Journal articles on the topic 'Oku (African people)'

As Pliny the Elder once put it, ‘ex Africa semper aliquid novi’. There is always some thing new coming out of Africa, and this time for the better. Over the last decade, some important developments unfolded on the African continent with the potential to impact on the future of African peoples. The African Union (AU) whose major purpose is to place Africa firmly on the road to development replaced the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) was launched to achieve African renaissance. The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) was devised as NEPAD's linchpin and both were integrated within the AU. The Protocol to the African Charter establishing an African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights finally came into operation. There is renewed hope that a new era has begun and time has come for Africa's development, which is not possible without a more effective and better protection of human rights. In this article, the author reflects on the changing human rights landscape in Africa under the AU, NEPAD, and the African Court.

The paper examines the extent to which Pan-Africanism and Pan-African vision of promoting African unity, cooperation and integration has been achieved under the African Union (AU) in the 21st century. It also assesses the challenges of cooperation and integration under the AU. The paper adopted a qualitative approach, while data was gathered from secondary sources and analysed thematically. It notes that the quest for African cooperation and integration is not new, but dates back to philosophy and vision of Pan-Africanism and Pan-African movement from the 1950s and 1960s. This movement later took roots in the continent and championed the struggle of Africans and peoples of African descent for emancipation and the restoration of their dignity, against slavery, colonialism and all forms of racism and racial exploitation, and to overcome developmental challenges. After independence, the Pan-African movement found concrete expression in the establishment of the Organization of Africa Unity (OAU) in 1963, and later transformed to the African Union (AU) in 2002. These continental organisations have served at platforms for the pursuit of Africa cooperation and integration and addressing post-independence challenges with varying successes. The paper revealed that AU’s Pan-African agenda in the 21st century including the African Economic Community (AEC), AU Agenda 2063, and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), are not without challenges. Addressing these challenges holds the key to achieving the continental goal of unity and achieving the vision and goals pan-Africanism in the 21st century in Africa.

The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, also known as the Banjul Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, was adopted by the 18th Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), held in Nairobi in June 1981. Contrary to some expectations, the Charter stayed in limbo for only 5 years. It entered into force on October 21, 1986, after the deposit of the 26th instrument of ratification, the number required by its Article 63(3). By April 16, 1987, there were 33 states parties to the Charter, which makes it the largest regional human rights system in existence.

The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights1 (hereinafter the “African Charter” or “Charter”) was adopted by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Assembly of Heads of State and Government in 1981. It entered into force on 21 October, 1986, after a majority of OAU member states had ratified the Charter. At present, 52 of the 53 member states have become parties: the only non-ratifying state is Eritrea.

Pending the establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights remains the only institutional body for the implementation of the rights guaranteed in the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. The Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), reconstituted as the African Union (AU), established the Commission in 1987, after the entry into force of the African Charter, in 1986, and pursuant to its Article 64 (1). The Commission was established, inter alia, “to promote human and peoples' rights and ensure their protection in Africa.” That is, besides “any other tasks which may be entrusted to it” by the Assembly, the Commission performs three primary functions: it promotes and protects human and peoples' rights and interprets the provisions of the Charter.

This contribution discusses how to improve the African system of human and peoples' rights on the basis both of the practice of the African Commission and of a revision of the African Charter in the light of the practice and experience of other regional human rights conventions and bodies. Particular emphasis is put on improvements in the procedure of communications. Furthermore, the role of the African Commission with regard to the move towards democracy and human rights in Africa and the relationship between the Commission and the OAU will be analyzed, and a number of proposals on strengthening the African Charter and the African Commission will be made. In presenting the actual situation of the African Commission particular attention is given to the results of the 11th and 12th sessions (March and October 1992 respectively) of the African Commission which in respect to some concerns were breaking new ground.

