Here is my NCUR presentation:
http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/hpapocalypse/files/2011/04/HPPresentation.ppt
I’ve included my notes, so hopefully you can get a pretty good idea of what I’ll be saying when I present at the conference.
Hi Everyone – It was great seeing you all last Wednesday. Below is a PDF version of my presentation and a link to the QR Code Generator.
I also want to remind everyone that I’m available (almost) every Wednesday 3:40-6:40 and Thursday 1:00-4:00 in the Honors Lounge. Get in touch with me if you would like to schedule some time to further discuss presenting, how to use Keynote, generating charts/graphs, or anything else you need help with.
Here is a link to a PDF of the presentation I gave in class:
Visualizing Your Data
Here is the link to the QR Code Generator:
http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
Macaulay Honors College
MHC 355
Lee Quinby
The Template:
Constructing an Artistic Reality
Through Empathy
By Davi Santos
Winter 2010
Acknowledgements
Sincere thanks to Christopher Sula of the Philosophy Department at CUNY Grad for diagnosing additional research material from simply listening to me circumvent my working thesis and then introducing me to Eero Laine in Theatre Theory and Performance Studies at the Grad Center. Our cross-disciplined discourse spawned many great ideas; Keith Happaney in the Psychology Department at Lehman College who has been a huge reference to me and think tank in cognition and consciousness; Stephanie Rupp with whom I discovered mind mapping and through whom I drew connections in performance theory; and Bill Hoffman, my mentor. Thanks also to Lee Quinby without whom this would be an entirely different paper.
I. Empathy is Holy
Empathy is the basis of Method-System Acting. That is as substantial as saying that there is Holiness in Art. Empathy is equal to Holiness[1], and acting conventionally falls in the ‘Art’ category of things, but the brand of Holiness found in art is not like the one commonly assigned to mathematics; although, there is certainly some providential grace in there too; actually, “Mathematics is the language of God.” Galileo said so himself. He was a Reductionist de facto. They believe that every thing in existence can be reduced to the sum of its parts or to the accounts of those individual parts themselves: “Ducks are reducible to nothing more than biological machinery that operate robotically,” a Reductionist might say, and in 1662, one did say so: Descartes in De Homines wrote: “Non-human animals are reducible to automata.” What do ducks have to do with mathematics? If they are reducible to automata, then the math in machinery part’s steel precise dimensions and their parts’ technical interplay to make a timekeeping element in pendulum swinging is the same math that lies behind the ducks’ biological machinery. A duck is as automatic as a clock. For Descartes, humans are exempt from life as biological automata. The worst loneliness must have been experienced by that first mutant ape-man, or it could just as easily have been an ape-woman, who realized that she had freewill and all the other ape-men and women did not, and then later she did die never knowing that her genetic mutation, which had been passed down to Junior, was going to become such an evolutionary hit that her fellow non-automata-free-willed homo sapiens would dominate the planet like they do today: 6 billion and going strong.
Reductionists today peel reality as if it were an onion from the top layer of social sciences, unveiling psychology, then physiology, cellular biology, molecular biology, chemistry, many body physics, to finally to the crux of it, particle physics. The opposing viewpoint focuses on another entity instead: consciousness, the sum is greater than its parts. Idealists believe that only consciousness exists: ideas, concepts, and experiences. Dualists rest in between arguing that bodies are material and ideal: the sum of a body and a mind.
Philosophy is like a dog; there are so many breeds. That means there is no accord over the fundamental nature of reality. There is no standard for that special something that relates to everyone and everything, there is no standard of reality. It is fundamentally inconsistent between people, yet there have still been standards established for experiencing reality: drug laws, traffic laws, sex laws, religious laws, foreign policy, rubrics, mottos, trend magazines, the metric system, peer pressure, etc. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if people unanimously decide to market themselves as organic biomachines or free willed bodies, with assertion or doubt, they will still ask a very serious question: what do we do about it? What do we do about the disaccord over philosophy, these disagreements that claim to satisfy the criteria to justify war? As of late, what is done about metaphysical diversity: Standardizing a line to avoid or to encourage crossing is very popular, and then building small boxes to avoid thinking outside of them is also a symptom of the masses. What can be done about it?
Empathize. Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, and leader of the Tibetan people said:
“By definition, empathy involves our ability to connect with others, our ability to relate to them, understand their feelings, to share their experience and so on. So it seems that connecting or relating to others based on our common humanity, our shared characteristics as human beings is essentially a method of creating empathy. With this kind of empathy, you can relate to all human beings, and it does not depend on being able to relate to their individual characteristics or personal experiences.”[2]
If empathy were more widely practiced, the world would see more peace, diplomacy, human rights, and legislative progress, because decisions would be rooted in the sincere mutuality of those who are affected. Today there are billions of peoples living at the expense of others, and the planet is grossly mistreated. Who would contest that? The population in abundance is apathetic. The greatest progress will result from the movement that reverses this epidemic of disregard. I had previously written that empathy is equal to holiness; if it is truly the attitude and experience that can save human kind from its self-destruction, how can anyone contest that empathy is anything short of sacredness? If it cannot be literally blessed by an angel or a personified flaming bush, then Empathy is at least a metaphorical prophet.
II. Developing a Semblance of Holiness
So how is empathy accomplishable? Over the past 2000 years, the Buddhist movement has developed mindfulness to liberate the mind because vast compassion and empathy grow as a result. Thich Nhat Hanh, a leading figure in Western Buddhism, was nominated for the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr. who said: “I do not personally know of anyone more worthy of [this prize] than this gentle monk from Vietnam. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.” [3] Thich Nhat Hanh had written:
When your mind is liberated your heart floods with compassion: compassion for your-self, for having undergone countless sufferings,
because you were not yet able to relieve your-self of false views, hatred, ignorance, and anger; and compassion for others because they do not
yet see and so are still imprisoned by false views, hatred, and ignorance and continue to create suffering for themselves and for others.[4]
He suggests many forms of mindful meditation to “liberate your heart,” that will vanquish reproach and hatred and develop empathy and compassion, yet there is another vehicle, almost entirely different in nature and function that also requires empathy and is known to develop it: Aristotle was on to something when he said…no, not Christianity…but when he said a character’s catharsis was also the audience’s. The 2nd vehicle of Empathy is theatrical art, and it is the basis of Method-System Acting. Superficially it is very far from the meditation of Buddhism but upon closer examination, their practices could not be more similar.
III. The Hard Science behind Empathy in Acting
The work of award winning neuroscientist Vittorio Gallese, who has published in over 150 international peer-reviewed journals and edited books, suggests that “[i]magining and doing use a shared neural substrate…[so i]magining is a form of simulation-a mental simulation of action or perception, using many of the same neurons as actually acting or perceiving.”[5] In other words, the things that are imagined are physically real to the brain as an active neural network; the brain physically experiences all the items in consciousness, so that the rest of the body can react to any thing that happens in the mind of an actor whose performing, or someone meditating, in a way that looks and feels as if it were happening. Although only the delusional and the conned believe that a game of pretend is reality, if one can succumb to reacting to an imagined simulation, he will react to it in a way that is present in his experience and in those who are observing. The circumstance is not unlike that of the Placebo Effect, which suggests that some neural effects have non-neural causes like expectations and beliefs. If beliefs can change brain chemistry, then brain chemistry can be changed by what is believed; so an actor is like a self-attributed alchemist, a spiritual apothecary whose potions are brain stuff and imagination. Professor and current Nobel laureate chemist Alan J. Heeger emphasis that “electrophysiological and blood-flow measures of brain activity show that the same areas of the brain are used in visual perception and visual imagery.”[6] What we see and what we imagine coexist in the brain. The advantage of the lack of detailed sensory information in the images of the imagination is that it helps us distinguish between perceived and imagined events, so we can cooperatively react to them and yet maintain their property of pretend. More than for a monk, this may be more immediately associated to the relevance and work of an actor or politician, someone who is getting someone else to feel what they feel, but this example illuminates the biological function of pretend in meditation: Andrew Newberg is a prominent neuroscientist and researcher in the field of nuclear medical brain imaging at the University of Pennsylvania. In his experiment, he uses Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography to look at blood flow in Buddhist monks as they meditate, Franciscan nuns as they pray and Pentecostals as they speak in tongues. He found that measurable brain activity match up with the religious experiences described by worshippers. They were not lying when they said they felt ‘one with the world,’ ‘relaxed,’ or ‘oceanic.’ Decreased blood in one area of the brain while increased in another can certainly affect consciousness in ways more profound than even those they described, but still, that they were able to modify the blood flow in their brain from one area to another by simply focusing on particular phrases and meditative concepts is a glimpse at the expansive potential of the imagination in its ability to inherently influence brain chemistry.[7]
But what exactly are people consciously doing to themselves to create this sort of impact? There is an acting technique that engages the “magic if” of his imagination: “what I would do if I were in this character’s situation.” Well-published neuropsychiatrist Marco Iacoboni, a Professor and Director at the Brain Mapping Center of UCLA, explains empathy as the phenomenological function of simulation routines that occur in ‘as if’ processes in predominantly preconscious levels. This relationship occurs between the expressive (actor) and his imagination, another expressive (actor), and/or a receptive (observer): certain neural networks are triggered either by doing or by watching someone. The brain mirrors the neural network it observes through behavior and physically becomes more like it by imaging what it is, allowing it to understand and react to it. Almost 100 years after it was invented for the theatre, “the term ‘as if’ has been adopted by contemporary neuroscientists to describe the body’s physical responses to imagined conditions.”[8] This dualistic interplay also apples to meditation like in Newberg’s experiment on monks: “First, you are focusing on something,” Newberg begins to explain their cognitive process, “usually it is a sacred object or an image or something like that, but, second, you also screen out irrelevant information. As you do this, more and more information that normally goes to the orienting parts of your brain doesn’t go there. So it keeps trying to give you a sense of yourself, an orientation of that self in the world, but it no longer has the information upon which to do that.” The blood flow in the “orientation area” dramatically declines in activity during the meditation practice. “So this area of the brain becomes much less active. We think this is part of what is associated with somebody losing that sense of self. They feel at one with God, at one with their spiritual mantra, whatever it is they are looking at. This was a group of Tibetan Buddhist meditators.”[9] They focused on the object or concept “as if” it was all that existed; as result, each brain took less information about what was in his surroundings and its affects on him, giving his consciousness a sense of selflessness and expanse. The act of pretend becomes a technique to find empathy with an imagined character, or a human being, with one’s self, or with a concept, to render one selfless or to become an extension to others.
IV. Designing His Neural Network: An Actor’s Preparation
This paper opened with an account of basic philosophical stylizations for perceiving reality. The progress of acting as the art form that lends itself to the neurologic possibilities aforementioned is the result of an evolution through many philosophical movements. There is no doubt that art takes after the attitude and culture of its people. The Romantics were not Classically spirited artists. They wanted to break away from the conservative formulas of the past so that they could express themselves more sincerely and more accurately.[10] The cultural movement which amounted to the flowering of romanticism in the early nineteenth century by stressing emotion, imagination, and individuality, was partly motivated by the people’s philosophical evolution from valuing the noble simplicity and calm grandeur of Classical art to their own emotional subjectivity. Into the 21st century, Art had evolved in all its branches. Igor Stravinsky said: “We find ourselves confronted with a new logic of music that would have appeared unthinkable to the masters of the past. This new logic has opened our eyes to riches who existence we never suspected.”[11] This new logic is found beyond music but in each of the art forms. Acting matured into realism just over a century ago with the innovation of Method-System Acting.
Different teachers developed different methods, although Method-System in general appeared in the western world when the Director of The Moscow Theater, Constantin Stanislavski, in the turn of the century, created a studio adjoined to his theater in which he researched and developed a psychophysical theory to ‘build a character’ and ‘create a role’, and eventually stimulate theatrical realism by certain cognitive techniques like the ‘as if’ that has recently been utilized by neuroscientists. The actor must empathize with the imagined reality whether it be improvised, a playwright’s, a director’s, or a fellow actor’s. How does he do it? We start with a master.
Melvyn Gussow, the New York Times veteran American critic of the New York Times for 35 years wrote that Lee Strasberg was the “father of American Method [who] revolutionized the art of acting by having a profound influence on performance in American theater and movies,”[12] Strasberg claims that Stanislavski’s “entire search, the entire purpose of the ‘Method’ or our technique or whatever you want to call it, is to find a way to start in each of us this creative process”[13] Neurologically, the creative process is when the brain starts tinkering and adapting to the stimuli of the pretend world. Before introducing the masters and the heated debates of Method-System, let us reach a consensus on its meaning. ‘System’ refers to the ‘Stanislavski System’ of Acting. Not that there is one solidly, it had continued to evolve his entire life, but certain fundamental properties remained the same, like so: An actor receives his script, and he ideally meditates on the following:
Each technique demands a meditation on an aspect of reality. Every technique demands one to relate, to empathize with the different parts until he arrives at a rooted whole. He is then ready to pretend truthfully under the given circumstances.
“If our images of objects or events were as accurate and detailed as the actual events, then our ability to distinguish between actual and imagined events would be impaired. The ability to distinguish between external and internal sources has been called reality monitoring.”[16] Conversely, if we meditate on the details and develop a sense of accuracy, we find that our elaboration influences our imagination and ‘creative state’. Elaboration, which studies show is also the key to memory enhancement, is the act, like meditation, of focusing on an object or concept and being receptive to more details about it from the imagination. If we elaborate on any factor, say, intention specifically: what do I want, why do I want it, what would happen if I didn’t get it, then it becomes more and more real to us when we perform it. By getting to the root of the action’s identity, we find our own. Same goes for the setting: sounds, smells, temperature, props, is the area populated, is it familiar, are there changes to the location since the last time you were here, any significance to this location?
So at this point, the analysis has taken the world of the play’s contents and atomized them so that they could be put back together after the actor experienced them in a creative aspect beyond reading it. Usually, as far as Stanislavski’s System is concerned, that aspect is exclusively the faculty of imagination: imagining scenarios in the shoes of the character, empathizing with him. But the point of view of his imagined reality, that is, the play that is being reconstructed in his imagination, can be experienced ‘as if’ he were the character or ‘as if’ it were happening to himself with people in his life that he knew. This technique is called ‘substitution.’ Another example of it in addition to/or instead of creating an identity from scratch, one can use someone from his memory and substitute the character for that person from his real life. Substitution is the heart of Method, and it isn’t a leg of System.
V. The Fork
The difference between Method and System is emotional. Stanislavski’s teachings became systemized in the USA when The Group Theatre, New York’s pioneering collective, sought to create an American Acting Technique that was derived from his work. Its main teachers were Stanford Meisner, Stella Adler, and Lee Strasberg, and members included Elia Kazan, the director of On the Waterfront, East of Eden, and Street Car Named Desire, Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford, and many others. There was a great divide on how one should approach his imagination, emotions, and bodily processes in empathizing with a part. “The earliest objections to Strasberg’s version of the System during the Group Theatre days stemmed from the disagreements among members over the attention that Strasberg paid to emotions in his teaching. Lee Strasberg left the Group Theatre in the end of the 30s and would become the director of the Actors Studio through the 40s. The Studio formalized the term “Method” and pop culture adapted it so that actors were either “Method or Non-Method.”[17] The difference between Method and System lay in 3 techniques that Strasberg stressed: “affective memory, private moment, and substitution,”[18] which Clurman wrote about: “It becomes a distortion of art in general and of Stanislavski’s teaching in particular.”[19] Strasberg’s stress on emotion also led to circulated stories “that aspiring Method actors were suffering nervous breakdowns at the hands of Strasberg, who exorcised them of their deepest fears with private moment and emotional memory exercises.”[20] So Method was nothing more than a fork of Stanislavski’s System. Method-System together is a process of empathizing with a text’s contents to perform it truthfully. But it’s a philosophy too. I had discussed elaboration and reality monitoring, how more detail about something makes it more real. Some actors pretend off stage, so that performance will be more rooted. Some just walk like their character, others maintain voices, others, even personalities. Winner and 8 time Emmy nominated Director Peter Miner tells the story of Meryl Streep disliking an experience working on The Devil Wears Prada where she played the villain, because she isolated herself from the other actors through the duration of the project to affect their relationship on camera. After the film, they had dinner. That is the spirit of Strasberg. The argument is over the extent of the pretend. Is it necessary? If anything it is a sacrifice to the work and one feels more focused because he did it, not unlike a religious experience after fasting. Another “Method” thing to do for, say, an actor who is playing a 15th century Native American on location, may spend time in the forest before beginning production, aside from just reading about the culture in his house and going over the previous factors a-g.
VI. Schools of Thought: Towards a Theatrical Reality
“Strasberg would have it that creative processes are matters of psychology and past experience; the actor draws stimuli from memory in order to ground conviction. Adler would have inspiration emerge from the actor’s faith in the power of imagination, the play’s circumstances, and the actor’s political-social viewpoint. Meisner takes a different view, arguing that the actor’s faith is shown in the give-and-take of interaction. But all three believed acting involves an essential act of inspiration and free will.”[21]
The spontaneity that Meisner emphasized has been a key to realistic acting because one is actually listening to another person and puts his focus entirely on the other one so that every action is an organic reaction to an impulse with minimum artificiality, that may otherwise have resulted from a predetermined notion. He said, “The truth of your instincts is the root of your foundation…[so] don’t do anything until someone makes you do it or something happens.”[22] He intended to take mindlessness out of acting; he wanted his make-believe to be spontaneous and purposeful with intention.
Martial Arts schools have divided similarly, passed down from one sensei to many students who develop to be teachers who each chose to emphasize the aspect of the discipline that most captured them. 10 generations later, with styles galore, like the philosophical styles in the opening, no one is better than the other, although one may serve a better use to the specific case i.e. Tai Chi is slow and steady, so it may be better suited for the elderly than the kicking based Ti Kwon Do of Korea. A teenage girl could learn karate, how to deliver a one-strike blow to end a fight, or she could learn aikido, which teaches her to grapple and manipulate the direction and body weight of an attacker who is twice her weight. The student who appreciates without judgment learns without bias, a little here and a little there, and incorporates all the styles. That’s why it’s Method-System and not one or the other, because there are no limits in the imagination to developing empathy.
VI. The Template
Strasberg emphasized the feeling, and Meisner said to focus on the other person. Method-System seeks to create a theatrical realism that resembles reality. In a manner of speaking, Method-System seeks to create reality. He stitches together detail after detail about one’s life, external detail, and internal, histories, emotional connections, intentions, and expectations. He asks the same questions a Homicidal Detective might, even more specifically than members of a Grand Jury, and imagines them more graphically than newspaper journalist trying to get the scoop. The actor chooses the arsenal of techniques and factors that will influence his behavior most at a particular exchange. After engaging with the doors of perception, and learning what to perceive about the circumstances the actor performs with his senses sensitive to what happens moment-to-moment. He behaves spontaneously. His brain has formed a neural template that exercises his preparation while he performs. The possibilities that may happen are as deep as what he had imagined it was going to be, or as sensitive as he is to what he may imagine or feel in reactions. His attitude, his desire, his entity and identity become about something in the pretended reality of the play.
Philosophy is the study of the foundation of reality and existence. Acting has evolved to be the foundation of creating a reality or existence, “theatrical realism,” so in turn, the debates of what is acceptable and what is not are philosophical debates that depends on the view that one takes on how the foundation of behavior, the deep, deep world of the mind operates. Every style suggests empathy as a start, because it is how people learn to understand other people. Empathy is the basis of Method-System Acting. It is also the bases or our lives. We are reminded that the Art is a creative discipline and a stand to make connections from the imagination out. It’s a Reductionist’s dream, and an Idealist’s reality. “Neuroscience explains well what is in its domain: the brain…but we are whole persons, embodied and embedded in an environment…no explanation scientific or otherwise, that stops short of this embodiment…will be a complete account of our mental activity.”[23] All the world is a stage, and we are merely players. When we learn to play with Empathy, we save the grandest theatre yet: the world.
