgotten. Children have had to find their own means of coping with the horrors of war. Young boys have taken on the responsibility of adults as the breadwinner of the family after their fathers have been killed. Criminal gangs engaged in drug trafficking and smuggling have preyed on their vulnerability. Armed groups have recruited children to fight in battles, turning them into perpetrators of violence themselves.
The games played by Ali Reza and his brothers, and other children like them will provide some indication of the mental state of a nation in the years ahead.
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Forgive me for feeling a little smug today, but having spent the past few weeks media training the British Army, I think I deserve to enjoy the warm, fuzzy glow that resulted from being embedded during a particularly strenuous exercise. Put all thoughts of flip-chart and studio lights to one side, because the media training I undertake with Her Majesty’s finest involves getting down and dirty in the wilds of the English countryside. Imagine the scene: around 100 men are up to their waists in mud, have “come under attack” from “insurgents” hiding in the nearby forest, and are fighting their way to a compound they must take from the “enemy”. Their embedded TV reporter and her cameraman are concentrating on filming the material they need, and sticking a microphone and camera lens in the faces of several young soldiers plus their Commanding Officer while they endeavour to fulfil their mission. Ahead, an angry looking river, swollen by the previous night’s storm, which the men must jump into and walk along without being dragged under by the strong current. Their embedded journalist, hair newly washed and clothes freshly laundered, sees a bridge on which she will alight in order to remain fragrant. But her path is blocked. Ahead, a Royal Marine Commando of mammoth proportions who indicates that the only way forward is through the water. Horrified, the journalist twists and turns, hoping the man mountain will relent and let her pass. Seconds tick by as they stand eye to eye, each assessing the other’s will to get their own way. But finally, with defeated acknowledgement and a flick of her blonde hair, the woman reporter slips into the water and, up to her ribs in weeds, lunges after her uniformed companions who’re making light of the hostile terrain. So, the next time you envisage what it’s like to deliver media training, draw into that image a large portion of mangled earth, a torrent of water, and the squelching of soggy boots and clothing!
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There’s something very reassuring about working with the military. Having just returned from another week in which I’ve been putting senior personnel through their paces in front of the TV cameras, I’m reminded of what’s missing when I walk down the street in London. Firstly, there’s the eye contact. Unnerving, perhaps, when scurrying in and out of the tube and trying to negotiate a clear line through hordes of commuters. Let’s face it, if you encounter the constant, steady gaze of a fellow traveller, you’re probably within your rights to assume that their thought process is slightly at odds with your own. At best, they’ve merely entered the zone of the
100 metre stare, but you can never be sure if their intention is more suspicious. So, walking down a long corridor at an Officers training centre, with several uniformed men and women fixing their gaze on you as they pass smartly in the opposite direction, could be reason enough to slide past with your eyes glued to their buffed and shiny boots. But instead, something quite wonderful happens when you meet their eyes with a confident smile. The words: “Good morning” and “Hello” slip easily from your lips, and a connection is made which restores a little faith in the belief that we’re only a small gesture, or utterance, away from acknowledging someone else’s right to exist. Quite different on a crowded tube train, of course. In that environment, we should all be provided with our own secluded, sterile quarters in which to read the newspaper in peace!
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As conferences go, I must confess that being accommodated in a State Room on board a luxury cruise ship goes a long way towards making up for the arduous task of being cooped up with several hundred delegates, all eager to "do business".
Not that I'm one to complain about the opportunity to do some serious networking with industry leaders myself. After all, people-watching is one of my favourite activities, and what better place to observe mankind than during the endless round of seminars, meetings, and workshops that form the kernel of the conference scene. Oh, I'm working hard myself of course, running training workshops on "Tough Questions: How to Handle Them", and "All a Twitter", my new offering that looks at the importance of engaging with online social networks as part of your business communications strategy.
Alas, there's no time to enjoy some of the more relaxing facilities around, like the spa. But then again, they say that one of the most health-giving therapies is laughter. And the sight of so many earnest faces, seeking out new prospects and "working it" like there's no tomorrow, is reason enough to chuckle.
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M&S Forge New Line Sometimes life throws us an opportunity that we grab with both hands. You know the feeling: you’re surrounded by pieces of material, figuring out where each should be sewn in that quilt you’ve been stitching together for months, when suddenly you’re offered a particularly valuable bolt of cloth that you just know will be the crowning glory of the finished product. As with any special relationship, you work with the bright and illuminating new material, crafting, sewing and perfecting the new entity for all to respect and admire.
So, imagine my delight when the media group Air Supremacy http://www.airsupremacy.co.uk/ reached out its hand, tapped me on the shoulder, and invited me into the fold (pun intended). The man at the helm, John Stonborough, is MD of Stonborough Media Group, comprising John Stonborough and Co (est. 1988), and Air Supremacy Ltd, a media training company. A highly experienced and respected journalist, John has been Media Adviser to the Speaker and House of Commons Commission (UK Parliament),a reporter for the Daily Mail, BBC Radio 4, and Channel 4 TV. His company provides an authoritative and discreet media management service to corporate and private clients worldwide, and he’s a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.
I’m joining forces with Air Supremacy as Senior Media Trainer and Media Consultant, and am delighted to be on team with both John, and Jane Renton, formerly of the BBC’s Money Programme and a writer who’s steeped in business journalism. Together, we are, without doubt, one of the strongest media training and consultancy teams in the UK today. From news and current affairs, to business and finance, to politics and policy, you’d be hard pushed to find more expertise and experience. |
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Britain’s Got Talent.
It takes a lot to stun Simon Cowell into silence. The caustic judge on Britain’s Got Talent is famous for destroying the dreams of the disillusioned. But in the past week, a reclusive 48-year-old who lives alone with her cat in a small Scottish village did just that. Susan Boyle, an unpromising looking contestant who announced her ambition to be as famous as the actress and West End star Elaine Paige, failed to impress as she stood on stage gyrating her hips in a grotesque show of pre-performance nerves. The audience rolled their eyes when she declared she wanted to be a professional singer, and the normally ascerbic Mr Cowell showed remarkable restraint as she struggled to remember the term for the small group of houses where she lives….a village.
As the opening bars of music began and the grey-haired spinster raised the microphone to her lips, a hush of anticipation descended, a hush that anticipated abject failure. But as her voice swelled with the first lines from I Dream A Dream, from the musical Les Miserables, the snears and malignant whisperings among the audience gave way to applause and finally erupted into a standing ovation.
It’s true that the great British spirit champions the underdog, and I’m no exception. For here was a woman who, on the face of it, stood not a chance of success in a world that tries to emulate everything that’s slick and fashionable. But her almost heartbreaking rendition of the song, and the line: I had a dream that life would be so different from this hell I’m living” seemed to catch the mood of everyone who’s trying to claw their way out of the abyss. Susan Boyle may or may not follow in the footsteps of Paul Potts, the mobile phone salesman who was propelled to international stardom by the show two years ago, but that’s to miss the point here. Her new-found fame, and the new-found wealth she might experience as a result of it, will give her choices. And for all of us, having choices is what feeds our optimism in life. |
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