Suddenly Burkina Faso and Mali were at war.‘Burkina was the aggressor***! No, it was Mali.!‘ And the attack and counter-attack continued. For the man on the street, Nigeria moved in barely four days after the war had started and that is good enough. For a student of West African states' foreign policy, that was a late more for Nigeria, more so when the hopes of Nigerians moves were dropped. For whatever the cause, Nigeria was expected to get the grasp of any crisis erupting in West Africa regardless of the countries involved—Francophones or Anglophones. Why? Authorities in the seventies had seen Nigeria in the subregion of West Africa as its “regional power.” John Ostheimer, in 1973, wrote that‘…Nigeria is now obviously the “giant of Africa” in a new sense. Nigeria… (is) the dominant power in the West Africa Region.’1 Colin Legum in the same year-wrote: Nigeria is Africa's most important country—in size of population and in resources—as well as in trained people. Properly developed and with a properly functioning political system-it could provide decisive leadership for the entire continent strong enough to consolidate a powerful organization embracing Anglophone and Francophone African States; militarily and economically strong enough to play a leading role in challenging the minority while regimes in Portuguese and Southern Africa and to provide more muscle for the OAU; and influential enough to strengthen the whole of Africa's relationships within the international community.2 In the same vein, and American paper in 1977 summed it up thus: ‘As the biggest, richest and most influential black African State, ‘Nigeria has an evident capacity to reduce the prospect of great power involvement in an African quarrel and and an evident self interest in doing so.3 But Nigeria did not react immediately to the Burkina-Mali crisis when it came into the open. Could it be that the impetus had gone or the ability had been reduced by internal problems? Attempts will be made to answer these important questions. For now, it is desirable to look at the remote and immediate causes of the border clash between the two warring states.

Abstract This article covers the supervision of the 1969 Organization of African Unity Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa (1969 Convention). It begins by defining treaty supervision and describing key understandings of it in the international refugee law literature. These are then harnessed to create a model of supervision (the Supervisory Model) to frame the ensuing discussion. How the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees is supervised is presented within this Supervisory Model, by way of background. The article then moves on to its principal focus, beginning with an overview of the calls for, and claims regarding, supervision of the 1969 Convention. The need for supervision is then established based on two principal elements. First, the 1969 Convention’s incomplete implementation in States parties to the treaty, in both refugee status determination and in relation to rights guaranteed by the instrument. Secondly, existing bodies with quasi-supervisory or supervisory mandates – the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees – are not effectively redressing such implementation deficiencies. With the need for supervision established, a new supervisory mechanism is proposed and the procedural options to create it are outlined.

AbstractThe forests of the Kilum-Ijim area, around Mount Oku in West Cameroon, are the largest remaining patch of montane forest in West Africa, and the highest in altitude. This important habitat harbours endemic species of both animals and plants but is surrounded by a high density of human settlements: c. 300,000 people live within a day's walk of the forest, which covers only 200 sq km. BirdLife International and the Ministry of the Environment and Forestry, Government of Cameroon, are currently operating the Kilum-Ijim Forest Project, with the overall goal of conserving representative areas of the Cameroon montane forest biome in the long-term. The purpose of the project is toensure that the biodiversity, extent and ecological processes of the Kilum-Ijim Forest are maintained and that the forest is used sustainably by the local communities. The existence of a small Sphagnum community and associated wetland plant species was discovered in 1997 on the summit of Mount Oku, at 2900 m. This site is of extremely high conservation importance because several plant species endemic to the Kilum-Ijim area have been recorded there. In addition, it is the highest Sphagnum bog and the source of the highest stream in West Africa.

This edition of the African Human Rights Law journal starts with a 'Special focus' on the 'Forty years of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights: Honouring the memory of Christof Heyns'. The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (African Charter) was adopted by the OAU Assembly of Heads of State and Government in Nairobi, Kenya, on 27 June 1981 - forty years ago in 2021. The 'special focus' marks this milestone. It also pays tribute to a baobab on the landscape of international human rights law, Professor Christof Heyns.