The Dalai Lama says that when we relate to others on the basis of common humanity, there is a sense of freedom that on a practical level raises basic trust to overcome problems like prejudice, or lack of the sense of community. It begins with that special sacred thing. It begins with Empathy.
VII. Appendix
Bibliography
Bstan-‘dzin-rgya-mtsho, Dalai Lama XIV, and Howard Cutler. The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World. London: Coronet, 2009. Print.
Letter by Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967. “Nomination of Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize”. Archived on the Hartford Web Publishing website.
Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: a Manual on Meditation. London: Rider, 2008. Print.
Gallese, Vittorio. 2001. “The ‘Shared Manifold’ Hypothesis: From Mirror Neurons to Empathy.” Journal
of Consciousness Studies 8, 5-7:33-50
Heeger, Alan. “Linking Visual Perception with Human Brain Activity.” Current Opinion in Neurobiology 1999 9:474-479.
Newberg, Andre B. Eugene G. D’Aquili, and Vince Rause (2001). Why God won’t go away: Brain science and the biology of Belief. New York: Ballantine Books.
Blair, Rhona “Cognitive Neuroscience and Acting: Imagination, Conceptual Blending, And Empathy” TDR: The Drama Review, Volume 53, Number 4, Winter 2009 (T 204), pp. 92-103 (Article), The MIT Press.
Kamien, Roger. Music an Appreciation. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992. Print.
“Poetics Of Music In The From Of Six Lessons : Igor Stravinsky : Free Download & Streaming : Internet
Archive.” Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine. Web. 22 Jan. 2011. <http://www.archive.org/details/poeticsofmusicin002702mbp>.
Krasner, David. Method Acting Reconsidered: Theory, Practice, Future. New York: St. Martin’s, 2000. Print.
Moore, Sonia. The Stanislavski System; the Professional Training of an Actor. New York: Viking, 1974. Print.
Moore, Sonia. Stanislavski Today; Commentaries on K. S. Stanislavski. New York: American Center for Stanislavski Theatre Art, 1973. Print.
Johnson, M.K., & Raye, C. L. (1981). Reality Monitoring. Psychological Review, 67-85.
Harold Clurman, “There’s a Method in British Acting,” New York Times Magazine (January 1964): 62
Meisner, Sanford “On Acting” A Vintage Original, 1987, New York, print.
Baker, Rudder Lynne “Neuroscience and the Human Mind” Presented at a Seminar on Creating Mind, Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions, February 23, 2001.
“Meditation is the sense of total comprehension of the whole of life, and from that there is right action. Meditation is absolute silence of the mind…Only in that total, complete, unadulterated silence is that which is truth” – J. Krishnamurti
[2] Bstan-‘dzin-rgya-mtsho, Dalai Lama XIV, and Howard Cutler. The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World. London: Coronet, 2009. Print.
[3] Letter by Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967. “Nomination of Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize”. Archived on the Hartford Web Publishing website.
[4] Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: a Manual on Meditation. London: Rider, 2008. Print.
[5] Gallese, Vittorio. 2001. “The ‘Shared Manifold’ Hypothesis: From Mirror Neurons to Empathy.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 8, 5-7:33-50
[6] Heeger, Alan. “Linking Visual Perception with Human Brain Activity.” Current Opinion in Neurobiology 1999 9:474-479.
[7] Newberg, Andre B. Eugene G. D’Aquili, and Vince Rause (2001). Why God won’t go away: Brain science and the biology of Belief. New York: Ballantine Books.
[8] Blair, Rhona “Cognitive Neuroscience and Acting: Imagination, Conceptual Blending, And Empathy” TDR: The Drama Review, Volume 53, Number 4, Winter 2009 (T 204), pp. 92-103 (Article), The MIT Press.
[9] Newberg, 2001
[10] Kamien, Roger. Music an Appreciation. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992. Print.
[11] “Poetics Of Music In The From Of Six Lessons : Igor Stravinsky : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive.” Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine. Web. 22 Jan. 2011. <http://www.archive.org/details/poeticsofmusicin002702mbp>.
[13] Krasner, David. Method Acting Reconsidered: Theory, Practice, Future. New York: St. Martin’s, 2000. Print.
[14] Moore, Sonia. The Stanislavski System; the Professional Training of an Actor. New York: Viking, 1974. Print.
[15] Moore, Sonia. Stanislavski Today; Commentaries on K. S. Stanislavski. New York: American Center for Stanislavski Theatre Art, 1973. Print.
[16] Johnson, M.K., & Raye, C. L. (1981). Reality monitoring. Psychological Review, 67-85.
[17] Krasner, 2000, pg 43, Gordon, Marc “Salvaging Strasberg At the Fin de Siecle”
[18] Krasner, 2000, pg 47, Gordon, Marc
[19] Harold Clurman, “There’s a Method in British Acting,” New York Times Magazine (January 1964): 62
[20] Krasner, 2000, pg 47
[21] Krasner, 2000, pg 16, “I Hate Strasberg”
[22] Meisner, Sanford “On Acting” A Vintage Original, 1987, New York, print.
[23] Baker, Rudder Lynne “Neuroscience and the Human Mind” Presented at a Seminar on Creating Mind, Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions, February 23, 2001.
1) Zelazo, Philip David., Janet W. Astington, and David R. Olson. Developing Theories of Intention: Social Understanding and Self-control. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1999. Print.
The information is gathered from the works of peer reviewed researchers who studied an American, scientific approach to understanding consciousness or at least formulating theories that might help its relationship with behavior. The intended audience is typically those in the study of the field but it is written without extended jargon. The elements of theater are intimately connected to one’s consciousness, and religion/philosophy shape it; thus learning about it as a template may inform us how and what is altered in performance.
2) Schechner, Richard. Between Theater and Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1985. Print.
The author incorporates the work of peer reviewed anthropologists as well as his own study of international theater practitioners. The author is also a director, and intimately involved in production of theatrical works in America, although his background is multicultural having traveled around the world and collected ethnographical data about the subject in relation to religious rituals. His research may help me avoid limited perceptions involving solitary study of Euro-American theater and culture, to draw empathetic ties and learn the similarity between ritual and theater from the perspective of consciousness instead of a particular nation’s citizen. The template of perception becomes more apparent when we distinguish contrasting patterns of action and reasons behind them.
3) Ashcraft, Mark H., and Mark H. Ashcraft. Cognition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006. Print.
Written by peer reviewed cognitive scientists, it covers a range of theories and their progressive development over the last 100 years. The book focuses on cognition theory based on scientific experimentation and data. We learn science’s limit on understanding perception and the formation of an explanation of how one’s subjective reality is formed.
3) Bowen, John R. Religions in Practice: an Approach to the Anthropology of Religion. Boston: Pearson, 2008. Print.
International peer reviewed anthropologists comment on contemporary anthropology’s take on the formation of religion and perception of reality, for what function, and the apparent effects of specific beliefs and rituals through observation and ethnographic data. The book also tracks the development of anthropological perspectives of religion, beliefs, and other foundations of our consciousness. One can then dissect actions, experience, objectives, and reasons for one over an other set as due to an alliance to a particular group of strategies that become known as a religion.
5) Stanislavsky, Konstantin, and Hermine I. Popper. Creating a Role. New York: Theatre Arts, 1961. Print.
The originator of the acting “System” with references to Modern scientists on emotion with the objective to create realism and inspire the “creative state” through performance steps. It is still a widely practiced, if not the most popular source of literature that is referenced to gain terminology in the steps to apply a desired psychophysical reality. This is ultimately a study of consciousness and volition, in what steps is taken in influencing consciousness to reach a particular performance state. This plays into the cognitive research in how cognition works.
6) Ekman, Paul. Emotional Awareness: Overcoming the Obstacles to Psychological Balance and Compassion : a Conversation between the Dalai Lama and Paul Ekman. New York: Times, 2008. Print.
This is a conversation between a Nobel Prize winning Buddhist and an acclaimed contemporary peer reviewed scientist on the perspective of an ethical template for perception and behavior. Ekman exchanges the effects of their application with US scientific standards of knowledge. The objective is to promote peace and awareness without sacrificing knowledge or creating prejudices. The research is a unique blend of a culture’s observations over thousands of years and contemporary research of another culture.
7) Adler, Stella, and Howard Kissel. The Art of Acting. New York: Applause, 2000. Print.
A contemporary regarded System teacher and developer of an application for life and on stage. She deals with the phenomenological aspects of consciousness introducing an action and perception template of expanding the focus of one’s perception in a manner very similar to Buddhism. If it is widely pursed, it may heighten peace, empathy, and a critical observation of the physical world.
8) Gallese, Vittorio. 2001. “The ‘Shared Manifold’ Hypothesis: From Mirror Neurons to Empathy.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 8, 5-7:33-50 The work of award winning neuroscientist Vittorio Gallese, who has published in over 150 international peer-reviewed journals and edited books, suggests interesting conclusions about empathy and the physiology of acting. I will have neurological backup to techniques that are entirely subjective.
9) Jung, C. G., and Marie-Luise Von Franz. Man and His Symbols. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964. Print.
Jung’s psychological approach to understanding symbology, giving us a definition and understanding the relevance of symbols in perception, because symbols are the interpretations of action, causing reactions, a template is the construction of symbol interpretation, some actions don’t mean to be symbols but will be interpreted as such leading to a misconstrued reality, inaccurate reactions and subsequently conflict over what is ‘real’ and ‘right’. This research falls under a consciousness template construction similar to the objective of cognitive scientists.
10) Krasner, David. Method Acting Reconsidered: Theory, Practice, Future. New York: St. Martin’s, 2000. Print.
A leading professor of System acting whose anthology covers an array of perspectives on the research contributions to contemporary theater and study. Versions of the method’s understanding are laid out, revealing the current state of The System. The research is a tool for exploring consciousness template creation, modification, and the flexibility of perception.
TANF: Denying single mother’s the opportunity to obtain Self-Sufficiency
The American welfare system is inefficient and not structured well. In particular, the most recent and drastic welfare reform, the 1996 PROWRA Act, and its provision which established the new rules and guidelines for federal welfare, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, TANF, is failing recipients and the country. TANF fails us by denying welfare recipients the authentic opportunity to become self-sufficient. Through the implementation and structure of TANF, a flawed system of American welfare provision, single mothers are denied an opportunity for self-sufficiency. Recipients, who are predominantly single mothers, are denied the opportunity to become truly self-sufficient in two ways. First, the recipients are denied access to higher education or the opportunity to attend a higher educational institution. Second, the recipients are repeatedly and explicitly encouraged to become married by the government and the welfare system.
Upon the examination of the text of PROWRA, specifically the language of TANF, it is explicit that the government is denying recipients a genuine opportunity to obtain self-sufficiency by promoting marriage as well as through the denial of access to pursue a higher education. Both options foster dependency and do not allow the recipients to obtain the skills and training necessary to be competitive in the market place, hence TANF does not aid recipients in becoming economically independent. This denial of an opportunity for recipients to become self-sufficient members of society is problematic for many reasons. The most important being the fact that TANF contradicts its own mission statement. TANF states that is was created to assist families in obtaining self-sufficiency, this is in theory. In practice, through the grant of state power, eligibility criteria, sanction criteria, recipients loose the rights they had as citizens before entering the welfare system.
TANF states that is was created to assist families in obtaining self-sufficiency, this is in theory. In practice, through the grant of state power, eligibility criteria, sanction criteria, recipients loose the rights they had as citizens before entering the welfare system. The text of TANF is federal law, it dictates the lives of the recipients and denied rights once held by recipients, rights that were fought for and gained through the welfare rights movements of the 1960’s. Through the enactment of TANF, the federal entitlement to welfare that was created by FDR was abolished as well. Additionally, the states via the power granted to them by the federal government are allowed to deny the rights of citizens to recipients, such as reproductive freedom and vocational freedom, this means that TANF explicitly violates equal protection of the law.
TANF denies recipients equal opportunity, of equal citizenship, and equal protection of the laws. The government, through TANF, quasi-coerces recipients to positions of dependency: get married and become financially dependent on their husbands, and/or to become workers who are trapped into a low wage work force due to the denial of a higher education and/or adequate training that would have enhanced the recipients opportunity of self-sufficiency. The coercion of marriage and work is explicitly done to recipients in America; non-recipients do not get explicitly economically punished for choosing not to live society’s dominant ideal of the nuclear family structure. Recipients are denied equality through their treatment by the government versus non-recipients treatment by the government, meaning the loss of some of the recipient’s rights just by becoming recipients, they enter into sub-citizenship.
A Brief Historical Analysis of American welfare Policy: How We Got To TANF
Single motherhood, with the exception of widows, has been morally unacceptable and economically punishable since the beginning of the American welfare state. Later in the paper I will discuss this in greater length as I discuss “Mother’s pensions.” Stereotypes of moral preferences are exhibited in welfare legislation for numerous decades. Welfare had constantly violated the Constitutional liberties of recipients, Congress has attempted to legislate nuclear families as law, with economic sanction as punishment to those who do not conform to this social norm. A conservative coalition has launched attacks on welfare since its beginnings in 1935, and they won with the enactment of PRA by recruiting a bi-partisan coalition and stigmatizing public opinion of welfare recipients.
Conservative Coalitions and the Stigmatizing Framing of Recipients
The government, interests groups and businesses worked together and through a conservative movement and republican control of the government, to manipulate public opinion of the welfare system by the demonization of recipients through the portrayal of them as “welfare queens” and their “illegitimate children.” This is an example of an external preference, as Ronald Dworkin would note (I will discuss in great length later in the paper), that preference of the Republicans, being the nuclear family and work first, which manifested into bad policy, that is bad governing and I will illustrate why. Furthermore, this demonization of recipients creates a problem for mobilization due to the stigma created, and it also creates a barrier for people to truly understand the welfare system.
Stigmatization of the welfare system and its recipients shaped public opinion in American and eventually created bi-partisan support for welfare reform. Conservatives began this movement with the creation of the term “welfare queen” and since recipients have been labeled as “illegitimate families, lazy, promiscuous, immoral.” Furthermore, while the majority of recipients are white, Conservatives frame the attack on welfare as if most of the recipients are black or non-white. Granted, blacks and non-whites are disproportionately poor compared to their population size and the percentage of recipients is high versus their population sizes. However, this is due to lack of opportunity for advancement, lack of access to higher education. This stigmatization of the recipient oppresses the recipients due to the public opinion of the moral choices she made by reallocating funds that could help her to attempt to force her into dependency.
A Conservative group called the Heritage Foundation and how it influenced Bush’s policies on “reducing out of wedlock childbearing.”1 Reese discusses Charles Murray, who argues that “welfare should be abolished because it promotes unwed motherhood.”2 Wade Horn and Andrew Bush are also discussed, regarding their collaborated work, Father’s, Marriage, and Welfare Reform (2002), and how it urges that politicians stigmatize welfare and create policies which would give priority funding and bonuses to married couples. Religious ideology ultimately influenced and directed the concepts and values underlying the Conservative reformation of the American welfare system “Politicians emphasis on traditional ‘family values’ was linked to the rise of the Christian Right, which revitalized the Republican Party and shifted in rightward on social issues.”3
Federalism and American Welfare Policy
Upon examining the policy history of the American welfare system, the first issue is that welfare is a product of federalism, and TANF in particular grants the states more power over the structure of the system. Through TANF, the federal government gives the states the ability to impose moral based eligibility requirements. Restrictions placed on recipients by TANF are placed carefully in an implicit manner, because the government must respect the Constitution and cannot force labor of lifestyle (reproductive, relationship) demands on recipients explicitly. So the states and individual counties impose these morality based requirements which coerce recipients into certain personal relationships and jobs. For economic purposes, the effects of the “labor market,” and wages, welfare was turned from an “income maintenance program” to a “wage supplement.” This allows states to use eligibility criteria and sanctions in order to force women, through the enactment of TANF, into a low wage workforce and/or marriage and to attempt to control recipient fertility. Furthermore, TANF is partly funded by a federal block grant, and the federal government provides financial bonuses to states that lower recipient’s birth rates and abortion rates simultaneously by promoting abstinence and marriage.
Both the state and the federal government are denying recipients the full rights of citizenship hence are treating the recipients as sub-citizens. A historical analysis of eligibility and sanction criteria illustrates the government’s intrusion into the private lives and moral choices of recipients and their legal punishments through eligibility criteria and sanction criteria as well as through rules and regulations. Furthermore, the federal government granted the states the most freedom they’ve had with welfare since the New Deal through the enactment of TANF, allowing states to deny access to education, services, and healthcare.
Recipients are also denied equality amongst each other, through location of the recipient. There exists inequality between states; the rules in one state could not apply in the next. Family cap is an example of this, in some states, recipients are denied aid for additional children they bare while receiving assistance. In New York however, there is no family cap provision. There can even be differences within a given state, for example, the meager benefits one receives in NYC are nothing compared to the benefits a recipient in Westchester county receives. Sanctions and eligibility criteria punish single motherhood for the poor and force single mothers into a low wage workforce and denying them access to higher education. In essence, they are denying the option of single motherhood as economically feasible and legally protected.
Theoretical Framework: Using “External Preferences” to Analyze TANF Violation of Civil Rights
I am going to borrow terms from Ronald Dworkin’s writings, Liberalism and A Moral Reading of the Constitution, such as “external preferences,” “neutrality” and “the good life” to illustrate how the government has, through federalism, history, and the enactment of TANF, denied recipients the equal rights of citizenship and hence has violated their Constitutional rights. Furthermore, I will use Drowkin’s theories to explore how rights can be used as protection from the government’s legislated external preferences such as TANF. These welfare rights could be discovered in the Constitution by the court and upheld and protected. Furthermore, the Court can easily protect recipients through the equal protection clause, as I will illustrate.
In Liberalism, Dworkin argues there are defects in a “pure majoritarian process” that can be addressed by adding a “scheme of rights.” This scheme of rights ensures that individuals are “treated as equals” by the government.4 The government treats people as equals by acting “neutral to varying conceptions of the good life.”5 This in turn respects people’s “moral independence.” Additionally, the judicial branch plays an essential role in limiting majority rule through the use of judicial review and striking laws that violate the rights of individuals.
Dworkin is in favor of majoritarian democracy with rights which would limit and constrain ordinary law, Dworkin argues for the majoritarian process PLUS rights. In A Moral Reading, Dworkin distinguishes between the two types of laws produced by majoritarian rule: laws based on external and laws based on personal preferences. Personal preferences refer to decisions that are made based on personal needs and interests. External preferences are “preferences people have about what others shall do or have.”6 The democratic majoriratian process sometimes mixes in external preferences, some of which can be harmful to a minority’s rights (or laws containing “animus”).
Civil Rights are necessary (scheme of rights) to provide minorities with protection by ensuring that strong external preferences are removed from the majoritarian political institutions. Dworkin argues that without rights, the majoritarian process and external and personal preferences would lead to “in-egalitarian results,” which is the opposite of the liberal’s egalitarian intentions. Rights, for the liberal, ensure that the government treats people as equals. Treating people as equals is the “idea that the government has to treat all individuals with equal concern and respect.”7 This requires government to be neutral to differing conceptions of “the good life”.The good life is each “individual’s conception of what gives value to life.”8 Neutrality would mean that the government would not value one version of the “good life” over another. That would ensure the government treated peoples’ values equally and treated individuals as morally independent. This gives people equal status as moral individuals. This ensures that when the majority has strong external preferences, that Congress, for example, would not pass a law that reflects the majority’s external preferences and violate the rights (or good life)of minorities. Based on external moral preferences (animus against poor single mothers), recipients’ are denied this same right (or equal opportunity) as non-recipients. Dworkin states that all though external preferences are problematic, we can’t remove ALL of them from the political process. When we vote for Congress we are voting on our external preferences.
In Liberalism, Dworkin notes the United States is committed to guaranteeing the government treats citizens with “equal respect and concern.” For Liberals, this “scheme of rights” is the Bill of Rights plus the 13th and 14th Amendments. He goes into the example of the Equal Protection clause and how it was written when homosexuality and gender were not issues. Yet, because of the generality of the language used in the Equal Protection Clause (“equal protection of the laws”), it was left open for future interpretation to fit any issue where equality was being denied. Rights, Dworkin argues, function as “Trump Cards” that citizens can use if the majority’s external preferences are violating a minority’s rights. Rights are justified as a necessity because “they protect equal concern and respect.”9 Liberals argue that rights are justified because they improve “political morality”.
All three branches have important functions in ensuring rights are upheld and granted. Dworkin notes that one particular branch plays a role of significant importance when ensuring our rights: the judiciary. In A Moral Reading, Dworkin notes that judicial review is a check on the majoritarian system. Judicial review ensures that civil liberties are not violated or inexcusably compromised. Depending on the Justice’s interpretation or reading of the Constitution, rights are expanded, denied, or protected. How justices interpret the Constitution can grant or deny rights.
In A Moral Reading, Dworkin notes our rights (or protection from the government) come from the Bill of rights and the 13th and 14th Amendments. These rights were written using abstract moral language which restrains governments’ power. He uses the example of Equal Protection of the laws to illustrate that our rights are “general political principles.” Taking into account precedent, political and legal history and the framers intention, Justices are left a broad scope for judicial interpretation. He notes Brown v. Board of Education as an example of justices performing a moral reading of the Constitution. It was a Moral reading because the Court recognized that segregation is inconsistent with the 14th Amendment (implicitly overturning Plessey v. Ferguson). Justices can now use judicial review to recognize that TANF denial of recipients Constitutional rights violates the 14th Amendments Equal Protection Clause. Drowkin’s theories to explore how rights can be used as protection from the government’s legislated external preferences such as TANF. These welfare rights could be discovered in the Constitution by the court and upheld and protected. Furthermore, the Court can easily protect recipients through the equal protection clause, as Mink has argued and as I will illustrate.
TANF: A Denial of Constitutional Rights/Civil Liberties
The “Personal Responsibility Act” of 1996 included TANF, which forced recipients to work in low wage jobs, receive minimal educational training, and maintain financial connections with biological fathers. Furthermore, the federal government gave the states more control over the system through replacing individual entitlement to welfare with federal block grants. Additionally, with TANF, there is a five year lifetime limit for recipients to be eligible for assistance. As Dworkin would note, TANF is an example of multiple external preferences legislated by the government. These external preferences manifest as the legal denial of equal citizenship, through legislated morally based preferences that impose one version of the good life on all citizens, and does not respect the differing conceptions of the good life as equal. By denying recipients the access to services and an education based on their private moral choices to be single mothers, through the enactment of TANF, the government is imposing conservative moral preferences of individuals. The government has failed to “act neutrally”, and through and the enactment of TANF, legislated “external preferences.” The government failed to respect varying conceptions of “the good life” by denying single mothers a genuine opportunity for self sufficiency. This in turn denied recipients the equal rights of citizenship and hence has violated their Constitutional rights.
It is essential to understand that the right to welfare, as Mink notes, is an essential component of reproductive freedom and for vocational choice for single mother recipients. Through TANF’s work first policy, denial of higher education, promotion of marriage, and family cap policies, these freedoms are denied by the welfare system. Through a right to assistance though, a woman could in theory be independent, until the system is altered, it will be just that, a theoretical right. The right to welfare if administered properly (the system and the right) would allow for the true exercise of reproductive and vocational freedom, but presently, the system denies these rights to recipients. Access to higher education would mean the right to have the hours one spends in a four year institution counted as part of the recipients 35 hour a week work requirement. Without an adequate education, recipients will cycle on and off of welfare and remain in poverty, a condition that will affect all American taxpayers and the quality of our society. Furthermore, the right to welfare is essential in protecting recipients from the strict and moral based eligibility and sanction criteria of the state and federal governments.
Recipients’ Constitutional rights such as reproductive freedom, vocational freedom, and the right to privacy are denied by TANF. This deprives a recipient of equal protection of the law; hence, recipients and their dependents are denied basic citizenship rights. If women’s work in the home were recognized as work credited by the 35 hour work requirement, women would be closer to gender equality through the economic recognition of care giving for their children. If TANF included a federal provision which also protected mother’s rights to receive a bachelors education, as part of approved educational or vocational training, this would also lead to real self sufficiency of recipients when they reach their federal time limits.
In the book When Welfare Dissaperas: The Case for Economic Human Rights, Kenneth J. Neubeck discuses economic human rights, and analyzes the history of welare policy in the United States. Neubeck illustrates why single mother recipients have particular dificullty staying off of or avioiding public assistance which is through systemic barriers such as a lack of access to education and job trainning skills that woud allow singe mothers to be more competitive in the job market and get out of poverty. “PROWRA reflects what some have called the ‘new paternalism.’ The act subtly communicates a strongdistrust of–if not disdain for–impovershed lone mothers even as it spells out measures to control them.”10 Furthermore, Neubeck goes on to note that “U.S. welfare policy has reflected and, in many ways, has reinforced society wide systems of class, gender, and racial inequallity.”11
Neubeck discusses the difficulty of single mothers and uses statistics of those on TANF, exiting, and the poverty rate to illustrate the harmful effects of TANF. Neubeck uses a human rights framework as a claim for welfare rights in the United States. He discusses “invisible barriers” such as mental illness and domestic violence thatare not adequately addressed by the system.The reason that many women remain in poverty, after all, is because they lack the skills, training, and resources to obtain a good job, any job in some cases, and some don’t even have the ability to travel to appointments and training due to transportation access as well as safe and secure child care access.
I refer to Neubeck to illustrate that the right to welfare should encompass the human/economic rights to food/from hunger, to a job or assistance, a right to shelter, a right, although Neubeck states “welfare has never been treated as a right”12 which is true, it was an entitlement, but if the agrument for a right to welfare was framed as esential to fulfiling the human rights of American citizens who were in need, then we could be closer to equality between recipients and non recipients citizen status.
TANF: Disabling American Citizenship for Recipients
Through the enactment of TANF, the government denies recipients some of the fundamental rights that non-recipient American citizens enjoy. Furthermore, by treating recipients as legal and social sub-citizens, the government is implicitly legalizing racial and class-based hierarchies as well as the legal perpetuation of male dominance. Mink discusses in great depth the argument that TANF creates sub-citizenship through its coercion of recipients and denial of citizenship based rights such as reproductive and vocational freedom. Al though she mainly advocates a poor woman’s right to be a homemaker, and advocates economic recognition of care-taking, I rely on her analysis of recipient citizenship status as a denial of equal citizenship as support for my argument.
Recipients are denied equality through their treatment by the government versus non-recipients treatment by the government, meaning the loss of some of the recipient’s rights just by becoming recipients, they enter into sub-citizenship. The coercion of marriage and work is explicitly done to recipients in America; non-recipients do not get economically punished for choosing not to live society’s dominant ideal of the nuclear family structure. A right to obtain higher education is denied by the states, based on the states’ criteria of what constitutes an approved work activity. ” In NYC for example, while non-recipients who receive Pell and TAP are allowed to go to school, recipients who receive Federal Pell and state TAP are told that they cannot go to school, because welfare doesn’t recognize their education as an approved work activity. Some recipients don’t even have the ability to travel to appointments and training due to transportation access as well as safe and secure child care access. They need the right to safe and secure childcare and the right to adequate transportation if none is available in order to even comply let alone exercise true vocational freedom.
TANF: Married v Unmarried Recipients of Social Services
Single motherhood, with the exception of widows, has been and still is morally regarded as unacceptable and economically punishable. A conservative coalition has launched attacks on welfare since its beginnings in 1935, and they won with the enactment of TANF. TANF promotes a model of wage-earning in the nuclear family as envisaged by conservative policy as the foundation of a healthy society” (Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996). By promoting marriage through the use of TANF funds, as opposed to creating programs that could aid single mothers, Congress and the states have chosen to legally quasi-coerce recipients into positions of dependency. Non-conformity to this patriarchal social norm, being a single mother, results in an economic sanction. If women wanted to be stay at home mothers they had to remain married. If they wanted to be single mothers, they are punished with work outside of the home. One of the stated objectives of TANF is:
“to end dependence by promoting marriage. Many policy-makers want to devote more public resources to this goal, even if it requires cutting spending on cash benefits, child care, or job training. Some states, such as West Virginia, already use their funds to provide a special bonus to couples on public assistance who get married. In December 2001, more than fifty state legislators asked Congress to divert funds from existing programs into marriage education and incentive policies, earmarking dollars to encourage welfare recipients to marry and giving bonus money to states that increase marriage rates. On February 26, 2002, President Bush called for spending up to $300 million a year to promote marriage among poor people.” 13
Recipients in different states, through TANF, a federal policy, are given different benefits at different levels, access, and, eligibility and sanction criteria. TANF explicitly promotes marriage as we have seen. But it also granted the states wide discretion in how they choose to implement their federal block grants, how they choose to allocate funds and meet the goals of the federal government. With financial bonuses to states who meet goals related to abstinence, out of wedlock births and abortions, some states have chosen to allocate more funds on marriage promotion and abstinence, hence more money on influencing recipients to exercise their right to privacy in a certain conservative manner, or regulating privacy, regulating the private moral choices of recipients, violating their Constitutional rights as equal citizens to enjoy and exercise the right to privacy.
States receive cash bonuses from the federal government when they reduce or keep down out of wedlock births, abortion rates. “PRWORA authorized funds for marriage counseling among poor couples and abstinence education among teens, despite little effectiveness of these programs…Congress also offers states and illegitimacy bonus: 20 million for each of the top five states in reducing out of wedlock birth rates without raising the abortion rate, ”14 Congress is regulating morality through the enactment of TANF, restoring the state/local moral regime that ruled recipients through the text and policy goals and design of TANF, which abolished the federal entitlement to welfare.
Dworkin’s works provide an analytic framework to illustrate that through the enactment of TANF, the government legislated unconstitutional moral preferences. The text of TANF illustrates the moral based external preferences of the federal government and allows the states wide discretion to impose these external preferences as eligibility, bonus, and sanction criteria on recipients who do or do not comply or adhere to these standards. Authors Stephanie Coontz and Nancy Folbre discuss the failure of marriage promotion to impact the marriage rate of recipients, the harm that “marriage bonus” would actually impose, as well as the necessity of these programs versus other essential TANF programs.
“There is little evidence that [marriage promotion] policies would in fact increase marriage rates or reduce poverty among children. Indeed, the main effect of marriage bonuses would probably be to impose a “non-marriage” penalty that would have a particularly negative impact on African-American children, who are significantly less likely to live with married parents than either whites or Hispanics…Public policies should not penalize marriage. Neither should they provide an economic bonus or financial incentive to individuals to marry, especially at the cost of lowering the resources available to children living with single mothers. Such a diversion of resources from public assistance programs penalizes the children of unmarried parents without guaranteeing good outcomes for the children of people who are married.”
The authors of this publication are aware of the dangers of associating marriage with poverty. Granted, two incomes are better than one when dealing with poor families, but marriage isn’t going to make two poor people rich because they married, it will not solve the issue of poverty, because being unmarried is not a cause of poverty.
“In 2000, about 38% of all poor young children lived in two-parent homes These families have been largely overlooked in the debates over anti-poverty programs and marriage. Indeed, the campaign to increase marriage has overlooked one of the most important public policy issues facing the United States: the growing economic gap between parents, whether married or unmarried, and non-parents.”15
We cannot believe as a society that being unmarried is a large factor that effects poverty rates for recipients. They might be a little less poor with an extra income, but nevertheless, poor. Two individuals making minimum wage will still be poor whether they are married or not, and although two incomes are better than one, their combined incomes would still be below the poverty level. Poverty among children is not confined to single-parent families.
Marriage is a reinforcement of a position of dependency for recipients. TANFs’ diversion of funds from programs that would aid single mothers to programs that would reinforce a dependent position in women represents a “quasi-coercion” of recipients into positions of dependency.
This unlawfully imposes a standard of dependence on women, TANF uphold marriage as the highest moral standard. Meaning, women who do not meet the standard of being married or staying married were economically punished by not being eligible for marriage bonuses and having their funds that would help them be independent, such as child care, redistributed to marriage promotion. Meaning the government is replacing programs that would make women economically self-sufficient and independent such as low cost child care with services which promote dependence, since marriage won’t alleviate many women’s poverty and in marriage, they are expected to rely upon their husbands for money.
In this system, the woman is left in an intersection of economic dependence. A dependence for food, childcare, housing and other monetary needs such as a decent minimum wage. The cost of living has risen so that the single mother is placed in a position of dependence, either on “the man” or “a man” or many men. Yes women have the right to an “equal opportunity” in theory, but in practice, American society does not allow single mother autonomy. Women are, as Francis Wright noted, still the ultimate subordinate beings in society, but I’d say now a days that poor single mothers are definitely the most oppressed group in America. As she noted, and evidence such as the 1996 TANF act suggests, it pleases men that women are dependent.
Recipients who may have lost a husband, been abused in some way, had a husband who left them, or was just very poor even with her husband’s minimal income, or never was even able to get married because he didn’t want to. And then in society, comes to welfare with children, there is a stigma toward that woman and her children if they don’t live up to that standard, and not by choice perhaps. What if a woman is single not be choice? But what would be wrong with women making the individual private moral choice to be single mothers as opposed to being married? It would be breaking systems of patriarchy that have been in place since almost the beginning of time, allowing recipients more autonomy and affording women greater rights. But by not providing services such as child care, which is necessary for a single mother to go to work, then recipients are explicitly being denied equal access to resources.
Recipients have their children’s fathers forced into their children’s’ lives hence the recipients life, if not through marriage promotion, than through child-support enforcement, and invades recipients right to privacy. Congress is demanding the return of the father to the family, hence forcing recipients into a position of dependency on a man or her child(ren)s’ father as, opposed to aiding the mother in obtaining the means to be self-sufficient economically. Congress denies the recipient the economic security to remain free of this dependency. Additionally, Congress denies recipients the option to choose single mother hood if recipients desired to and/or had to. Congress made a bi-partisan decision to deny poor single mothers the safety net they once had before the enactment of TANF. If you were poor, you would have to depend on a man, “As we shall see, since 1967 both democrats and republicans have insisted that fathers return, at least to financial, if not marital, family headship.”16
Since welfare’s beginning, the government has used morality based eligibility and sanction criteria to create, uphold, and perpetuate a distinction of widows as worthy for public assistance and unmarried single mothers as unworthy, using legislated morality based external preferences to distribute aid to the needy with preference to married women. Mink and Reese’s respectively provide historical analysis of morality based eligibility criteria and morality based sanction criteria (man in the home penalties) to illustrate the discrimination against unmarried single mothers.
Mother’s pension” was the first form of government-run welfare offered in America, and it was controlled and funded by the states. “Mother’s pension” allowed a woman to stay at home and raise her children; the government recognized motherhood as a job, if the recipient was a white widowed woman. Reese notes that when Mother’s Pensions were first enacted, they were targeted to poor white widows, with the maternalist idea that mothers should be compensated for the work of child-raising, because mothers would “raise good citizens.”17 Social Security was created to ensure that white widows would earn enough as homemakers to continue the job of raising good citizens. As Mink discusses, the idea that these women were single mothers through no fault of their own, their moral choices to marry, was what gave them moral preference over other single mothers. Widows were “worthy” of assistance and the opportunity to be stay at home mothers, yet unmarried women were thought of as immoral and punished with work outside the home to instill “moral values.”
Recipients were required to endure several intrusions into their private sexual life and were given strict moral guidelines of how to behave. Eligibility criteria consisted of “suitable home” and “fit mother” standards to deny assistance, “and such policies reinforced the marriage ethic-the expectation that women should get and stay married.”18 President Roosevelt created the American welfare system through his aggressive passage of the New Deal; he created Aid to Dependent Children (ADC), which is a system that is federally funded, a product of federalism. However, the states retained many of their rights to implement welfare as they saw fit, and Congress ensured that any law attempting to federally regulate welfare was not enacted. Both Mink and Reese note the rise in caseloads once ADC allowed for more recipients who were non-white and/or unmarried to receive welfare.
Social security still allows (barely, but it still does allow) a single widow to be a stay at home mother if she chooses or has to be. But poor women are “compelled” by the government, as Mink notes, to work outside the home by not having their work in the home economically recognized. The fact that SSI is still very generous when compared to welfare benefits illustrates the government’s preference to provide subsistence assistance for “worthy” single mothers, or widows. TANF recommends that poor women who are divorced and unmarried either work first to support their families or find husbands if they want to be stay at home mothers. Mink illustrate how recipients have to work outside of home for EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) yet widows do not have to for IRA (Independent Retirement Account). Retirement is an acknowledgement of a life time of work, meaning middle class stay at home mothers are being economically compensated for their work in the home. Yet recipients have to work outside of the home to receive their tax credit. Mink notes that most single mothers will choose to work outside of their homes, but the issue she has with PRA is the “coercion” of poor single women: “why should poor single mothers,–and only poor single mothers—be forced by law to work outside of the home?”19
Mink highlights differences in Congressional policy for women of different classes, races, sexualities and marital statuses. Congress made it possible (as welfare did in the 30’s) for the white middle class married women to stay at home through the creation of the IRA, which “are an untaxed portion of earned income,” and through TANF, at the same time, denied poor women the right to be homemakers and compel poor single mothers to work outside of their homes. Congress used their own standards to determine the legal value of homemaking based on skin color and class, and strengthened divisions, in society and in the eyes of the law, between women. The IRA reinforces the Conservative ideology that dominated the government during the Mother’s Pension and the creation of SSI.
There is no economic punishment for women who are not married and are non-recipients of TANF. This illustrates the differences in rules and penalties for recipient and non-recipients of TANF. An example of this is in the work place, it would be discrimination to explicitly pay one person more than another solely on the basis of marital status, give bonuses to married employees simply because of their marital status, or financially incentivize and promote marriage at work. The unmarried or never married employees would state that bonuses on the basis of marriage status were not based on merit or need, theses employees did nothing grand for the company by being married, but rather the private moral choices of some employees were being financially rewarded due to the external preferences of the bosses. Yet it is ok to redistribute funds for marriage promotion?
There is distinction in what rules apply to married and unmarried recipients, unmarried recipients being denied access to certain benefits based on this status. There is also a distinction between recipients and non-recipients, because recipients Constitutional rights to privacy and reproductive freedom are being violated. Congress believes any marriage is a good marriage, and legislated this preference through the funding of marriage promotion, which denies recipients the equal protection of the law as citizens. The “quasi-coercion” of recipients to become married is an example of the unequal citizenship status between recipients and non-recipients. Not to say that marriage is not promoted to both recipients and non-recipients, but in the case of recipients, money is being taken away from recipients benefits such as individual cash benefits and child care, to funnel into marriage promotion. Recipient’s resources are reallocated to and wasted by being funneled into marriage promotion. TANF is an example of legislated “new paternalism,” which uses the welfare system to further the agenda of Conservatives by oppressing predominantly female recipients, merely examining the first words of Congress’ finding is section 101 illustrates this oppression:
“The Congress makes the following findings: (1) Marriage is the foundation of a successful society. (2) Marriage is an essential institution of a successful society which promotes the interests of children, (3) Promotion of responsible fatherhood and motherhood is integral to successful child rearing and the well-being of children.”20
In 251 pages, this is the first things stated after the content, and as Dworkin would note, this is an example of a legislated external preference. The government was not acting neutrally, hence it violates the rights of recipients by not respecting their conception of the good life and their moral independence. It is as if the government and society are morally punishing alternative families because they do not consist of the same nuclear-male dominated households which perpetuate patriarchy. The private nuclear family life is just, after all, as Frederick Engels notes a model of the lager social hierarchy, patriarchy is reinforced through systems in public and private life, in which the man dominates the women and children.
Many stable homes for children are provided by single parents, extended family, as well as homosexual couples who cannot get legally married. As Dworkin would note, TANF sets a standard in the law of what is best for society, implying that single mother hood or alternative families are not sufficient. This is a manifestation of a legislated external preference, denying non-nuclear families the same respect and consideration as nuclear families, this violates the moral independence of the recipients by not respecting their version of the good life, and the government is not acting neutral between Conservative and Liberal conceptions of the good life. Marriage is not a solution to poverty.