The transformation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) into the African Union (AU) has been the subject of some, albeit limited, debate. The role that the promotion and protection of human rights will play in the AU appears, on the face of the various documents, to be an important consideration, yet which organs will have responsibility in ensuring their implementation is still not clear. This article aims to discuss the framework of and relationship between the institutions established under the auspices of the OAU and how these have changed since the transformation to the AU. It argues that insufficient attention has been paid to ensuring a coherent and integrated approach to human rights across the Union. Organs such as the African Commission and the new African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights, however, have huge potential to influence the way forward.

The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, adopted by the 18th Assembly of the Heads of State and Government of the Organisation of African Unity in Nairobi in 1981, which came into force in 1986, provided for a single commission with a wide range of powers in respect of the rights in the Charter. This was as a result of an initiative for an African regional mechanism for the protection of human rights by African jurists and subsequent conferences in the 1960s and 1970s, many of which were organised by the United Nations. In these debates several possibilities were raised for the form that such a body should take: from a proposal for several commissions, given the disparate and diverse cultural and political nature of African States a court, a specialised commission within the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), to a single commission. Not only was its structure contentious but also its functions, in particular whether these should include a protective as well as a promotional mandate and what such protective powers should be.

Background: Patient beliefs about pain and opioids have been reported from qualitative data. To overcome limitations of unstructured assessments and small sample sizes, we determined if pain and pain medication beliefs varied by chronic pain status and opioid analgesic use (OAU) duration in primary care patients.Methods: Cross-sectional survey data obtained in 2017 and 2018 from 735 patients ≥ 18 years of age. The eight-item Barriers Questionnaire (BQ) measured beliefs about pain and pain medication. Patients reported OAU and use of other pain treatments. Multiple linear regression models estimated the association between never OAU, 1-90 day OAU and 90 day OAU and each BQ item.Results: Overall, respondents were 49.1 (±15.4) years old, 38.7 percent white, 28.4 percent African-American, 23.5 percent Hispanic, and 68.6 percent female. About one-third never used opioids, 41.8 percent had 1-90 day OAU, and 21.6 percent had 90 day OAU. Multiple linear regression analyses showed that compared to never OAU, 90 day OAU had lower average agreement that analgesics are addictive (β = −0.50; 95 percent CI: −0.96, −0.03), and 1-90 day OAU (β = −0.53; 95 percent CI: −0.96, −0.10) and 90 OAU (β = −0.55; 95 percent CI: −1.04, −0.06) had lower average agreement that analgesics make people do or say embarrassing things.Conclusions: Patients with chronic OAU reported less concern about addiction and opioid-related behavior change. Never users were most likely to agree that opioids are addictive. There continues to be a need to educate patients about opioid risks. Assessing patients' beliefs may identify patients at risk for chronic OAU.

This paper is an ethnological and anthropological study of Zangbeto among the Ogu (Egun) people of Badagry, in Nigeria. The study utilized survey design approach with emphasis on qualitative method: interview, focus group discussion and key informant investigation. Purposive and convenience sampling procedures under non –probability sampling were used in selecting the study area and respondents who participated in the study (n=40). The data gathered from the field of study were analyzed, using content analysis method. The findings in the study revealed that Zangbeto still remains an effective social machinery of policing and securing the lives and properties in the Badagry community. It also played a prominent role in making peace among the feuding parties in the community and still remains an avenue of social entertainment and cultural display. The study called for the legal backing of Zangbeto as a traditional way of policing and security the lives and properties in this community and the continuous researches of African societies to uncover ways through which African societies can help themselves where westernization has failed them.

ABSTRACT An often-adopted use of the predicate, “to be colonized”, is one that applies it loosely, not in reference to original Africans or indigenous people enslaved by Europeans or heirs of enslaved persons, but to academics who are citizens of former colonies like Brazil, their ways of thinking, philosophical works, academic communities, etc. But under what conditions one is to do that? And how can one avoid the attribution of such predicate to oneself or one’s works? These issues have not received much attention. While dialoguing with authors associated with decolonial studies, Brazilian, continental and analytic philosophers, this essay aims to contribute to change this situation. It does so by proposing an alternative use of the predicate, “to be ‘subtly’ philosophically colonized”, according to which this predicate is to be applied to philosophical works that have the thirteen features described in the essay or at least most of them. It is argued that this alternative use is to be endorsed because it is: precise; exemplified in a detailed way by at least one philosophical work; and “inexplosive” in not suggesting the “explosive” claim that practically all Western philosophical works are colonized by Western metaphysics.

The formation of organizations at global, regional and sub-regional levels among nation-states, especially after the World War II in 1945 was to nip n the bud situation that could escalate into war and promote global peace. It was also to promote political, economic and socio-cultural unity and welfare among member states. It was on this premise that the United Nations (UN), organizations of Africa Union (OAU) now AU, Arab League, European Union (EU), etc were formed to promote unity among nation states. The main thrust of this paper was to analyze the implications of agitation by various ethnic groups on national integration and development in Africa. The paper also x-rays the nexus between leadership failure and development in Nigeria. The study was anchore0d on the structural functionalism theory to address agitations and conflict among ethnic groups in Nigeria. This theory recognizes the need for restructuring the political system that will enable each component unit to function effectively for sustainable development. The study relied on much of the data scooped from secondary sources such as textbooks, internet materials, magazines, newspaper, journals etc. The study found out that agitations and conflict among ethnic groups was threat to national integration and development, citing the case of Indigenous people of Biafra popularly known as IPOB, Niger Delta militant, etc. The paper concluded that national integration was the bedrock to peace and national development in Nigeria. It was also recommended that government should desist from the actions and inactions that are threat to national integration and peace. The study recommended that Nigerian government should seriously focus on empowerment and investment in youth, through education, skill acquisition and also implementing policy that will eliminate all forms of agitations. The paper equally recommended adoption of regional government and true Federalism to address the problems of national development. Keywords: Agitations, regime change, political restructuring, integration, and development

Alàgbà Adébáyọ Fálétí to generations both in “town and gown” is a Yorùbá ̀ iconic cultural statement. His life was a window to different historical epochs in Nigeria. A life that spanned and recorded historical trajectories of early colonial, decolonisation, independent movement, First and Second World Wars, and Nigerian Civil War, Military and Civilian Rules experiences of Nigeria, is worth studying. The Institute of Cultural Studies, Obafemi Awolowo University Ile Ife in recognition of the deep engraving of the footprints of Fálétí in the sands of Yorùbá, indeed African times, called for befitting academic and cultural activities. Among these are this art and artifacts exhibition, a Colloquium, a Playlet and Documentary Film Show. Fálétí’s intense dedication to the promotion of the Yorùbá ọmọlúàbí cultural ethos and his deployment of his God-given talents and acquired capabilities in the promotion of Yorùbá literary and visual arts, history, poetry, orature, cinema and indeed 1 This is a review of the 2-week pictorial, art and artifacts exhibition in Honor of Alagba Adebayo Faleti in 2017 at the Institute of Cultural Studies, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, curated by Akinsola Adejuwon and Seyi Ogunjobi. Reviews 192 Akinsola Adejuwon African arts in general, is not lost on all Fálétí enthusiasts. Furthermore, his remarkable service as Senior Art Fellow at the Institute of Cultural Studies OAU completes the Institute’s resolution to capture the worthy legacy in the appropriate location even with the inauguration of an Alàgbà Adébáyọ Fálétí ̀ Library, Institute of Cultural Studies. Within a lifetime of close to one century, Fálétí delivers perhaps unique classical Yorùbá messages in words matched with action, first to Africa and then the world. This review looks at the pictorial and art exhibition covering the world of Alàgbà Adébáyọ̀ Akande Fálétí. It is an assessment of a thematic display of selected pictures and objects which probably placed the observer within the environment and with people Fálétí related with. The images, pictures, artworks and objects in the display were segmented into five major parts. These focused mainly on Alàgbà Fálétí’s parentage, early childhood, education within pristine Yorùbá-driven legacies of the Ọyọ̀ -́ Yorùbá type, Family life over-written from data flowing from core Yorùbá ethical and artistic ‘motherboard.’ Represented also are years of adolescence and expressions of early youthful forays under various tutelary influences, variegated working periods, writing and acting plus public service careers. Alàgbà Fálétí’s childhood coincided with the period when the British Colonial Government had taken over administration of entire geographical space known as Nigeria. In spite of introduction of foreign culture and customs into Nigeria by the Europeans, Yorùbá culture remained resilient. Hence, we could imagine that the childhood of Alàgbà Fálétí was not radically different from Samuel Johnson’s description of features of Yorùbá childhood as characterised by ‘freedom’ (Johnson: 2009, pp.98-100). These facets of life are arranged in a flow of one hundred and thirty-two frames of pictures and images appropriately hanged on the gallery wall boards, awards, artworks and objects displayed on individual stands. The montage produced by the flow of images on exhibition probably rallied to install both the titular and tutelar toga of ‘Alàgbà’ on Fálétí. Perhaps this also developed from a character evincing deep and cultured qualities over the last century. Qualities projectable only from such roundly home-grown dignitary. An all-round Yorùbá man from the core to the marked skin on his face.