If TANF created a stay-at-home income for women, through welfare grants, during the young years of a child’s life before they start school, this would allow poor women to be stay at home mothers for at least a few years to raise their own children without having to get married to be stay at home mothers. Another alternative to marriage promotion would be more generous shelter benefits/low income housing for single mothers to allow them to be independent. This would respect single motherhood as a lifestyle and a choice and allow independence for them in practice through resources, as opposed to diverting funds from TANF to impose positions of dependency.
TANF: Barriers to Recipients’ Access to Higher Education
Many individual states and localities choose policies that promote “work first” and ultimately believe that any job, low-wage, temporary, insecure, is a good job. Many states do not include four year colleges as an eligible work activity, and so through the use of sanctions for noncompliance, welfare agencies deny recipients the opportunity to go to school by also making these hours ineligible for the child care that is subsidized during the hours of the work activity to be used toward the classes. Despite evidence that women who obtain a higher education have an almost 100% rate of remaining off of public assistance, the numbers of recipients in college has dropped, as noted by authors Ellen Reese and Felicia Kornbluh. This is due to the fact that local welfare agencies promote work as opposed to long term economic security and authentic self-sufficiency.
Through the federal and state government’s emphasis of promoting and funding of work first, they have explicitly limited recipient’s access to necessary educational training, hence limited recipients marketability. This is an example of unequal citizenship between recipients and non-recipients. Further issues of unequal citizenship arise between recipients in different states because of the differing implementations of TANF and various definitions of what constitutes a work activity. Because welfare is a product of federalism, the states have had broad discretion over eligibility and sanction requirements, and the rules that it requires for recipients to remain eligible for assistance.
Through the promotion and implementation of work first over higher education, TANF has denied broad and equal access to higher education, which has denied recipients the opportunity to become self-sufficient and independent. I examine the article Welfare Reform and Enrollment in Postsecondary Education to examine how TANF has affected educational rates of recipients. A low wage job is insecure for a single mother headed family, offering no real skills and making the single mother no more marketable. In contrast, a degree, higher education, offers economic security by providing recipients marketable skills. Vivyan Adair is a professor who was a former welfare recipient, and she writes an article which discusses the fight to have work study counted toward TANF work activity. There is no Federal definition of what constitutes a work activity/vocational training. The federal government imposes numbers that the states must meet to receive funding, such as participation rates in a work activity. Al though the federal government imposes on the states that only a small percentage of its caseload can be receiving educational training g at a time; states have ways to get around these requirements, as discussed below.
Al though TANF grants the states broad discretion when implementing TANF, “TANF discourages states from allowing welfare recipients to participate in education and training programs,”21 Furthermore, only “30%” of a state’s caseload can count education as a work activity for a “12 month period.” This limits a recipient’s ability to higher education explicitly, and further limits a state’s ability to count education as a work activity for a greater number of recipients. A right to obtain higher education if one can obtain it through financial aid is also denied by the states through there criteria of what constitutes “educational training.” Many states do not include four year colleges as an eligible work activity, and so through the use of sanctions for noncompliance, welfare agencies deny recipients the opportunity to go to school by also making these hours ineligible for the child care that is subsidized during the hours of the work activity to be used toward the classes.
In the article State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Education under TANF, Pamela Friedman observes what effect welfare reform has had on recipient’s ability to obtain and maintain jobs which would support themselves and their families. While it was discovered that more people were working, it was also discovered that they were working in low wage jobs, with few if any skills, hence limited opportunity, if any, for growth. This article links higher education to the real success of welfare reform, allowing people to leave and stay off of TANF. This article discusses how many states implemented their welfare to work programs, focusing on “basic adult education” and “job search,” approaches that the author notes were unsuccessful in regard to recipients obtaining employment opportunities that would lead to self-sufficiency.
“A state has broad discretion in defining what it means to be “engaged in work” for purposes of this requirement and a state can choose to count participation in postsecondary education (or other education or training activities) as being engaged in work for purposes of the 24-month requirement,” 22 Through the “use of state maintenance effort funds” states can aid in the funding on recipients during their time in a four year college. (In order to get around time limits, have this activity count within the time frame). “Data on state policies indicate that there are 22 states with policies allowing participation in postsecondary degree programs for longer than the 12 months countable as work under federal law.”23
If we adopted a policy along the lines of Illinois welfare policy, reform could be successful, “In 1999, a number of states took legislative or executive action to increase access to postsecondary education and training. Illinois has an especially innovative policy: the state “stops the clock” for purposes of TANF time limits while a TANF recipient is a full-time postsecondary degree student and requires no other work activity, provided the recipient maintains at least a 2.5 grade point average.”24 Policies like this would enable recipients to truly successes and to maintain self-sufficiency when leaving the roles, avoiding getting back on them. This article used statistical evidence to illustrate that while employment rose and rolls declined, many recipients were employed in jobs that kept them below the federal poverty level as well as a lack of employer based services such as health insurance. “A recent study of a national sample of women who had left welfare found that among those who were employed, wages averaged $6.61, above the minimum wage but at only the 20th percentile of wages for all workers. Only 23% of the employed former recipients were receiving employer-provided health insurance. For employed TANF recipients, average earnings in 1998 were $553 a month.”25
States with success stories after implementing programs focusing on educational attainment “The recent, very impressive results from the Portland, Oregon site of the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS) confirm earlier research findings–the most effective welfare-to-work programs are those that have a central focus on employment, but also make substantial use of education and training as a tool for helping recipients become employable and find better jobs.
Program.”26 Areas such as Florida, California, Portland, and Baltimore have enacted successful welfare to work programs. Statistical evidence illustrates the benefits of attaining a higher education:
“An analysis of the labor market returns for postsecondary education found that women with associate degrees earn between 19-23% more than other women, even after controlling for differences in who enrolls in college. The same study, which analyzed nearly twenty years of longitudinal data while attempting to adjust for differences in ability and family background, found that women who obtained a bachelor’s degree earned 28-33% more than their peers. Other studies have found that each year of postsecondary education increases earnings by 6-12%.20 In addition, studies that have tracked welfare recipients who completed two or four-year degrees have found that about 90% of these graduates leave welfare and earn far more than other recipients.”27
Statistical evidence for educational attainment and higher wages, leaving poverty, staying off of welfare is further verified, “Census data also show a strong relationship between educational attainment, earnings, and the likelihood of being unemployed or out of the labor market.”28
“While Congress enacted a specific list of what counts as being ‘engaged in work’ for purposes of participation rates, Congress expressly said that for purposes of the 24-month requirement, an individual must be engaged in work ‘as defined by the state.’ This was not a technicality in drafting; it was broadly recognized that states would have extensive discretion in defining the contents of the 24-month work requirements… While a state’s definition of being ‘engaged in work’ must be within the bounds of reason, inclusion of work-preparation activities such as job search, job readiness, education and training can all be considered within the permissible activities that a state could include. Thus, there is no reason why the 24-month requirements need be a barrier to allowing access to postsecondary education in a state’s TANF program.”29
“A state may, unless otherwise prohibited by the law, spend TANF funds in any manner reasonably calculated to accomplish the purpose of the law. One purpose of the law is to provide assistance to needy families; another purpose is to end the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work and marriage. Thus, any of the above postsecondary education related costs could be viewed as reasonably calculated to accomplish a purpose of TANF for members of needy families.”30
Furthermore, MOE funds can be used by states to aid in families achieving self-sufficiency. “Thus, it is clear that a state may choose to use TANF or MOE funds in support of postsecondary education if it wishes to do so.”31 This further illustrates that the states are choosing to limit recipient access to higher education, even beyond what TANF requires.
“There are two principal work and participation requirements under TANF: federal participation rates (discussed below) and the 24-month requirement. While federal participation rate requirements are very specific as to what counts as participation and the consequences of a state’s failure to meet the rates, the 24-month requirement was written to allow very broad state discretion. It is up to each state to determine what counts as being “engaged in work” and a state can count participation in postsecondary education as being engaged in work for purposes of the 24-month requirement.”32
So, although TANF imposes limits on the states autonomy when implementing TANF, it never the less allows the states ways to grant recipients access to higher education. Furthermore, states can use measures such as “state waivers” to grant recipients access to higher education. “HHS says that a state’s waiver demonstration will be considered to have a “work participation component” if the demonstration includes provisions that directly correspond to the work policies in Section 407 of the TANF statute.”33 However, only “some states will be able to count postsecondary education toward participation rates to a greater extent, but only if the state asserts inconsistencies based on continuing a waiver until its expiration, and only if the state files the necessary certification with HHS.”34
This is a great start, a solution to the problem at the moment and allowing people more access now, yet this is not ideal. All recipients in every state need an equal right to be recognized to obtain/access higher education., we need a liberal federal standard. The article further discusses how states can use a “caseload reduction credit” to fund access to higher education for TANF recipients. Ultimately however, I disagree that we should use funding for job training programs, I advocate we focus solely on advocating funds in a manner which would allow recipients access to higher education. This focus, I believe, will lead to greater marketability of the recipients, hence an even greater opportunity for self-sufficiency.
This unequal access to higher education in different states manifests in numerous types of unequal citizenship between different groups of people. The first type of unequal citizenship exists between recipients and non-recipients of public assistance. Recipients are forced to revoke their financial aid and the ability to go to college where as non-recipients are not penalized by their employers for going to school (that would be discrimination). There are numerous recipients in a given state who are eligible for financial aid and cannot go to school because of TANF. All the while, non-recipients who receive aid can go to school without anyone telling them that their education doesn’t count/restricting their access with financial penalties. People on SSI or unemployment, for example, are not told that in order to receive their benefits, they must drop out of school.
TANF produces unequal access to higher education in different states due to the broad control given to the states to implement welfare to work policies. Differences in the state’s promotion of work first/implementation of welfare to work programs, illustrate the unequal citizenship between recipients in different states across the country and also between recipients within a state. Because resources are used to promote work first and insufficient vocational training programs, they are diverted from childcare that could allow for more recipients to pursue a higher education. Though the denial of access to higher education which would allow single mothers to earn a wage that would support her family, she is denied the option of being a self-sufficient single mother and supporting her family on her income. She gives up stay at home motherhood in an attempt to be a provider in a low wage job and go to school to get a better job. Due to this dilemma, not only must she forfeit the option of being a stay at home mother, she also has to accept that with current TANF policy, she will never be an adequate economic provider for her family. “Not surprisingly, given their low skills and educational levels, many welfare recipients fare poorly in the labor market.”35 This is proof that through the denial of higher education, the opportunity to obtain marketable skills, predominantly single mothers recipients are being kept in a certain position in the labor market.
TANF policies promote a system of patriarchy, or “new paternalism,” focusing explicitly on the goal of raising marriage rates and curbing out of wedlock births, promoting the nuclear dominant American family type which denies single mothers the opportunity to become self-sufficient as single mothers. Additionally, while TANF claims that the key to self-sufficiency is employment, a low wage job does not produce self-sufficiency. True self-sufficiency would come with the recipients gaining marketable skills to be marketable in the labor force, which are currently gained through post-secondary education. Recipients who are merely thrown into the labor force with no or little skill sets become extremely dependent on will of employer, and this leaves room for oppression, harassment, and exploitation by the employer.
If recipients attempt to deviate from this “New Paternalism” by becoming single mothers, then they are economically disenfranchised and forced to forfeit raising their children to work in the labor market. If women’s work in the home were recognized as work credited by the 35 hour work requirement, women would be closer to gender equality through the economic recognition of care giving for their children. In addition, if recipients were granted the opportunity to attend a four-year college, they would have opportunity to become self-sufficient. States can use surplus TANF funds to get around federal guidelines and to promote self sufficiency by providing access to higher education.
The government is limiting vocational freedom by denying higher education through the promotion of work-first. It is a common fact that people utilize higher education as a means to get out of poverty and/or climb the social/economic ladder, so the government is basically saying, “you’re too poor to ever be a doctor, the most you will and can ever be is a medical assistant, because that is all we will assist you in being.” This not only denies recipients the right to choose a career, it denies them the opportunity to gain skills necessary in today’s marketplace.
Conclusion
Both democrats and republicans held certain negative beliefs about welfare recipients, and through the enactment of TANF, Congress made a bi-partisan choice to restrict single mother headed families’ access to welfare. As TANF states explicitly in its first page, and as Mink discusses, TANF was created to promote marriage and work (outside the home), as opposed to providing assistance to needy single mothers. Being on welfare, recipients are not given the right to choose a partnership or to choose not to be in one, the right to reproductive freedom and a right to privacy. TANF inevitably makes all decisions for the recipient, and falsely bases their poverty on “poor moral choices,” hence legally punishes recipients by denying them an opportunity out of this poverty by denying recipients the entitlement or right to welfare. Poor women in need of welfare are legally susceptible to moral interrogation and denied full citizenship rights, this takes away this groups full equal status in the eyes of the law. This makes recipients legally sub citizens when compared to non-recipients, and rights are denied on the basis of TANF recipient status. The enactment of TANF is a way to slowly end welfare, and in its place would be private charity and social security, marriage promotion, and low-wage work, options that will not help poor single families become self-sufficient.
Next semester, I am going to interview recipients, experts on welfare policy, and politicians to illustrate what being on TANF is like, what a better policy would look like, and illustrate how some politicians are constrained as political actors while others are advocating the measures taken in TANF. I will also be doing more statistical research for marriage rates and funding for marriage promotion. I will also be doing more research on recipients access to higher education and how TANF is a barrier to this access. Through the interviews of recipients, I want to illustrate the goals, choices, and experiences that being on TANF create/enhance/destroy. I am also going to do more research on the welfare rights movement as I conclude the honors thesis advocating that we start a new welfare rights movement.
Bibliography
Books
Dworkin, Ronald. A Moral Reading of the Constitution 1996
Dworkin, Ronald. Liberalism 1985
Mink, Gwendolyn. Welfare’s End. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998.
Neubeck, Kenneth: When Welfare Disappears: The Case for Economic Human Rights Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, New York; 2006
Articles
Marriage, Poverty, and Public Policy By Stephanie Coontz and Nancy Folbre (A Discussion Paper from the Council on Contemporary Families, Prepared for the Fifth Annual CCF Confrence, April 26-28, 2002.) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/marriage/etc/poverty.html#
Workforce Development Series: Built to Last: Why Skills Matter for Long Run Success in Welfare Reform By Karin Martinson and Julie Strawn April 2003 Brief No. 1
Mark Greenberg, Lisa Plimpton, and Julie Strawn, State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF CLASP February 2000 http://s242739747.onlinehome.us/publications/state_opportunities_to_provide_access.pdf
1 Reese, Ellen: Backlash against Welfare Mothers, Past and Present University of California Press, 2005 Page 160
2 Reese, Ellen: Backlash against Welfare Mothers, Past and Present University of California Press, 2005 Page 158
3 Reese, Ellen: Backlash against Welfare Mothers, Past and Present University of California Press, 2005 Page 145
4 Dworkin, Ronald. Liberalism 1985 Page 190
5 Dworkin, Ronald. Liberalism 1985 Page 191
6 Dworkin, Ronald. Liberalism 1985 Page 196
7 Dworkin, Ronald. Liberalism 1985 Page 190
8 Dworkin, Ronald. Liberalism 1985 Page 191
9 Dworkin, Ronald. Liberalism 1985 Page 198
10 Neubeck, Kenneth: When Welfare Disappears: The Case for Economic Human Rights Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, New York; 2006 Page 31
11 Neubeck, Kenneth: When Welfare Disappears: The Case for Economic Human Rights Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, New York; 2006 Page 32
12 Neubeck, Kenneth: When Welfare Disappears: The Case for Economic Human Rights Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, New York; 2006 Page 35
13 Marriage, Poverty, and Public Policy By Stephanie Coontz and Nancy Folbre (A Discussion Paper from the Council on Contemporary Families, Prepared for the Fifth Annual CCF Confrence, April 26-28, 2002.)
14 Reese, Ellen: Backlash against Welfare Mothers, Past and Present University of California Press, 2005 Page 18
15 Marriage, Poverty, and Public Policy By Stephanie Coontz and Nancy Folbre (A Discussion Paper from the Council on Contemporary Families, Prepared for the Fifth Annual CCF Confrence, April 26-28, 2002.)
16 Mink, Gwendolyn. Welfare’s End. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998 page 5
17 Reese, Ellen: Backlash against Welfare Mothers, Past and Present University of California Press, 2005 page 22
18 Reese, Ellen: Backlash against Welfare Mothers, Past and Present University of California Press, 2005page 23
19 Mink, Gwendolyn. Welfare’s End. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998 page 28
20 Text of TANF
21 Workforce Development Series: Built to Last: Why Skills Matter for Long Run Success in Welfare Reform By Karin Martinson and Julie Strawn April 2003 Brief No. 1
22 Mark Greenberg, Lisa Plimpton, and Julie Strawn, State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF CLASP February 2000 page 5
23 Mark Greenberg, Lisa Plimpton, and Julie Strawn, State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF CLASP February 2000 Page 7
24 Mark Greenberg, Lisa Plimpton, and Julie Strawn, State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF CLASP February 2000 Page 7
25 Mark Greenberg, Lisa Plimpton, and Julie Strawn, State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF CLASP February 2000 Page 9
26 Mark Greenberg, Lisa Plimpton, and Julie Strawn, State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF CLASP February 2000 Pages 12-13
27 Mark Greenberg, Lisa Plimpton, and Julie Strawn, State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF CLASP February 2000 Pages 13-14
28 Mark Greenberg, Lisa Plimpton, and Julie Strawn, State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF CLASP February 2000 Page 14
29 Mark Greenberg, Lisa Plimpton, and Julie Strawn, State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF CLASP February 2000 Page 17
30 Mark Greenberg, Lisa Plimpton, and Julie Strawn, State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF CLASP February 2000 Page 15
31 Mark Greenberg, Lisa Plimpton, and Julie Strawn, State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF CLASP February 2000 Page 16
32 Mark Greenberg, Lisa Plimpton, and Julie Strawn, State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF CLASP February 2000 Page 16-17
33 Mark Greenberg, Lisa Plimpton, and Julie Strawn, State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF CLASP February 2000 Page 21
34 Mark Greenberg, Lisa Plimpton, and Julie Strawn, State Opportunities to Provide Access to Postsecondary Educational Training Under TANF CLASP February 2000 Page 21
35 Workforce Development Series: Built to Last: Why Skills Matter for Long Run Success in Welfare Reform By Karin Martinson and Julie Strawn April 2003 Brief No. 1
YEARLONG HONORS THESIS COLLOQUIUM MACAULAY COLLEGE AT CUNY FALL 2010
Draft Proposal
THE IMPACT OF SANCTIONS: The Case of Zimbabwe
By:
Charlesworth Mabheka
Dr. Vincent Bodoreau
Faculty Advisor
Distinguished Professor Lee Quiby
Project Instructor
DRAFT PROPOSAL
AUTHOR: Charlesworth Mabheka
TOPIC: The Impact of Economic Sanctions: The Case of Zimbabwe
FORMAT: Research Project
DUE DATE: 29 September, 2010
Introduction Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 which was hailed as a miracle by both the local and international community marked the beginning of majority rule and the hope of transition to democracy in that previously colonized country. Sadly, twenty – eight years after independence, Zimbabwe is an economic and democratic disaster. The country’s economy is in tatters, famine is threatening, and the miracle of 1980 turned into a nightmare. Law and order has broken down; bad governance and corruption are rampant; inflation is the highest in the world; nine out of ten adults are unemployed; commercial farming has collapsed; there is virtually no public health system; a shortage of teachers has crippled the school system; and one third of the population are in exile. The repression leashed against the opposition and the denial of property rights as well as the government’s refusal to respect the rule of law shocked the international community. The questions that come to mind are: How did this happen? And who is responsible? Who is to blame for this tragedy? What has caused deepening hunger, raging hyperinflation and the collapse of health, sanitation and education services that have crippled what was once the breadbasket of Africa? Was this a result of bad economic management policies, corruption, the rule of law and bad governance? On balance, I conclude that it was due to the seizure of white-owned farms by Mugabe’s black supporters resulting in serious human rights violations that led to the imposition of sanctions causing the country’s economic crisis.