The promotion and protection of human rights in Africa is underpinned by the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (“the African Charter” or “Banjul Charter”) which was adopted by the Assembly of the Heads of State and Government of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) on 27 June 1981. Other key instruments under the African human rights system are the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (which was adopted in July 2003 and addresses a variety of civil, political, economic, cultural and social rights) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (which was adopted in July 1990 and entered into force on 29 November 1999). The former has not yet entered into force (as of August 2005, 12 states had ratified the Protocol which requires 15 ratifications to enter into force) while the latter has its own monitoring body, the Committee on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. Consequently, discussion of these two instruments is outside the scope of this note. The Charter entered into force on 21 October 1986 and had been ratified by 53 member states of the African Union (AU) as of July 2004. The African Union is a regional inter-governmental organisation that replaced the OAU. The Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the OAU adopted the Constitutive Act that established the AU in Lome, Togo, on 11 July 2000. The AU was officially launched in Durban, South Africa, on 10 July 2002. The African Charter aims to promote and protect a comprehensive list of rights which includes both individual and collective people’s rights. While its regional counterparts – the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950 and the American Convention on Human Rights 1969 - guarantee only civil and political rights, the African Charter covers civil and political rights (the so-called “first generation” rights); economic, social, and cultural rights (the so-called “second generation” rights); and collective rights of peoples (the so-called “third generation” rights). The Charter also innovatively provides for duties of the individual and the state. This paper discusses the promotion and protection of economic, socialand cultural rights under the African Charter. It does this by first outlining the substantive content of the Charter. Secondly, it provides an overview of the supervisory mechanisms established in terms of the Charter. Next, the paper discusses the methods of promotion and protection of rights under the Charter and the limitations thereto. The paper then presents an overview of the jurisprudence of the African Commission on economic, social and cultural rights. The paper concludes with some comments on the effectiveness of the African human rights system.

The end of the cold war and the beginning of the new millennium brought with it a new phase in state relations in Africa as more persons became forcefully uprooted from their homes and their rights violated with impunity due to intractable internal conflicts amidst the Westphalian notion of sovereignty which frowns at interference in the internal affairs of any state which was the fulcrum upon which the United Nations (UN) and Organization of African Unity (OAU) was founded. This new awakening has increasingly made perception of sovereignty to be people oriented. In the case of the Africa which is the crux of this paper, the eventual change from OAU to AU was significant as the coming into force of African Union’s Constitutive Act and the Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons climaxed major twist in the Africa’s perception of sovereignty and the right of intervention in relation to internally displaced persons (IDPs) within the continent. This article examines briefly the historical evolution of the concept of sovereignty and the right of intervention and their implications in the African context, and being conceptual and doctrinal in approach it analyses the context and legality of the African Union’s right of intervention arising from the regional treaties vis-à-vis the United Nations Charter with a view to vindicating the much celebrated ‘decisive break from the past’. It concludes that African Union’s current stance represents a bold and grandiose expression that is sincerely tailored towards ensuring effective human rights protection and humanitarian assistance for over 13 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Africa. Finally, the article contributes significantly to the scholarly debates surrounding right of intervention in relation to internal displacement as its resolution will in one or the other helps government and other stakeholders in their quest to curtail the scourge of intra and inter-state violence in Africa. Keywords: African Union, Sovereignty, Intervention, Internally Displaced Persons, State Responsibility

In most African countries, refugees are not welcomed with the sense of regional solidarity that surrounded the promulgation of the 1969 OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa. Instead, African states have increasingly followed the lead of European states by closing their borders, deporting those who have made it into their territories or restricting them to camps. Even in those countries where refugees are admitted, their treatment does not meet the Convention’s standards and obligations. Despite South Africa having enacted legislation, the Refugees Act, which is hailed as one of the most liberal domestic refugee protection frameworks in Africa, it has regressed in its refugee protection policy. Continued conflict in the Horn of Africa, environmental disasters and struggling economies have resulted in a migratory flow of people to South Africa. This paper will argue that due to the fragmented manner in which African states approach refugee protection, countries such as South Africa, that have liberal and progressive refugee protection frameworks, will continue to experience higher migration flows and thus shoulder a greater responsibility. In response to this migratory pressure, this paper will demonstrate how the South African government has begun to intentionally and unlawfully violate the Refugees Act as well as regional obligations, and will demonstrate how South Africa has adopted policies and practices aimed at hindering, discouraging and restricting access to asylum. This paper will propose that African states should adopt a unified regional approach to refugee protection in order to share the responsibility of refugee protection.

During times of disorder the mainstream media tends towards propaganda by homogenising its representation of the ‘other’. This reduces rich histories, diverse cultures and a myriad of languages and religious beliefs down to sweeping statements, broad generalizations and inaccurate assumptions. This paper seeks to explore the representation in the media of the rich array of minority groups that make up the people of Iraq, the epicentre of today’s greatest disorder. In the interest of establishing a liberal, democratic and culturally diverse Iraq, this paper argues that the media must re-order its representation of the many peoples that make up Iraq. Historically, Iraq or Mesopotamia has been ruled by a vast array of kingdoms and empires. From the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians and Seleucids through to the spread of Islam under the rule of the Caliphates and later the Ottomans, this part of the world has seen more than its share of war, bloodshed and domination. However, history also tells us that despite the disorder, this area has mostly celebrated diversity since the ancient cities of Ur and Nineveh. Later, Ottoman sultans generally believed that a strong, civilized state was a cosmopolitan one (Mostyn and Hourani 192). After the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War, however, much of the Middle East plummeted into an unparalleled level of disorder. A territorial crisis ensued and the fighting between a surfeit of ethnic and religious groups went unchecked. Britain and France moved into much of what are now Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Israel with an emphasis on curtailing chaos by imposing order. Nation-states were hastily designed (Jordan was famously drawn by Winston Churchill in the back of a taxi), ancient peoples were divided and new identities were born. In 1920 the many different peoples of the three previously autonomous regions, or vilayets, of Baghdad, Basra and Mosul became Iraqis (Cordesman and Hashim 60, 71). In essence, Iraq is a created or ‘imagined community’ (Anderson) that was not even imagined by the people of the region. This is, of course, common throughout the Middle East and forms the basic premise of Said’s work on Orientalism (Said) – that the Middle East does not exist other than as a powerful European ideological construct designed to help the West better categorize the ‘otherness’ of all things Eastern. Today, Iraqi society is considered “the most spiritually diverse in the Middle East” (Braude 65) and while much Western scholarly and media attention has been given to the plight of the Kurds (Robinson 20) and the rebellion of the Shi’ites (who form the majority within formerly Sunni controlled Iraq) (Keeble 12), little attention has been paid to other Iraqis. In fact, Iraq is home to “numerous racial and religious minorities…(including) Turkomans, Persians, Assyrians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Jews, Yazidihs, Sabeans, and others” (Batatu, as cited in Cordesman and Hashim 71). To put things in perspective, Hourani identified approximately 40 distinct minority groups that dwell within the Arab World (Hourani 1-2). Each of these groups has their own language, their own culture, their own religion, food, history, dress and customs. However, it