Historical Background It is important to understand that the land question has always been and remains central to Zimbabwe’s economic, political, and social development. Thus, this paper seeks to place both the current land crisis in Zimbabwe in its proper historical context by tracing the origins of the problem of the land question from the early years of British colonization, through the struggle against colonialism via the Lancaster House Agreement right through twenty years of Zimbabwe’s independence, to the farm invasions of 2000 and beyond. All these factors bear testimony to the centrality of the land issue as the reason for imposition of sanctions by the United States and its allies. Most importantly the paper will examine the social, political, and economic impact of sanctions on the people of Zimbabwe. I also dwell on the land redistribution program, a very important theme of the causes of sanctions against Zimbabwe. My main thesis on the impact of economic sanctions imposed against Zimbabwe therefore rests upon three themes; the conquest and colonization of Zimbabwe, the Lancaster House Agreement, and the land question. They are all critical to understanding the causes and impact of economic sanctions. It should be acknowledged that while it is difficult to disentangle the effects of sanctions from the effects of the land seizures, other factors such as corruption, inflation and the rule of law were at work at the same time and these factors are also to blame for Zimbabwe’s economic dilemma.
Settler Conquest and Colonization It cannot be disputed that the land question is central to Zimbabwe’s political, social and economic development. It is true that no explanation of the causes and impact of economic sanctions can be complete without an investigation of the colonial history of Zimbabwe. The economic and political crisis facing the country today is a complex situation, which has its origins in a number of factors originating from the country’s special history of colonization. When the white settlers arrived in Mashonaland in 1890, “their main hope was to find gold,” states Meredith. “Each settler was awarded fifteen mining claims,” he maintains. According to Meredith, the gold rush proved disappointing and the whites therefore turned to the next prize, land (2002, 112). The scramble for land in the 1890s became more than plunder. Farms were taken by Rhodes’s agents regardless of whether local people were living there, maintains Meredith (2002, 112). When the first whites arrived in 1890, the land was inhabited by the Shona and the Ndebele people, who claimed sovereignty. Rhodes tricked Lobengula into a treaty. He believed he was allowing a mere handful of prospectors to enter his country. But the concession which he signed was deliberately mistranslated by the Reverend Charles Helm.
War of Liberation
It is important for the reader to recognize that true that no discussion of the causes of Zimbabwe’s current economic sanctions can be complete without an analysis of the Zimbabwe war of liberation. A detailed examination of Zimbabwe’s guerilla war of the 1970s, which was fought principally to overthrow white rule and gain power is important. As noted by Hill (2007, p.118), “land grievances and landlessness, the idea of winning back lost lands provided much of the rhetoric and motivation behind the war”
Lancaster Agreement
I turn now to a review of The Lancaster House Constitutional Conference at which convened on 10 September 1979, which is important in explaining the causes of the farm invasions, an act which led to the impositions of sanctions. The road to the Lancaster Agreement was not easy and during the Lancaster negotiations, the land issue was difficult to resolve. Specific attention should be paid to the fact that the problem came when the conference presented a draft constitution which contained no reference to the land. The whites, backed by the British government, insisted that land rights should be entrenched in a Bill of Rights in the new constitution. (Hill, 2007, p.118).As noted earlier, whites, who comprised 5% of the population owned 80% of the arable land, while millions of black people scratched at a living on the rest. For Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Nkomo this was critical. During the liberation struggle, Zimbabwe’s major liberation movements called for the abolition of private property and the distribution of white owned land. ` It is therefore clear that the current economic problems started with the Lancaster Agreement itself which supported the status quo and stolen land acquired in the plunder of Zimbabwe remaining in the hands of the white minority regime instead of being transferred to the Zimbabwean peasants, the rightful owners. Chua sees Mugabe as a key reason for the economic collapse of Zimbabwe. (Miller, pp.166- 167). She points out that “President Mugabe has encouraged the violent seizure of 10 million acres of white – owned commercial farmland (qtd. In Miller, pp.166- 167). Two days after a white farmer Henry Ellsworth was killed in an ambush near his farm, Mugabe said, “This country is our country, and this land is our land,” concluding, “The white man is not indigenous to Africa. Africa is for Africans. Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans!”(Meredith, 2002, p.121) . As one Zimbabwean explained, “The land belongs to us. The foreigners should not own land here. There is no Black Zimbabwean who owns land in England. Why should any European own land here?” Similarly, Mugabe occasionally resorted to rhetoric in addressing the land problem. “We can never have peace in the country unless the peasant population is satisfied in relation to the land issue,” he declared in 1981 (qtd.in Meredith, p.121). Mugabe whipped support over the land issue in advance of the 1990 election. “It makes absolute nonsense of our history as an African country that most of our arable and ranching land is still in the hands of our erstwhile colonizers, while the majority of our peasant community still live like squatters in their God – given land.” He promised a ‘revolutionary’ program of agrarian reform to redistribute land (qtd.in Meredith, p. 121).
Works Cited
Save//Ehonorsproposal
Annotated Bibliography
Harare. (2010). In Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved November 25, 2010, from Encyclopedia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/254859/Harare Harare, formerly Salisbury, capital of Zimbabwe, lying in the northeastern part of the country. The city was founded in 1890 at the spot where the British South Africa Company’s Pioneer Column halted its march into Mashonaland; it was named for Lord Salisbury, then British prime minister. The name Harare is derived from that of the outcast Chief Neharawe, who, with his people, occupied the kopje (the hill at the foot of which the commercial area grew) at the time the Pioneer Column arrived and seized the land.
Lamb Christina, House of Stone, 2007, Chicago, Happer Collins Publishers. Land had not being the main aim of the first white settlers when they left Cape Town for Mafeking in April 1890 to gather in a long line of ox wagons behind a Union Jack and head off across the Limpopo or Crocodile River for Mashonaland. Stories of hills of gold, even more dazzling than the Rand, the great gold ridge of Johannesburg then making many fortunes, had spread through the Cape Colony and Europe. It was known that there had been gold mines in Mashonaland in the time of the African rulers who traded with the Portuguese. Runours abounded that Mashonaland was the site of King Solomon’s mines or the fable land of Ophir referred to in the Bible, and the 200 members of Cecil john Rhodes’s Pioneer Column had each been promised fifteen gold claims. (p.9) Lobengula, king of the Ndebele, had been tricked by Rhodes into granting British rights for mining and colonization of these lands. In 1888, Rhodes sent three emissaries led by Charles Rudd to king Lobengula’s krall in Matabeleland to request a monopoly on prospecting rights, but the illiterate but highly intelligent King wavered over Rudd’s request. He was finally persuaded by the arrival of Rhodes’s special emissary, Dr. Leander Starr Jameson. Encouraged by Jim as he was known, Lobengula put his mark to the so –called Rudd Concession in return for a pension of 100 pounds a month, 10,000 rifles, 100,000 rounds of ammunition and a gunboat on the Zambezi. The king later claimed the document had been deliberately mistranslated. The missionary who read it to him had assured him that the British would not bring more than ten white men and ‘would abide by his laws and be as his people’. Lobengula sent two envoys to London with a letter of protest to Queen Victoria, all to no avail. Despite the method by which the concession was obtained, Rhodes was granted a royal charter to make treaties, promulgate laws, establish a police force, and award land throughout Mashonaland and Matabeleland, an area of 175,000 square miles – about three times the size of England. Initially known as Zambezi, the name was changed to Rhodesia in his honor. (P…9-11)
Lamb Christina, House of Stone, 2007, Chicago, Happer Colins Publishers.
There were gold rushes all over the land, including in the hills around Chivhu, but
Instead of the imagined quartz reefs studded with lambs of gold they found malaria and
Famine. So they turned to the next available prize – land. Each settler was awarded 3,000
Acres for just sixpence – the price of a British South Africa company revenue stamp – and farms were pegged out regardless of whether there were people living there. (p.13)
Lamb Christina, House of Stone, 2007, Chicago, Hipper Collins Publishers. However, as Lamb, Meredith and other authors noted ‘the land distribution was undoubtedly unfair, with most of the productive land still in white hands. But the 5,000 commercial farms produced most of the food for the nation, were the country’s biggest employer and responsible for 40 percent of its export earnings. (p.xxi)
O’Neil H. Patrick. (2010, 2006, 2004) CASES IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS 3rd Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Like South Africa, Zimbabwe (formerly known as Rhodesia) is a former British colony in which small white elite once dominated the black majority. Just as the African national Congress (ANC) fought a guerrilla campaign against the South African government, in Zimbabwe, a movement known as Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), led by Robert Mugabe, struggled to end white rule. After years of violent conflict, the Smith regime agreed to open elections in 1980, which ZANU won. As in South Africa, the transition from white rule was predicated on allowing the white minority to maintain its economic domination over the country. . (O’Neil:525)
Meredith, H. (2002, 2003, 2007). Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe (19-20.) Cecil John Rhodes’s private commercial enterprise, the British South Africa Company, declared the occupation of Mashonaland in 1890 in the name of Queen Victoria. The land was a reward for the role the Jesuits had played in accompanying the Pioneer Column of white settlers that Rhodes had sent across the Limpopo River to search for gold and extend the realms of the British Empire. Like all the land that Rhodes handed out to the white settlers, the land at Chishawasha Mission – some 12,000 acres – was acquired by dispossessing the local population.
Meredith, H. (2002, 2003, 2007). Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe (113.) “Within ten years of the arrival of the Pioneer Column, nearly 16 million acres – one – sixth of the entire land area of 96 million acres – had been seized by whites.”
Meredith, H. (2002, 2003, 2007). Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe (118-119.) The guerrilla war of the 1970s – the second Chimurenga, as the Shona call it – was fought principally to overthrow white rule and gain power, but land grievances and landlessness, the idea of winning back “lost” lands, provided much of the rhetoric and motivations behind it. Throughout the war, Mugabe promised that, “When whites were defeated, every African would be given land.”
Meredith, H. (2002, 2003, 2007). Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe (118-119.) During the he Lancaster House negotiations, the land issue was one of the most difficult to resolve. The whites backed by the British insisted that land rights were entrenched in a Bill of Rights in a new constitution”.
Meredith, H. (2002, 2003, 2007). Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe (170-171.) On March 17, the commercial farmers Union (CFU) obtained a High Court Order declaring the land invasions to be illegal and instructing the police to evict the invaders within twenty- four hours. Hunzvi defied the Court Order saying, “We cannot accept the humiliation of being told by a Whiteman to pack our backs and leave our land.”
O’Neil H. Patrick. (2010, 2006, 2004) CASES IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS 3rd Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Mugabe turned to the white landowners, who controlled most of the farmland in Zimbabwe and encouraged his supporters to seize white-owned land. (O’Neil:525) Like many others, Lamb says ‘she could not believe that Mugabe was really serious about seizing all the white –owned farms’ (p.xxi).
Meredith, Martin. (2002, 2003, 2007) Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe, New York, Public Affairs. “We can never have peace in the country unless the peasant population is satisfied in relation to the land issue,” he had declared in 1981. Meredith asserts that Mugabe whipped support over the land issue saying “It makes absolute nonsense of our history as an African country that most of our arable and ranching land is still in the hands of our erstwhile colonizers, while the majority of our peasant community still live like squatters in their God – given land.” The author also notes that two days after a white farmer Henry Ellsworth was killed in an ambush near his farm, Mugabe said, “This country is our country, and this land is our land, the white man is not indigenous to Africa. Africa is for Africans. Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans!”(Meredith, 2002:121).
(Miller: 166-167).
Chua sees Mugabe as a key reason for the economic collapse of Zimbabwe and points out that “President Mugabe has encouraged the violent seizure of 10 million acres of white – owned commercial farmland,” and asserts that during the land invasions one Zimbabwean explained that, “The land belongs to us. The foreigners should not own land here. There is no Black Zimbabwean who owns land in England. Why should any European own land here?” Whilst Mugabe himself was more explicit, “Strike fear in the heart of the white man, our real enemy!”
(Miller: 166-167).
In her celebrated article “The Spread of Global Free – Market Democracy,” Professor Amy Chua looks at the impact of the land invasions in Zimbabwe, and explains that “Watching Zimbabwe’s economy take a free fall as a result of the mass land grab, the US, the UK, and the EU together with dozens of human rights groups urged President Mugabe to step down, calling for free and fair elections” (Miller: 166-167).
Lamb Christina, House of Stone, 2007, Chicago, Happer Colins Publishers In the 1980s Zimbabwe seemed a true Garden of Eden and the roads which people travelled passed through a patchwork of lush green fields of tobacco, cotton and maize. They looked like model farms with combine harvesters gathering up neat bundles, long greenhouses full of neatly spaced roses, and rainbows playing through the water sprinkling from sophisticated irrigation systems. Today Zimbabwe looks as if a terrible scourge has swept through. Some of the most advanced farms in the world have been reduced to slash and burn. The fields are charred and spiked with dead maize stalks or overgrown with weeds; the equipment has been plundered and stripped; and what little ploughing still goes on is by oxen and donkey. The country, which used to export large amounts of food and called the bread basket of Africa’ cannot even feed its own people. The destruction of the farm has left more than half of Zimbabwe’s 12 million populations on the edge of starvation and life expectancy has plummeted to around 30. The money became so worthless, with a loaf of bread costing 90,000 Zim dollars that the country is got to a barter economy (Lamb: xxii –xiii)
Hill Geoff, WHAT HAPPENS AFTER MUGABE? Can Zimbabwe Rise From the Ashes? Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2003. By 2004, average life expectancy, which stood at fifty six years in 1975, had slipped to just thirty-three, the lowest in the world. A quarter of the adult population was HiV positive or suffering from full – blown AIDS, 70 percent lived below the poverty line, with almost as many not having enough to eat, and the state allocated just 3 percent of its budget to health, while more than twice that figure was spent on defense. It is indeed, an unpalatable fact that public health is rarely regarded as a political priority by developing country governments. Planning to improve health is not integrated into development or economic planning, or vice versa. In 2004, the government bought army vehicles and jet fighters from China for $200 million, while in some rural clinics nurses didn’t even have soap to wash their hands. In the face of wholesale emigration by doctors and nurses and lack of funds for basic care, the British medical journal had ranked Zimbabwe as having the worst health system in the world as far back as August 2001, placing it at the bottom of a World health Organization list of 191 nations. And AIDS is another problem. For example, figures published by UNICEF suggest that 25 percent of Zimbabwean teachers are HIV- positive, and that by the end of 2010 some 38 000, or just over a third of the current staff, will have died (Hill: 32). And unless billions have been spent on the country’s health system, there will be little help for patients afflicted with a headache, let alone HIV/AIDS. But there is another problem – cholera. Water treatment has suffered because foreign currency was not available to import chlorine and other chemicals, and gastro-internal diseases are common. Outbreaks of typhoid and cholera are annual events; waste disposal is erratic, and when people get sick, they are hard pressed to find help. On average, developed countries have 320 doctors per 100 000 people. In Africa, it’s only twelve, (IOM) and Zimbabwe falls near the bottom of that list, with just six. (United Nations Development Report, 2004, quoted in The Zimbabwe Independent, 8 October 2004.) By 2005, in rural areas government introduced ox- drawn ambulances because fuel and spare parts couldn’t be found for the vehicles that used to transport patients to hospital. The cost of seeing a doctor was more than the average monthly wage. One witness in Zimbabwe is a horrific mix of the AIDS pandemic and an intense political and economic crisis. The medical infrastructure in the country is limited to begin with. Add to that a situation in which one in three adults have HIV and no access to antiretroviral, and the result, at the ground zero level, is unimaginable human suffering. Patients with medical complications of HIV are packed into run-down wards. The morgues are full to capacity and the coffin industry is booming. (Hill: 37)
O’Neil H. Partick. (2010, 2006, 2004) CASES IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS 3rd Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. For example, as Zimbabwe’s government under Robert Mugabe slid deep into authoritarian rule over the past decade, Nigeria supported the country’s suspension from the Commonwealth of Nations, and both Obasanjo have been openly critical of Mugabe’s dictatorial rule.(O’Neil :563)
“The land is ours. We shall feed all. Even the stooges and puppets will have enough. No Zimbabwean should die of hunger”
Robert Mugabe, August 2002.
Chan, Stephen. Robert Mugabe; a life of power and violence: Michigan: the University of Michigan Press, 2003. Of course, the broad figures of land ownership could only support Mugabe’s social justice perspective. Since independence, the government had purchased 3.3. Million hectares (8.15 million acres). In 1992, 4500 mostly white farmers owned 11.5 million hectares. This was one third of the entire country. 7 million peasants lived on 16.4 million hectares of ‘communal’ farmland. Having said that, despite the controversy surrounding it, The Land Act proposed to purchase only another 5.5 million hectares. The status quo, certainly in productive terms, would have still been biased towards the white farmers and, politically, if this redistribution had taken place the issue would have been, for some time finished. (p76)
Lamb Christina, House of Stone, 2007, Chicago, Happer Colins Publishers.
Nehanda, the woman from Mazowe inspired the 1896 uprising of the Shona against the white settlers when they realized they had been cheated out of their land by the strangers. The pioneers were taken by surprise by the revolt of natives they had seen as placid and submissive as the cattle they herded, and whom they had thought welcomed their arrival as protection against the raiding parties of the Ndebele. But the Shona were angry that not only had they lost their land, but were also expected to pay hut tax which meant losing their menfolk to the mines and farms of the strangers.” (p.41)
Chan, Stephen. Robert Mugabe; a life of power and violence: Michigan: the University of Michigan Press, 2003. The second Chimurenga, the War of Liberation that ended with independence in 1980, was a victory over the political structures imposed by generations of settler government and culture, but not over the land ownership structures of the almost century long settler era. As outlined above, Mugabe had, from the beginning, regarded land as a great unfinished issue, but there were never the funds to purchase huge amounts of white land and, as the international community – Britain very much included – became disinclined to help, Mugabe’s rhetoric became shriller. The War Veterans who unveiled themselves as the squatters and invaders of farms in 2000 were echoing the unfinished nature of the Chimurenga, and Mugabe, himself as its spiritual heir was disinclined to discourage them. In Britain, commentators were inclined to condemn the farm invasions. (p.148)
Lamb Christina, House of Stone, 2007, Chicago, Happer Colins Publishers.
When he was elected Prime Minister in 1964, Smith had no intention of being the next victim of what Harold Macmillan called ‘the winds of change’ sweeping through the continent. Rhodesia was more complicated because although the whites numbered only 220 thousands, compared to almost 5 million blacks and went back at most three generations, they considered themselves just as indigenous. The Rhodesian leader also pointed out that, unlike other colonies, this country had a sophisticated economy based on mining and agriculture with its own merchant banks and stock exchange. If it was to be independent, he wanted it under continued white minority rule to safe guard all this (p.22) , and on 11 November 1965, found themselves the first white settlers to rebel since the Boston Tea Party in 1776 (21), with Smith signing the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from Britain.
Lamb Christina, House of Stone, 2007, Chicago, Happer Colins Publishers.
More than 400,000 people, almost a third of the black population, were evicted from their villages between 1945 and 1955. In 1969, Prime Minister Ian Douglas Smith announced the Land Tenure Act so that the division of land – good to the whites and bad to the blacks would be fixed for all time.”((p.14)
Chan, Stephen. Robert Mugabe; a life of power and violence: Michigan: the University of Michigan Press, 2003. In April 2000, Mugabe was still saying that (p.150) “no white farmer would be chased from Zimbabwe, provided he or she wanted to stay in the country and share land with the landless peasants.” Herald (Harare), 8 April 2000. Mugabe rushed through his 16th Constitutional Amendment providing that if Britain did not pay compensation for nationalized land it could be nationalized without any compensation at all. The Justice Minister speaking on the amendment in Parliament charged that ‘the current British government has reneged on the issue of paying compensation on land acquired for resettlement.’