seems that since the 11th September 2001 – and the political and militaristic disorder that has ensued – the Western mainstream Media have portrayed events involving the Middle East and its people by fusing Orientalism and propaganda in order to further homogenize these ‘others’. The current reporting of the war in Iraq (including the search for Weapons of Mass Destruction, the invasion of Iraq, the toppling and later capture of Saddam Hussein and the ongoing war against insurgents / terrorists / car and suicide bombers / kidnappings and beheadings) has rarely made reference to the plight of Iraq’s minorities. This trend therefore serves to reduce and homogenize these groups into an all-encompassing Middle Eastern ‘other’. Their rich array of religions, cultures, languages etc become one. We know them only through disorder and opposition: non-white, non-western, non-Christian, non-civilized. The lack of minority representation in the mainstream media and its role in constructing minority identity has been discussed, to varying degrees, by a number of academics with a variety of approaches and results. This has included research into the people of the Acquitaine region of France (Scrivan and Roberts), the Flemish in Belgium (Van den Bulck), African Americans in the US (Goshorn and Gandy) and the Oka Indians in Canada (Grenier) to name a few. What appears to be common amongst this research is the notion that the lack of representation and the homogenization of the ‘other’ negatively influence these minority groups. By investigating the representation of the Sami people of northern Finland in the Finnish press, Pietikainen and Hujanen interpret the relationship between Sami identity and the way that it is played out in Finnish news discourse. Essentially, they argue, “news representations…contribute to the construction of identities of the people and region in question” (ibid 252). While the above research does suggest that the lack of representation of minority groups in the mainstream media have serious implications for the identities of these peoples, it does not seem to address the extent to which this is effected by times of conflict, war or disorder. Nor does it address the compound result of a lack of representation in both the media of one’s homeland and the global media. More scholarly attention is therefore needed in order to understand the relationship between a lack of representation of minority groups in the media (both domestic and international), how this constructs minority identity and to what degree this shifts during times of disorder. Here, the minority groups of Iraq serve as a near perfect case study. Beyond this, there is also a need for a re-ordering of what is considered newsworthy during times of disorder. Here Arnot (as cited in Coole 847), in discussing the media representation of asylum seekers claims that journalists often fail in reporting the complexity of such situations and need to seek the truth and report on what is real. Unfortunately, journalists often omit important pieces of information “that will shock, sadden and compel readers to sympathise with victims of such atrocities in the world…” (Coole 847). In this way, an accurate representation of the many different peoples of Iraq in the mainstream media would not only serve to positively construct minority identity but may also lead to a better understanding of the conflict, and the peoples trapped within it. While the best possible scenario would obviously be the reconstruction of Iraq’s infrastructure, followed by a peaceful withdrawal from Iraq and the development of a multifarious yet harmonious Middle East, this paper has addressed the issues surrounding the mainstream media’s lack of representation of Iraq’s minorities during this time of disorder. Here the media have homogenized the many peoples of Iraq and effectively unified them under the ‘imagined’ banner of Middle Eastern ‘other’. This opens up new areas of concern regarding the relationship between the media and disorder and the consequences this has for the identity of Iraq’s minority groups. Furthermore, this paper calls for a re-ordering of what is considered newsworthy during times of disorder in an attempt to encourage a more accurate representation, construction and understanding of the many different peoples involved. 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Van den Bulck, Hilde. “Public Service Television and International Identity as a Project of Modernity: The Example of Flemish Television.” Media, Culture & Society 23 (2001): 53-69. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Isakhan, Ben. "Re-ordering Iraq: Minorities and the Media in Times of Disorder." M/C Journal 7.6 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0501/11-isakhan.php>. APA Style Isakhan, B. (Jan. 2005) "Re-ordering Iraq: Minorities and the Media in Times of Disorder," M/C Journal, 7(6). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0501/11-isakhan.php>.