Chan, Stephen. Robert Mugabe; a life of power and violence: Michigan: the University of Michigan Press, 2003. In the last days of February and beginning of March 2000, thousands of surprisingly urban attired ‘squatters’ occupied 70 white –owned farms. Ten days into March, 500 farms had been occupied. (p.147)
Chan, Stephen. Robert Mugabe; a life of power and violence: Michigan: the University of Michigan Press, 2003. By October, Mugabe was giving speeches about the return to socialism, and espousing a revolutionary rhetoric from decades before. He fended off the EU and Commonwealth call to an end of violence; Europe began talking of sanctions as Mugabe began talking of socialism p.174).
Chan, Stephen. Robert Mugabe; a life of power and violence: Michigan: the University of Michigan Press, 2003. “The white farmers have two options: to handover the land and leave or to stay and see what land we leave them. The whites are foreigners, they are British! They should go back to Britain.” (Guardian, 20 April 2000). ZANU –PF placards rubbed in the official discourse: ‘Zimbabwe will never be a colony again’ (p. 156).
Lamb Christina, House of Stone, 2007, Chicago, Happer Colins Publishers. Christina lamb looked more closely at the impact of land on economic sanctions and concluded that “Each settler was awarded 3,000 acres for just sixpence – the price of a British South Africa company revenue stamp – and farms were pegged out regardless of whether there were people living there.”
Lamb Christina, House of Stone, 2007, Chicago, Happer Colins Publishers Lamb asserts that the history of Rhodesia started with the arrival of the whites to civilize warring kaffir tribes and ‘the whites came and drove out the black people to the hills and mountains and barren land and took away the good land. As Ian Smith’s later described in his memoirs, “As for the white settlers taking the best land, because of the primitive agricultural implements used by the black people which were wooden as opposed to the iron used by the white man they were concentrated on the light sandy soils which they found easier to work”.(p.40-42)
Lamb Christina, House of Stone, 2007, Chicago, Happer Collins Publishers The Comrades recalled Nehanda on the hangman’s block and promised, “We will give you back the Whiteman’s land!” (p.71)
Chan, S, (2003). ROBERT MUGABE: a life of power and violence. Michigan: University of Michigan Press. The roots of the land problem had grown from settler seedlings. The appropriation of land, by Cecil Rhodes’s British South Africa Company at the end of the nineteenth century, was not gentle. In 1896, a huge uprising of both Shona and Ndebele people killed some 400 settlers. This was the first liberation War, Chimurenga, of modern Zimbabwean history. The settler’s response was even more brutal than the uprising, and ‘native” modes of self- organization were destroyed. The formalization of white hegemony over the land came in the 1923 Constitution, which entrenched native reserves, and in 1930, with the Land Apportionment Act, whereby Rhodesia was largely divided into land privately owned by white settlers (by far the majority of land, and the best), and what came known in the Smith era as the “tribal trust lands”, a kind of peasant –farmer extended reservation. The second Chimurenga, the war of liberation that ended with independence in 1980, was a victory over the political structures imposed by generations of settler government and culture., but not over the land ownership structures of the almost- century –long settler era. As outlined above, Mugabe had, from the beginning, regarded land as a great unfinished issue, but there were never the funds to purchase huge amounts of white lands and, as the international community – Britain very much included – became disinclined to help. (P.148)
Lind Nancy Sand Tamas Bernard I. (2007). Controversies of the George W. Bush Presidency. London: Greenwood Press. P.118- 119. On March 6, 2003, President Bush declared economic sanctions against Zimbabwe. The United States cited several clear undemocratic practice of the Mugabe regime, the lack of respect for human rights, and the rampant violence throughout the country as reasons for his step. By issuing this executive order, the president advanced his administration’s stand on furthering the spread of democracy and the upholding of human rights in the region, both were seen as essential for achieving long-term stability. The European also decided to impose sanctions on the Zimbabwe government by freezing assets within the country. Some surrounding African leaders were puzzled by the actions taken by the United States and the European Union. Leaders such as Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa as well as the Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo questioned the alleged human rights violations and reminded both powers to the democratic ideals upheld in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean government strongly condemned the sanctions. Although the sanctions were put in place in 2003, they continue to be enforced today (Lind and Tamas 118- 119).
Herbst, Jeffrey State Politics in Zimbabwe, Berkeley; University of California Press, 1990. In his controversial but generally celebrated book, State Politics in Zimbabwe Herbst, Jeffrey points out that “by 1990 there were in fact two conflicts over land: the government and the white farmers, and the rise of squatters – unilateral takers over land.”
Meredith M, (2002, 2003, 2007). Power Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe: Mugabe, New York: Public Affairs. Thus after independence in 1980 the pattern for land ownership remained much as it had been for most of the twentieth century: white large scale commercial farmers, numbering 6000 , held 39 percent of the land; black small- scale commercial farmers, numbering some 6000, held 39 percent of the land; black small-scale commercial farmers, numbering 8000, held 4 percent. Most productive land was held by the whites; three quarters of all peasant land lay in areas where droughts occurred frequently and where …(120)”
Chan, Stephen. Robert Mugabe: A Life of Power and Violence. London: Tauris, 2003. “The white farmers have two options: to handover the land and leave or to stay and see what land we leave them. The whites are foreigners, they are British! They should go back to Britain.” The book notes that ZANU –PF placards rubbed in the official discourse: ‘Zimbabwe will never be a colony again.’ (156)
Lamb Christina, House of Stone, 2007, Chicago, Happer Colins Publishers A crowd of people arrived at the gate of a white couple Claire and Nigel Hough, waving a letter demanding the farm. ‘This is not Rhodesia anymore!’ shouted one man. ‘Go back to your own people’. One woman who had worked for the Hough’s’ as their maid and much- loved nanny to their children had joined the chanting crowd. ‘Get out or we’ll kill you!’ she spat at Nigel, eyes rolling with hatred. ‘There is no place for whites in this country!’(p.xx)
Chan, Stephen. Robert Mugabe: A Life of Power and Violence. London: Tauris, 2003. Mugabe had built an entire policy rationale and personal raison d’être on restoring white land to the majority black people. Now he accused the opposition of planning to give that land back to the whites; and Tsvangirai was. However, the issue may be addressed by pointing to food shortages: ‘There is need for land resettlement in this country but we also have to deal with a very serious food deficit’. In short, the growing hunger is inextricably linked to Mugabe’s policy of land seizures. These had radically affected agricultural production, and been compounded by drought. “We believe,” he said, we can find a lasting solution, a more equitable solution, by creating space for the landless and at the same time also recognizing that commercial agriculture is important for the long –term economic stability of the country.”Guardian, 28 February, 2002. These things begged the question of how the squatters and war veterans were to be removed from the land they had occupied, or how non- squatters and veterans who had been assigned seized land under the legal processes Mugabe had instituted – might be persuaded to move; or to where they might be moved, what land they might be instead be given. (p.200)
Hill Geoff, WHAT HAPPENS AFTER MUGABE? Can Zimbabwe Rise From the Ashes? Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2003. In February 2000, Mugabe offered his people a chance to alter the constitution through a referendum. Under the new deal, vast tracts of fertile land owned by Zimbabwe’s 4000 white commercial farmers would be seized and redistributed among landless blacks. A plan to spread ownership more evenly had been drawn up after independence and was funded from London, until it emerged that farms bought from whites were being given to black government ministers and their families. Britain and other donors withdrew from the scheme, but now the government would take the land without compensation (p.16).
International Crisis Group (Brussels), 2004. Zimbabwe’s land reform program has achieved neither fairness nor productivity. Instead, it has virtually destroyed agricultural capacity while simply rewarding senior ZANU – PF, military and business circles with a windfall of land they often neglect. International Crisis Group, Brussels, 2004.
Lamb, C (2007). House of Stone, 2007. Chicago: Happer Colins Publishers.
Shortly after we saw Smith’s soldiers, guys from the bush, Mugabe’s recruits began to appear, vanamukoma, – the boys. They referred to the war as the Second Chimurenga after the unsuccessful 1896 uprising of the Shona against the white settlers.
Melissa Gutierrez October 31, 2010
Position Paper #2: Marriage Promotion in TANF
My claim for my overall thesis is that recipients are denied an opportunity to achieve self-sufficiency in the American welfare system. One way in which this is done is through the denial of an opportunity to receive higher education, which is discussed in my other position paper. In this position paper, I will focus on how women are denied an opportunity for self-sufficiency through the policies of TANF which does not support single motherhood by reallocating TANF funds from programs that assist single mothers and funding marriage promotion. Ultimately, the government is denying women independence (self-sufficiency) through promoting marriage (dependency).
I am going to borrow terms from Ronald Dworkin’s writings, Liberalism and A Moral Reading of the Constitution, such as “external preferences,” “neutrality” and “the good life” to illustrate how the government has, through federalism, history, and the enactment of TANF, denied recipients the equal rights of citizenship and hence has violated their Constitutional rights. Furthermore, I will use Drowkin’s theories to explore how rights can be used as protection from the government’s legislated external preferences such as TANF. These welfare rights could be discovered in the Constitution by the court and upheld and protected. Furthermore, the Court can easily protect recipients through the equal protection clause, as I will illustrate.
The majoritarian system has flaws that can be addressed by ensuring a system of rights and a strong judicial system. In Liberalism, Dworkin argues there are defects in a “pure majoritarian process” that can be addressed by adding a “scheme of rights.” This scheme of rights ensures that individuals are “treated as equals” by the government (Dworkin 1985, 190). The government treats people as equals by acting “neutral to varying conceptions of the good life,” (Dworkin 1985, 191). This in turn respects people’s “moral independence.” Additionally, the judicial branch plays an essential role in limiting majority rule through the use of judicial review and striking laws that violate the rights of individuals.
I will begin by discussing why rights limit the majoritarian process. In a pure majority rule, the rights of the minority are lost in favor of the majority, meaning the government was not treating its citizens as equals. America is a democracy that doesn’t have pure majority rule. Our system of checks and balances and the Bill of Rights limit pure majority rule. Dworkin believes “in practice the decisions of the democratic majority may often violate individual rights,” (Dworkin 1985, 196). In A Moral Reading, Dworkin argues that in favor of the “majoritarian process.” Dworkin is not anti-democracy; he is in favor of majoritarian democracy with rights which would limit and constrain ordinary law. Dworkin argues for the majoritarian process PLUS rights.
One reason why rights limit the majoritarian democracy is because some laws are based on “animus” and rights correct those laws. In A Moral Reading, Dworkin distinguishes between the two types of laws produced by majoritarian rule: laws based on external and laws based on personal preferences. He notes there is an important difference between these two types of laws: some are justified and others are not. Laws that are not justified are problematic because they impinge on individual rights in favor of the majoritarian process. The democratic majoriratian process sometimes mixes in external preferences, some of which can be harmful to a minority’s rights (or laws containing “animus”). According to Dworkin, the laws are based on “external and personal preferences.” Personal preferences refer to decisions that are made based on personal needs and interests. External preferences are “preferences people have about what others shall do or have,” (Dworkin 1985, 196).
Civil Rights are necessary (scheme of rights) to provide minorities with protection by ensuring that strong external preferences are removed from the majoritarian political institutions. This ensures that when the majority has strong external preferences, (as cited in the example below) that Congress, for example, would not pass a law that reflects the majority’s external preferences and violate the rights (or good life)of minorities. The good life is each “individual’s conception of what gives value to life,” (Dworkin 1985, 191) Liberalism believes that all citizens have a right to enjoy their vision of the good life as long as it is not harmful to others. The government is supposed to pass laws in a way that respects “varying conceptions of the good life.” The rights needed to accomplish the removal of strong external preferences will depend on the prejudice the majority is attempting to impose on a minority.
If the government passed laws based on external preferences they would not be treating people as equals or as morally independent. For example, most states have laws banning homosexual marriage because a majority of people believe it’s immoral (the majority’s strong external preference). These laws impinge on the rights of the tax-paying gay community (the minority) to get married. The prohibition of gay marriage illustrates the government infringing on homosexuals’ vision of the good life (being married). This denies homosexuals’ equal status as “morally independent.” Marriage is a right that heterosexuals’ enjoy. Based on external moral preferences (animus against homosexuals), homosexuals’ are denied this same right (or equal opportunity). The prohibition of homosexual marriage in most states is an example of the government passing laws based on strong moral external prefrences as opposed to being neutral. This means the government is not treating homosexuals’ as equal to heterosexuals’ or respecting them as morally independent.
Dworkin states that all though external preferences are problematic, we can’t remove ALL of them from the political process. When we vote for Congress we are voting on our external preferences. Dworkin argues that without rights, the majoritarian process and external and personal preferences would lead to “in-egalitarian results,” which is the opposite of the liberal’s egalitarian intentions (Dworkin 1985, 190). Rights, for the liberal, ensure that the government treats people as equals. Treating people as equals is the “idea that the government has to treat all individuals with equal concern and respect,” (Dworkin, 1985 190). This requires government to be neutral to differing conceptions of “the good life”. Neutrality would mean that the government would not value one version of the “good life” over another. That would ensure the government treated peoples’ values equally and treated individuals as morally independent. We need rights in a majoritarian system to ensure the “government is neutral toward varying conceptions of the good life.” This gives people equal status as moral individuals. This is why we have rights and why they limit the majoritarian process.
In Liberalism, Dworkin notes the United States is committed to guaranteeing the government treats citizens with “equal respect and concern.” For Liberals, this “scheme of rights” is the Bill of Rights plus the 13th and 14th Amendments. He goes into the example of the Equal Protection clause and how it was written when homosexuality and gender were not issues. Yet, because of the generality of the language used in the Equal Protection Clause (“equal protection of the laws”), it was left open for future interpretation to fit any issue where equality was being denied. Rights, Dworkin argues, function as “Trump Cards” that citizens can use if the majority’s external preferences are violating a minority’s rights. Rights are justified as a necessity because “they protect equal concern and respect,” (Dworkin 1985, 198). Liberals argue that rights are justified because they improve “political morality”. They believe treating people as equals is the RIGHT thing to do, and it is, I agree.
I will now turn to how rights limit the majoritarian process. In A Moral Reading, Dworkin argues for a “moral reading” of the Constitution. He asserts that “the Bill of Rights can only be understood as a set of moral principles,” (Dworkin 1996, 12). In his “Constitutional conception of democracy,” he argues for rejection of the majoritarian premise, or majoritarian rule. In its place would be a system in which citizens’ consent to the government making all collective decisions. This government must treat all consenting citizens with “equal concern or respect.” This would mean treating people as equals hence people are granted equal status in the eyes of the law. (Dworkin 1996, 17). All three branches have important functions in ensuring rights are upheld and granted. Dworkin notes that one particular branch plays a role of significant importance when ensuring our rights: the judiciary.
In A Moral Reading, Dworkin notes that judicial review is a check on the majoritarian system. Judicial review ensures that civil liberties are not violated or inexcusably compromised. Depending on the Justice’s interpretation or reading of the Constitution, rights are expanded, denied, or protected. In a Moral reading, Dworkin shows us that HOW justices interpret the Constitution can grant or deny rights. He advocates for a reading that involves examining “past legal and political practice as well as what the framers intended to say,” (Dworkin 1996, 9-10).
In A Moral Reading, Dworkin notes our rights (or protection from the government) come from the Bill of rights and the 13th and 14th Amendments. These rights were written using abstract moral language which restrains governments’ power. He uses the example of Equal Protection of the laws to illustrate that our rights are “general political principles.” Taking into account precedent, political and legal history and the framers intention, Justices are left a broad scope for judicial interpretation. He notes Brown v. Board of Edu as an example of justices performing a moral reading of the Constitution. It was a Moral reading because the Court recognized that segregation is inconsistent with the 14th Amendment (implicitly overturning Plessey v. Ferguson).
The limits (rights) on majoritarian democracy are in place through the interpretation of the Bill of Rights by the Supreme Court (our system of checks and balances.) The limits are not meant in a negative manner, but rather to ensure individual rights are not “trumped by a majority,” (Dworkin 1985, 196). Rights are ensured through judicial review and the law making process. We need judicial review because it ensures government neutrality toward varying conceptions of the good life hence respecting people as moral individuals.
The first claim I would like to address using Dworkin’s analytical framework is the following:` The text of TANF illustrates the moral based external preferences of the federal government and allows the states wide discretion to impose these external prefrences as eligibility, bonus, and sanction criteria on recipients who do or do not comply or adhere to these standrards.
Authors Stephanie Coontz and Nancy Folbre discuss the failure of marriage promotion to impact the marriage rate of recipients, the harm that “marriage bonus” would actually impose, as well as the necessity of these programs versus other essential TANF programs. “There is little evidence that [marriage promotion] policies would in fact increase marriage rates or reduce poverty among children. Indeed, the main effect of marriage bonuses would probably be to impose a “non-marriage” penalty that would have a particularly negative impact on African-American children, who are significantly less likely to live with married parents than either whites or Hispanics…Public policies should not penalize marriage. Neither should they provide an economic bonus or financial incentive to individuals to marry, especially at the cost of lowering the resources available to children living with single mothers. Such a diversion of resources from public assistance programs penalizes the children of unmarried parents without guaranteeing good outcomes for the children of people who are married.” The authors of this publication are aware of the dangers of associating marriage with poverty. Granted, two incomes are better than one when dealing with poor families, but marriage isn’t going to make two poor people rich because they married, it will not solve the issue of poverty, because being unmarried is not a cause of poverty. “In 2000, about 38% of all poor young children lived in two-parent homes. These families have been largely overlooked in the debates over anti-poverty programs and marriage.”1 This illustrates that getting married is not going to be the solution to poverty, I will further explore this claim with statistical evidence that I will collect that reflect marriage rates of Americans from 1900-2010 as well as the marriage rates of recipients during this time period. I will also use articles that address the failures of marriage promotion/abstinence programs as well as the waste of resources that arise from this. We cannot believe as a society that being unmarried is a large factor that effects poverty rates for recipients. They might be a little less poor with an extra income, but nevertheless, poor. Two individuals making minimum wage will still be poor whether they are married or not, and although two incomes are better than one, their combined incomes would still be below the poverty level. Reese discusses “PRWORA authorized funds for marriage counseling among poor couples and abstinence education among teens, despite little effectiveness of these programs…Congress also offers states and illegitimacy bonus: 20 million for each of the top five states in reducing out of wedlock birth rates without raising the abortion rate, ” (Page 18 Reese). Poverty among children is not confined to single-parent families. In 2000, about 38% of all poor young children lived in two-parent homes.43 These families have been largely overlooked in the debates over anti-poverty programs and marriage. Indeed, the campaign to increase marriage has overlooked one of the most important public policy issues facing the United States: the growing economic gap between parents, whether married or unmarried, and non-parents.
Another claim that I make is that TANF denies recipients the ability to choose single mother by denying them the ability to be self –sufficient supporters of their families through choosing to use TANF funds for promoting marriage as an alternative or solution to poverty as opposed to providing more services for single mothers. Denial of single motherhood is a denial of opportunity to be self-sufficient. Through the enactment of TANF, the government is denying single motherhood as equally valuable, de-values single motherhood, legally, morally, and economically.
TANF is a patriarchal policy which uses the welfare system to further the agenda of Conservatives by oppressing predominantly female recipients, merely examining the first words of Congress’ finding is section 101 illustrates this oppression: “The Congress makes the following findings: (1) Marriage is the foundation of a successful society. (2) Marriage is an essential institution of a successful society which promotes the interests of children, (3) Promotion of responsible fatherhood and motherhood is integral to successful child rearing and the well-being of children.” In 251 pages, this is the first things stated after the content, and as Dworkin would note, this is an example of a legislated external preference. The government was not acting neutrally, hence it violates the rights of recipients by not respecting their conception of the good life and their moral independence.
It is as if the government and society are morally punishing alternative families because they do not consist of the same nuclear-male dominated households which perpetuate patriarchy. The private nuclear family life is just, after all, as Frederick Engels notes a model of the lager social hierarchy, patriarchy is reinforced through systems in public and private life, in which the man dominates the women and children. Many stable homes for children are provided by single parents, extended family, as well as homosexual couples who cannot get legally married. As Dworkin would note, TANF sets a standard in the law of what is best for society, implying that single mother hood or alternative families are not sufficient. This is a manifestation of a legislated external preference, denying non-nuclear families the same respect and consideration as nuclear families, this violates the moral independence of the recipients by not respecting their version of the good life, and the government is not acting neutral between Conservative and Liberal conceptions of the good life. Marriage is not a solution to poverty.
The third claim I make is that marriage is a reinforcement of a position of dependency for recipients. Claim: TANF’s diversion of funds from programs that would aid single mothers to programs that would reinforce a dependent position in women represents a “quasi-coercion” of recipients into positions of dependency.
This unlawfully imposes a standard of dependence on women, TANF uphold marriage as the highest moral standard. Meaning, women who do not meet the standard of being married or staying married were economically punished by not being eligible for marriage bonuses and having their funds that would help them be independent, such as child care, redistributed to marriage promotion. Meaning the government is replacing programs that would make women economically self-sufficient and independent such as low cost child care with services which promote dependence, since marriage won’t alleviate many women’s poverty and in marriage, they are expected to rely upon their husbands for money. women who may have lost a husband, been abused in some way, had a husband who left them, or was just very poor even with her husband’s minimal income, or never was even able to get married because he didn’t want to. And then in society, comes to welfare with children, there is a stigma toward that woman and her children if they don’t live up to that standard, and not by choice perhaps. What if a woman is single not be choice? But what would be wrong with women making the individual private moral choice to be single mothers as opposed to being married? It would be breaking systems of patriarchy that have been in place since almost the beginning of time, allowing recipients more autonomy and affording women greater rights. But by not providing services such as child care, which is necessary for a single mother to go to work, then recipients are explicitly being denied equal access to resources. In this system, the woman is left in an intersection of economic dependence. A dependence for food, childcare, housing and other monetary needs such as a decent minimum wage. The cost of living has risen so that the single mother is placed in a position of dependence, either on “the man” or “a man” or many men. Yes women have the right to an “equal opportunity” in theory, but in practice, American society does not allow single mother autonomy.
Women are, as Francis Wright noted, still the ultimate subordinate beings in society, but I’d say now a days that poor single mothers are definitely the most ultimately oppressed group in America. As she noted, and evidence such as the 1996 TANF act suggests, it pleases men that women are dependent. Stigmatization of the welfare system and its recipients shaped public opinion in American and eventually created bi-partisan support for welfare reform. Conservatives began this movement with the creation of the term “welfare queen” and since recipients have been labeled as “illegitimate families, lazy, promiscuous, immoral.” Furthermore, while the majority of recipients are white, Conservatives frame the attack on welfare as if most of the recipients are black or non-white. Granted, blacks and non-whites are disproportionately poor compared to their population size and the percentage of recipients is high versus their population sizes. However, this is due to lack of opportunity for advancement, lack of access to higher education. This stigmatization of the recipient oppresses the recipients due to the public opinion of the moral choices she made by reallocating funds that could help her to attempt to force her into dependency.
Recipients have their children’s fathers forced into their children’s’ lives hence the recipients life, if not through marriage promotion, than through child-support enforcement, Congress is demanding the return of the father to the family, hence forcing the family into dependence on a man or father as opposed to aiding the mother in obtaining the means to be self-sufficient economically, hence NOT choose marriage if the recipient wanted and the option to choose single mother hood if recipients desired to. Congress made a bi-partisan decision to ensure that single motherhood was no longer an option. If you were poor, you would have to depend on a man, “As we shall see, since 1967 both democrats and republicans have insisted that fathers return, at least to financial, if not marital, family headship.”2 Recipients are also denied the Constitutional right to privacy and equal protection in the eyes of the law by being economically coerced into marriage.
One of the stated objectives of welfare legislation passed in 1996 was “to end dependence by promoting marriage. Many policy-makers want to devote more public resources to this goal, even if it requires cutting spending on cash benefits, child care, or job training. Some states, such as West Virginia, already use their funds to provide a special bonus to couples on public assistance who get married.1 In December 2001, more than fifty state legislators asked Congress to divert funds from existing programs into marriage education and incentive policies, earmarking dollars to encourage welfare recipients to marry and giving bonus money to states that increase marriage rates. On February 26, 2002, President Bush called for spending up to $300 million a year to promote marriage among poor people.” 3
My fourth claim is that since welfares beginning, the government has used morality based eligibility and sanction criteria to create, uphold, and perpetuate a distinction of widows as worthy for public assistance and unmarried single mothers as unworthy, using legislated morality based external preferences to distribute aid to the needy with preference to married women.
Since the creation of the welfare state, the government has imposed morality based eligibility criteria to deny numerous poor single mothers and their children aid. An analysis of the American welfare state policy history illustrates the states and later the federal government’s use of eligibility criteria and sanctions to keep poor single mothers off of welfare. Initially, welfare was created at the local level and administered to “worthy” women or white widows. The states had wide discretion over who would ultimately receive assistance and who wouldn’t. Mink notes that Mother’s pension” was the first form of government-run welfare offered in America, and it was controlled and funded by the states. “Mother’s pension” allowed a woman to stay at home and raise her children; the government recognized motherhood as a job, if the recipient was a white widowed woman. Social Security was created to ensure that white widows would earn enough as homemakers to continue the job of raising good citizens.
Reese notes that when Mother’s Pensions were first enacted, they were targeted to poor white widows, with the maternalist idea that mothers should be compensated for the work of child-raising, because mothers would “raise good citizens.” (Page 22) Reese) Yet, the benefits were not enough for many women to stay home and work, but they still did receive the help, and were given preference due to the fact that they were once married. As Mink discusses, the idea that these women were single mothers through no fault of their own, their moral choices to marry, was what gave them moral preference over other single mothers. Furthermore, Reese discusses that recipients were required to endure several intrusions into their private sexual life and were given strict moral guidelines of how to behave. Eligibility criteria consisted of “suitable home” and “fit mother” standards to deny assistance, “and such policies reinforced the marriage ethic-the e expectation that women should get and stay married,” (page 23 Reese). President Roosevelt created the American welfare system through his aggressive passage of the New Deal; he created Aid to Dependent Children (ADC), which is a system that is federally funded, a product of federalism. However, the states retained many of their rights to implement welfare as they saw fit, and Congress ensured that any law attempting to federally regulate welfare was not enacted. Both Mink and Reese note the rise in caseloads once ADC allowed for more recipients who were non-white and/or unmarried to receive welfare. Yet, Mink discusses Social security still allows (barely, but it still does allow) a single widow to be a stay at home mother if she chooses or has to be. But poor women are “compelled” by the government, as Mink notes, to work outside the home by not having their work in the home economically recognized.
The fact that SSI is still very generous when compared to welfare benefits illustrates the government’s preference to provide subsistence assistance for “worthy” single mothers, or widows. TANF recommends that poor women who are divorced and unmarried either work first to support their families or find husbands if they want to be stay at home mothers. If TANF created a stay-at-home income for women, through welfare grants, during the young years of a child’s life before they start school, this would allow poor women to be stay at home mothers for at least a few years to raise their own children without having to get married to be stay at home mothers. Another alternative to marriage promotion would be more generous shelter benefits/low income housing for single mothers to allow them to be independent. This would respect single motherhood as a lifestyle and a choice and allow independence for them in practice through resources, as opposed to diverting funds from TANF to impose positions of dependency.
Mink illustrate how recipients have to work outside of home for EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) yet widows do not have to for IRA (Independent Retirement Account). Retirement is an acknowledgement of a life time of work, meaning middle class stay at home mothers are being economically compensated for their work in the home. Yet recipients have to work outside of the home to receive their tax credit. Mink notes that most single mothers will choose to work outside of their homes, but the issue she has with PRA is the “coercion” of poor single women: “why should poor single mothers,–and only poor single mothers—be forced by law to work outside of the home?”4 Mink discusses differences in Congressional policy for women of different classes, races, sexualities and marital statuses. Congress made it possible (as welfare did in the 30’s) for the white middle class married women to stay at home through the creation of the IRA, which “are an untaxed portion of earned income,” and through TANF, at the same time, denied poor women the right to be homemakers and compel poor single mothers to work outside of their homes. Congress used their own standards to determine the legal value of homemaking based on skin color and class, and strengthened divisions, in society and in the eyes of the law, between women. The IRA reinforces the Conservative ideology that dominated the government during the Mother’s Pension and the creation of SSI. Women receiving public assistance after 1996 are explicitly coerced into seeking marriage through the text of TANF’s explicit promotion of marriage. But since its conception at a state level, American welfare has given aid with priority to mothers who were married over non-married single mothers. States were allowed to determine eligibility for these benefits based on a mother’s private moral decisions or circumstances. In other words, the state could deny a single mother aid at this time if she was unmarried on that basis.
While it was at first the states who were imposing strict morality based eligibility criteria, the national government now imposes this criteria, For example, Reese discusses a Conservative group called the Heritage Foundation and how it influenced Bush’s policies on “reducing out of wedlock childbearing,” (page 160). Reese discusses Charles Murray, who argues that “welfare should be abolished because it promotes unwed motherhood,” (page 158). Also, Wade Horn and Andrew Bush are discussed, regarding their collaborated work, Father’s, Marriage, and Welfare Reform (2002), and how it urges that politicians stigmatize welfare and create policies which would give priority funding and bonuses to married couples. Religious ideology ultimately influenced and directed the concepts and values underlying the Conservative reformation of the American welfare system “Politicians emphasis on traditional ‘family values’ was linked to the rise of the Christian Right, which revitalized the Republican Party and shifted in rightward on social issues,” (page 145).
My fifth claim is that promoting marriage creates unequal citizenship between: married and unmarried recipients, recipients and non-recipients, and individuals in different states due to federalism.
TANF creates a distinction between the level of access to benefits, and the rules, for married and unmarried recipients. I will use Mink and Reese’s historical analysis of morality based eligibility criteria and morality based sanction criteria (man in the home) to illustrate the discrimination against unmarried single mothers. Widow were worthy of assistance and the opportunity to be stay at home mothers, yet unmarried women were thought of as immoral and punished with work outside the home to instill “moral values.” Furthermore, in a two parent household, one parent has to fulfill the 35 hour a week work requirement while the other one can stay home without benefits being penalized. However, in a single parent household, if the recipient is out of work, they are considered non-compliant, and their case is either sanctioned or closed. There is no economic equality. Also, there is no economic punishment for women who are not married and are non-recipients of TANF. This illustrates the differences in rules and penalties for recipient and non-recipients of TANF. An example of this is in the work place, it would be discrimination to explicitly pay one person more than another solely on the basis of marital status, give bonuses to married employees simply because of their marital status, or financially incentivize and promote marriage at work. The unmarried or never married employees would state that bonuses on the basis of marriage status were not based on merit or need, theses employees did nothing grand for the company by being married, but rather the private moral choices of some employees were being financially rewarded due to the external preferences of the bosses. Yet it is ok to redistribute funds for marriage promotion? There is distinction in what rules apply to married and unmarried recipients, unmarried recipients being denied access to certain benefits based on this status. There is also a distinction between recipients and non-recipients, because recipients Constitutional rights to privacy and reproductive freedom are being violated. Congress believes any marriage is a good marriage, and legislated this preference through the funding of marriage promotion, which denies recipients the equal protection of the law as citizens. The “quasi-coercion” of recipients to become married is an example of the unequal citizenship status between recipients and non-recipients. Not to say that marriage is not promoted to both recipients and non-recipients, but in the case of recipients, money is being taken away from recipients benefits such as individual cash benefits and child care, to funnel into marriage promotion. Recipient’s resources are reallocated to and wasted by being funneled into marriage promotion.
Recipients in different states, through TANF, a federal policy, are given different benefits at different levels, access, and, eligibility and sanction criteria. TANF explicitly promotes marriage as we have seen. But it also granted the states wide discretion in how they choose to implement their federal block grants, how they choose to allocate funds and meet the goals of the federal government. With financial bonuses to states who meet goals related to abstinence, out of wedlock births and abortions, some states have chosen to allocate more funds on marriage promotion and abstinence, hence more money on influencing recipients to exercise their right to privacy in a certain conservative manner, or regulating privacy, regulating the private moral choices of recipients, violating their Constitutional rights as equal citizens to enjoy and exercise the right to privacy. States receive cash bonuses from the federal government when they reduce or keep down out of wedlock births, abortion rates. Congress is regulating morality through the enactment of TANF, restoring the state/local moral regime that ruled recipients through the text and policy goals and design of TANF, which abolished
Being on welfare, recipients are not given the right to choose a partnership or to choose not to be in one, the right to reproductive freedom and a right to privacy. Both democrats and republicans held certain negative beliefs about welfare recipients, and through the enactment of TANF, Congress made a bi-partisan choice to restrict single mother headed families’ access to welfare. As TANF states explicitly in its first page, and as Mink discusses, TANF was created to promote marriage and work (outside the home), as opposed to providing assistance to needy single mothers. The enactment of TANF is a way to slowly end welfare, and in its place would be private charity and social security, marriage promotion, and low-wage work, options that will not help poor single families become self-sufficient. TANF inevitably makes all decisions for the recipient, and falsely bases their poverty on “poor moral choices,” hence legally punishes recipients by denying them an opportunity out of this poverty by denying recipients the entitlement or right to welfare. Poor women in need of welfare are legally susceptible to moral interrogation and denied full citizenship rights, this takes away this groups full equal status in the eyes of the law. This makes recipients legally sub citizens when compared to non-recipients, and rights are denied on the basis of TANF recipient status.
1 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/marriage/etc/poverty.html
2 Mink 5
3 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/marriage/etc/poverty.html#.
4 Mink 28
HONORS THESIS COLLOQUIUM MACAULAY COLLEGE AT CUNY FALL 2010
FIRST SEMESTER DRAFT:
THE IMPACT OF SANCTIONS: The Case of Zimbabwe
By:
Charlesworth Mabheka: City College
Vincent Boudreau: Faculty Advisor
Professor Lee Quinby: Colloquium Director
“The land is ours. We shall feed all. Even the stooges and puppets will have enough.
No Zimbabwean should die of hunger”
Robert Mugabe, August 2002.
‘Half the land is in the hands of 250,000 settlers’
Robert Mugabe, 1976.
CONTENTS
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………3
Type of Sanctions ……………………………………………………………..…………………3
Background……………………………………………………………………………………….6
Settler Conquest and Colonization ……………………………………………………………..8
Zimbabwe Land Question in Historical Context …. …………….……………………………9
War of Liberation……………………………………………………………………………….12
Lancaster Agreement ………………………….……….………………………………………13
The Land Invasions……………………………………………………………………………..15
Sanctions and the Land Issue …………………………………………………………………16
Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA)…………………………….18
Targeting Zimbabwe, not Mugabe……………………………… ……………………………19
Public Health Crisis ……………………………………………………………………………22
Why Zimbabwe…………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 26
Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………………26
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………33
Introduction
Since the establishment of the League Nations, economic sanctions have been an important tool of coercive influence (Cortright and Lopez, 2000). Questions about the usefulness of economic sanctions continue to trouble scholars and policymakers. It is important to think about sanctions as a two- level game to allow for examination of the domestic political factors that help coerce the decision- making processes on both sides of the sanctions equation – target and sender. It is important to note that when sanctions are applied, the sender demands a change in the behavior of the target. If sanctions are to succeed, the target government must concede to the demands of the sender. Britain, United States, and the European sanctions against Zimbabwe rekindled a heated international debate over the use of economic sanctions in pursuit of foreign policy goals. This debate continues to rage today in the context of proposals to lift up all the sanctions imposed on that landlocked southern African country. I explore the conditions that led to the imposition of sanctions in Zimbabwe. Next and perhaps central to the thesis, I examine the devastating impact of sanctions on Zimbabwe, and consider how they affected the population. To put these issues in perspective, I have delved in the rich history of Zimbabwe in order to identify circumstances in which economic sanctions can “succeed” in attaining their foreign policy goals without hurting the general innocent population. This study concentrates on three central questions: When the new government took over in 1980, in whose hands was most of the fertile land the manufacturing and mining sectors. As Hufbauer puts it, economic sanctions can contribute to the achievement of foreign policy goals, but only if used judiciously to reach carefully defined objectives. In most cases, sanctions are generally effective, and occasionally they backfire (Hufbauer 1958:28).The starting point of my analysis is to draw general lessons from Zimbabwe’s historical background, identify the economic and political circumstances in which sanctions against Zimbabwe were imposed. This paper begins with an examinations of the impositions of sanctions on Zimbabwe by the United Kingdom (UK), the European Union (EU) and the United States (U.S.) I conclude by noting that greater optimism regarding the effectiveness of sanctions should be balanced by a careful consideration of the policy’s real and protection of the “innocent bystanders “and vulnerable populations caught in the middle. First, I offer a background for understanding the different types of sanctions and the debate concerning the use of economic sanctions, and their impact on the people of Zimbabwe.
Type of Sanctions A form of international pressure, sanctions are usually meant to change the policies of other countries. There is much doubt on whether they ever work. This essay shows that economic pressure works in at least one respect: economic sanctions impact and do the most damage to the weakest members of society and do not hurt the leaders it targets. I present a hypothetical argument that explains why damage is not a necessary condition for successful force. With specific focus to Zimbabwe, I find evidence that sanctions frequently miss their intended target and often do damage to the very groups they are intended to help by destabilizing the economy. It is important to understand that sanctions are measures applied in response to perceived wrongdoing by a state, such as an act of aggression against another state or human rights violation from the perspectives of international conventions. Economic sanctions are usually the most important of all sanctions imposed on a nation. They imply the deliberate government-inspired withdrawal, or threat of withdrawal, of trade and financial relations, including technical cooperation. There are three main ways a sender country tries to inflict costs on a target country: first by limiting exports; second by restricting imports; third by impending finance, including the reduction of aid. , (Hufbauer 1985:28) But do sanctions achieve their objectives? Many scholars have concluded that sanctions simply do not” work.” In his book , The Power of Nations: The Political Economy of International Relations, Knorr Klaus explains that the first multiple –case study examined twenty –two instances of trade sanctions, and only four of those were deemed successful (Knorr,1975). He concluded that ‘targets will always be able to find alternative trading partners, and that sanctions tend to bring about domestic integration rather that political and economic stabilization.” As Hufbauer puts it, sanctions often do not succeed in changing the behavior of foreign countries. (Hufbauer; 1985:28) He argues that the reason for failure is the sanctions imposed may simply be inadequate to achieve the objectives sought – the goals may be too elusive, the means too gentle, or cooperation from other countries, when needed, too tepid. He contends that another reason for the unsuccessful application of economic pressure is that sanctions may prompt powerful allies to lend support largely offsetting whatever deprivation results from the sanctions themselves (Hufbauer; 1985:28). However, it must be pointed out that sanctions in Zimbabwe and indeed, sanctions on any other country have played an important role in foreign policy as an alternative to political coercion and produces results that run counter to the norms of the protection of the innocents and the promotion of basic human rights. In this context, I explore Britain, the European Union’s and United States’ targeted sanctions against the Zimbabwean regime, imposed after the land reform programs, to right a colonial wrong to return the land that was stolen from the indigenous peoples through the British South Africa Company. It is under this background that the EU, UK, the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on Zimbabwe claiming of imposing “targeted sanctions” and “travel bans” on Zimbabwean leadership and not economic sanctions on the whole country. The central thesis of the article therefore, is that economic sanctions do the most damage to innocent populations, while leaving political and economic elites largely unhurt. Indeed, economic sanctions against Zimbabwe have had a devastatingly profound impact and are largely to blame for Zimbabwe’s social and economic tragedy. The main thesis therefore rests upon three themes; the conquest and colonization of Zimbabwe, the Lancaster House Agreement, and the land question. All these themes are critical to understanding the causes and devastating impact the sanctions have had on the population of that landlocked country. It should be acknowledged that while it is difficult to disentangle the effects of sanctions from the effects of the land seizures, other factors such as corruption, inflation and the rule of law were at work at the same time and these factors are also to blame for Zimbabwe’s economic dilemma.
Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 which was hailed as a miracle by both the local and international community marked the beginning of majority rule and the hope of transition to democracy in that previously colonized country. Sadly, twenty – eight years after independence, Zimbabwe is an economic and democratic disaster as a result of sanctions imposed against that country. The country’s economy is in tatters, famine is threatening, and the miracle of 1980 turned into a nightmare. Law and order has broken down; bad governance and corruption are rampant; inflation is the highest in the world; nine out of ten adults are unemployed; commercial farming has collapsed; there is virtually no public health system; a shortage of teachers has crippled the school system; and one third of the population are in exile. The repression leashed against the opposition and the denial of property rights as well as the government’s refusal to respect the rule of law shocked the international community. The questions that come to mind are: How did this happen. And who is responsible? Who is to blame for this tragedy? What has caused deepening hunger, raging hyperinflation and the collapse of health, sanitation and education services that have crippled what was once the breadbasket of Africa? Was this a result of bad economic management policies, corruption, the rule of law and bad governance? On balance, I conclude that it was due to the seizure of white-owned farms by Mugabe’s black supporters resulting in the imposition of economic sanctions by Britain caused the country’s declining economic crisis therefore causing the suffering of the people. But, that still leaves the question: Why those land seizures? The answer lies in a combination of political and economic factors including Zimbabwe’s war of liberation and the Lancaster Agreement
The war of liberation lasted until the Lancaster House Conference in 1979 when representatives from the colonial government, leaders of the liberation movement, and the British government met to achieve a ceasefire and to establish a new constitution. It is important to note that while a ceasefire was achieved, the constitution agreed upon lacked strong support because it protected the inequitable distribution of land to the hands of white minority farmers. Furthermore, under the Lancaster Agreement, the new Zimbabwean government, led by President Robert Mugabe could not seize white-owned land for the first ten years of independence. What it meant was that the government could buy land from white farmers only through a willing-seller, willing-buyer program, at full market price. Sadly, by the 1990s, the government had still not fulfilled its revolutionary promise of land reform, and it was under public pressure to revise the constitution. This led to Mugabe’s controversial land reform leading to the imposition of sanctions by the United States, United Kingdom and European Union. In recent times, the ZANU –PF government has claimed that Zimbabwe problems are a result of economic sabotage by the racist minority. The US, UK, and the EU condemned President Robert Mugabe for the country’s economic dilemma and imposed “smart sanctions” on Zimbabwe, claiming to be promoting democracy, human rights and the end of suffering of the Zimbabwean people. I assess all these claims before turning to other possible answers. A brief historical background is instructive.
Background It is important to understand that the land question has always been and remains central to Zimbabwe’s economic, political, and social development. Thus, to ignore the definite link between the Zimbabwe Land Question, Sanctions and Zimbabwe’s economic policies including their actual and perceived shortcomings on the other hand, is to ignore a monumental heap of reality staring the international community in the face. Thus, this essay seeks to place both the current land crisis in Zimbabwe in its proper historical context by tracing the origins of the problem of the land question from the early years of British colonization, through the struggle against colonialism via the Lancaster House Agreement right through twenty years of Zimbabwe’s independence, to the farm invasions of 2000 and imposition of sanctions by the EU, UK, and US. It is important to remember that the advent of white- settler occupation of Zimbabwe in September 1890 marks the genesis of the dispossession of Africans of their land. The Ndebele Kingdom’s invasion in 1893 leading to the establishment of the notorious Gwaai and Shangani reserves; Shona and Ndebele Rebellions of 1896 – 97; the war of liberation which, in 1980, led to Zimbabwe’s independence; and the controversial constitutional negotiations at Lancaster House Agreement in 1979 all bear testimony to the centrality of the land issue in Zimbabwe’s history. In this context, it is important to note that the factors that form the basis of the Zimbabwe crisis are an uneven distribution of land and economic resources between an affluent minority and an increasingly impoverished black majority, which remained the same after Zimbabwe’s independence. Moreover, in Rhodesia, the best farmland was held by whites, who were a tiny minority making up less than 1 per cent of the Zimbabwean population of 12 million people and yet, they controlled 70 per cent of the country’s arable land (Swarms, 2002:1).
The land issue in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe is not ancient history. It is modern history. This research offers a background for understanding the history surrounding the current land question in Zimbabwe, and its impact on the population. When the Pioneer Column of white settlers came in 1890, their scramble for land became more than plunder. Farms were pegged out regardless of whether there were local people living there. Within ten years of the Pioneer Column, nearly 16 million acres had been seized by whites. Africans were dispossessed of the land and were driven the mountains and barren land. The research finds that that in Rhodesia, 85% of the best land was owned and occupied by 2 % of the population. In 1896, the Africans rose against white rule. Memories of the 1896 -1897 revolt lingered long enough for African nationalists to draw inspiration from it sixty years later. Thousands of Africans continued to be evicted from white farm areas and grievances over land eventually swelled into nationalist protest. The guerrilla war of the 1970s and the 2002 land invasions were a response to win back ‘lost” lands. At independence in 1980, Zimbabwe inherited a skewed land ownership pattern, characterized these historical imbalances. Let me point out that, while using the sanctions imposed against Zimbabwe as my vantage point and the basis of my thesis, the broader dimensions of the role played by the Mugabe regime are not neglected. As Hill points out, “Just five years earlier, the country had been a major exporter, but repression and misrule had led to the collapse of the agricultural, mining, and tourism sectors” (Hill; 2005:2). Many people have blamed Mugabe’s land seizures for the Zimbabwe crisis. All these claims are assessed, but find that instead of blaming it all on Mugabe, economic sanctions are mainly to blame for bringing Zimbabwe’s economy to its knees. This claim is also investigated before turning to other possible answers. Twenty years after ZANU-PF fought a liberation struggle and seized state power, landless peasants, unemployed and homeless proletarians in Zimbabwe desperately began to seize fertile land. Instead of opposing the land seizures, ZANU-PF and Robert Mugabe supported the landless peasants in their efforts to take back the land that had been forcibly expropriated from their ancestors. This marked Zimbabwe’s decade of economic horror and the path to the seizure of white farms was opened, and thus began the long slide toward today’s economic chaos leading to the imposition of sanctions by the UK, US and EU, which explains Zimbabwe’s present economic crisis.
Settler Conquest and Colonization It cannot be disputed that the land question is central to Zimbabwe’s political, social and economic development. It is true that no explanation of the causes and impact of economic sanctions can be complete without an investigation of the colonial history of Zimbabwe. The economic and political crisis facing the country today is a complex situation, which has its origins in a number of factors originating from the country’s special history. When the white settlers arrived in Mashonaland in 1890, “their main hope was to find gold,” states Meredith. “Each settler was awarded fifteen mining claims,” he maintains. The gold rush proved disappointing and the whites therefore turned to the next prize, land (Chikuhwa 2002:112). The scramble for land in the 1890s became more than plunder. Farms were taken by Rhodes’s agents regardless of whether local people were living there, maintains Meredith (Chikuhwa 2002:112). A similar observation is made by Chikuhwa who notes that British interests prevailed through the vehicle of Rhodes’s BSAC (Chikuhwa, 1998:45). According to Chikuhwa (1998:45), when the first whites arrived in 1890, the land was inhabited by the Shona and the Ndebele people, who claimed sovereignty. Rhodes tricked Lobengula into a treaty. He believed he was allowing a mere handful of prospectors to enter his country. But the concession which he signed was deliberately mistranslated by the Reverend Charles Helm, notes Chikuhwa (1998:45-46). In practice, it actually gave Rhodes and his agent’s permission “to take whatever action they considered necessary to exploit the mineral wealth of his Kingdom” (Chikuhwa1998:45). The Rudd Concession, fraudulently obtained from King Lobengula, became the means through which Rhodes and his BSAC claimed mineral rights in Mashonaland despite Lobengula’s vigorous protests. When Lobengula realized that he had been tricked, he rejected the Concession. Unfortunately his protests were totally ignored by the British Government who approved the colonization of Zimbabwe by Rhodes’s BSAC (Chikuhwa, 1998:.45). Rhodes’s heavily –armed ‘pioneer column’ occupied Mashonaland. The pioneers then dispersed to stake out farms for themselves and to exploit the abandoned gold mines.” In their desperate search for valuable gold artifacts, these early white colonists vandalized and looted many ancient historical sites, destroying hundreds of year’s worth of irreplaceable archaeological evidence (Chikuhwa, 1998:.45). White missionaries also acquired almost a third of a million acres. A young assistant working for the Anglican Bishop of Mashonaland was soon exhausted by the constant search for more farms. “The one thing I strongly object to,” he wrote to his parents in 1892, “is to go looking for more farms, which I hear….is the Bishop’s great idea. He already has more than 40!! All over 3,000 acres! And not one of them is being worked, either as farm or as station as far as I can discover” (Meredith, 2002: 13). By 1899, some 9.3 million acres were in the hands of these companies (2002, 113). Within ten years of the arrival of the Pioneer Column, 16 million acres of land had been seized by whites (Meredith, 2002:113).
Zimbabwe’s Land Question in Historical Context Between 1997 through 2002 land reform remained an unfulfilled promise as whites still owned much of the best land (Meredith, 2007:17). It is the ordinary people who suffered the brunt of government mismanagement. Meredith asserts that “by 2000, Zimbabweans were generally worse off than they had been at independence: average wages were lower, underemployment had trebled, public services were crumbling and life expectancy was falling (2007, p. 17). It should be noted that the factors which are the basis of the present crisis are a racially skewed land distribution and ownership pattern between an affluent minority and an increasingly impoverished black majority, which did not change after Zimbabwe’s independence. Most Zimbabweans felt betrayed by the outcome of the liberation war they had waged for close to a decade. Mr. Mugabe occasionally resorted to rhetoric in addressing the land problem. “We can never have peace in the country unless the peasant population is satisfied in relation to the land issue,” he had declared in 1981 (Meredith; 2003:121). Meredith asserts that Mugabe whipped support over the land issue saying “It makes absolute nonsense of our history as an African country that most of our arable and ranching land is still in the hands of our erstwhile colonizers, while the majority of our peasant community still live like squatters in their God – given land” (Meredith; 2003: 121). As noted earlier, led by Cecil Rhodes, the British South Africa Company had moved into the region, seized land from blacks, and sold most of the fertile land to white settlers. Clearly, this explains Mugabe’s plans for redistributing the land to correct this historical imbablance which was only partially successful. Despite initial plans to resettle 162,000 families in three years and the development plan’s aim to resettle seventy – five thousand families in five years, a ministerial statement in 1988 admitted that only forty thousand families had been resettled since independence (Chikuhwa; 2006:189) Chikuhwa asserts that “since the triumph of the 1980 revolution in Zimbabwe the promise of land reform went largely unfulfilled.” It is under this background after independence that Mugabe’s government promised to give the “stolen lands” back to the indigenous farmers and thereby establishing plans for the land resettlement program.
In his book Robert Mugabe: A Life of Power and Violence Chan Stephen Chan asserts that “The roots of the land problem had grown from settler seedlings” and that “The appropriation of land, by Cecil Rhodes’s British South Africa Company at the end of the nineteenth century, was not gentle (Chan 2003:148). In 1896, a huge uprising of both Shona and Ndebele people killed some 400 settlers. This was the first liberation War, Chimurenga, of modern Zimbabwean history. The settler’s response was even more brutal than the uprising, and ‘native” modes of self- organization were destroyed. The formalization of white hegemony over the land came in the 1923 Constitution, which entrenched native reserves, and in 1930, with the Land Apportionment Act, whereby Rhodesia was largely divided into land privately owned by white settlers (by far the majority of land, and the best), and what came known in the Smith era as the “tribal trust lands”, a kind of peasant –farmer extended reservation. The second Chimurenga, the war of liberation that ended with independence in 1980, was a victory over the political structures imposed by generations of settler government and culture., but not over the land ownership structures of the almost- century –long settler era. As outlined above, Mugabe had, from the beginning, regarded land as a great unfinished issue, but there were never the funds to purchase huge amounts of white lands and, as the international community – Britain very much included – became disinclined to help. (Chan 2003:148)
In 1891, the British government recognized the South African Company’s “investment” in Zimbabwe, and brokered that company’s expropriation of fertile farmland from the Africans. Supported by the military might of the British crown, the white settlers who followed Cecil Rhodes to Zimbabwe were given 3,000 acres of choice farmland, plus 15 gold-mining claims by those who had no right to give what was not theirs. The white settlers discovered that no significant wealth would be obtained from the gold mines in Zimbabwe and, thus, were granted 6,000 acres of choice farmland by the South African Company. After the brutal conquest of the region by Cecil Rhodes in the 1890s, white settlers seized all the prime land (Hill, 2005, p.12).White settlers continued unabated in their invasion of Zimbabwe. Cattle were seized from the native population, native lands were taken, and the indigenous people were often forcibly prevented from plowing and sowing the meager plots of soil that were left to them because of tax collection and coerced labor in white-owned farms. By 1899, the white settlers had seized 15,762,364 acres of farmland (Leeming and Tidy, p.1981).
These historical acts of theft and plunder of African lands are the basis in Zimbabwe, today for what the UK, the U.S. and their allies call the “rule of law.” It is argued therefore that when the U.S and UK speak of the “rule of law,” they refer to the “rule of law” of their “kith and kin” that killed and plundered Zimbabwe, allowing the white settlers to steal the land and control the native lands of Zimbabwe.
War of Liberation
It is true that no discussion of the causes of Zimbabwe’s current economic sanctions can be complete without an analysis of the Zimbabwe war of liberation. A detailed examination of Zimbabwe’s guerilla war of the 1970s, which was fought principally to overthrow white rule and gain power is important. As noted by Hill (Hill 2007:118), “land grievances and landlessness, the idea of winning back lost lands provided much of the rhetoric and motivation behind the war” (Hill 2007: 118). Hill asserts that “It seemed as if white rule might continue indefinitely until Black Nationalist leaders, eager to take charge and angry at continued discrimination, went into exile in 1972 and established guerilla bases in neighboring bases (Hill 2007:118). The fighters, armed with landmines, rifles and grenades, infiltrated Rhodesia, and for eight years the country was locked in civil war (Hill 2005:13).This liberation war for Zimbabwe’s independence raged between the white governments led by Ian Smith and liberation fighters led by Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo. By 1979, the guerilla war had spread to every rural area of Rhodesia. Main roads and railway lines were under frequent attack. White farmers bore the brunt, barricaded at night in fortified homes, living daily in the risks of ambushes and landmines (Hill 2005:.6) after years of intense guerrilla fighting; Smith eventually yielded to British-brokered peace talks in 1979. The result was the Lancaster House Agreement, signed by British and liberation leaders from ZANU and ZAPU parties. As noted in the introduction, an understanding of Zimbabwe’s land question is important in order to appreciate the political problems that led to the imposition of economic sanctions by the UK, the US and their allies. Ramsamy takes this observation further and specifically traces the history of property rights during the liberation struggle. He notes that during the liberation struggle, Zimbabwe’s major liberation movements called for the abolition of private property and the redistribution of white- owned land (Ramsamy 2006:132).
It is important to understand that the Zimbabwean anti-colonial resistance during the late 19th century through the 20th century has been based on the retaking of the land and resources stolen by the colonialists. Hill notes that as the war intensified, Britain launched an initiative to find a solution, calling for negotiations at the Lancaster House Conference. Hill points out that Mugabe, a cold, austere figure who rarely smiled and seemed bent on achieving revolution whatever the cost, arrived for the conference in London. While in exile, he had repeatedly threatened that “Ian Smith and his ‘criminal gang’ would be tried and shot, and warned that white exploiters would not be allowed to keep an acre of land” (Hill 2005:7).
Lancaster Agreement I turn now to a review of the Constitutional Conference at Lancaster House which convened on 10 September 1979, which is important in explaining the causes of the farm invasions, an act which led to the impositions of sanctions. It must not be forgotten that the Lancaster House Agreement mainly called upon the U K government to accept the sole responsibility to pay compensation for land acquired from former land owners for resettlement; to work together to secure international support and finance for the land reform program in terms of compensation for the former land owners and support for new farmers; and to work together for the restoration of full productivity on all agricultural land. President Mugabe also argues that when Tony Blair came to power he reneged on the understanding and agreement reached at the Lancaster Conference of 1979]regarding the land reform programme and the compensation they agreed to pay to enable the government to buy the land from their kith and kin, in Zimbabwe. According to President Mugabe, when Blair’s government decided to dishonor the Lancaster House Agreement, Mugabe maintains that he was not bound by the agreement any longer and was released from it and would not pay any compensation to the white farmers because the funds had stopped flowing from Britain. According to Mugabe if they did not get the funds, naturally they did not have the capacity to compensate the farmers. And they would have to deal with UK to compensate them directly.
It is this viewpoint and undertaking that led to the violent land seizures. Mugabe took the land and paid compensation in respect of improvements where the farmer had built a dam, a homestead, done some fencing, the government was prepared to pay compensation for those, but not the market price of the farm. That was the responsibility of Britain. This led Tony Blair to be angry because he thought the ZANU PF government would tax its poor people in Zimbabwe to buy back their own land, but Mugabe was not prepared to do that. It is under this backdrop that Blair claimed that Zimbabwe had breached the tenets of democracy, human rights, rule of law, and which is a dictatorship. The road to the Lancaster Agreement was not easy and during the Lancaster negotiations, the land issue was difficult to resolve. The problem came when the conference presented a draft constitution which contained no reference to the land. The whites, backed by the British government, insisted that land rights should be entrenched in a Bill of Rights in the new constitution. (Hill 2007:18).As noted earlier, whites, who comprised 5% of the population owned 80% of the arable land, while millions of black people scratched at a living on the rest. For Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Nkomo this was critical. During the liberation struggle, Zimbabwe’s major liberation movements called for the abolition of private property and the distribution of white owned land (Ramsamy; 2006:127). Furthermore, during the political struggles of the 1960s and the guerrilla war of the 1970s, ZANU and ZAPU had committed themselves to redressing the socioeconomic and inequalities caused by colonialism (2006: 127). When Nkomo and Mugabe saw it and understood the implications they were disappointed. They asked Carrington what he meant. Yes, the struggle was about land. They questioned: “Was he saying to them they must sign a constitution which says that they could not redistribute land, because if that was the case, they should go back to the bush and the conference would break up?” It is noted that the negotiations that the nationalists were forced to accept meant that “for ten years the government could only purchase land against the owner’s wishes if it was underutilized” or required for a public purpose, and only then if the owner was provided with a prompt and full compensation in foreign exchange. The problem was that the provision of “willing seller willing buyer” basis restricted the government to purchasing limited and often poor quality land. It is important to remember that the UK, under Margaret Thatcher, agreed to help finance a land distribution program, but in 1997 the British reneged on their promise to compensate. This explains why is important to understand the Lancaster Agreement in – order to form a reasonable judgment on Zimbabwe’s current political and economic state. It should also not be forgotten that when Tony Blair became Prime Minister, his government refused to accept the Agreement signed at Lancaster and Clare short, and his minister of foreign co- operation also sent a no-nonsense letter to Mugabe refusing any responsibility to pay for the land reform. It is therefore clear that the current economic problems started with the Lancaster Agreement itself which supported the status quo and stolen land acquired in the plunder of Zimbabwe remaining in the hands of the white minority regime instead of being transferred to the Zimbabwean peasants, the rightful owners. This is also why after enacting the Zimbabwe Land Redistribution Act, the Mugabe regime saw itself on the road to fulfilling the promise that the indigenous people of Zimbabwe own the land. The path to the seizure of white farms was opened, and thus began the long slide toward today’s economic chaos leading to the imposition of sanctions by the UK, US and EU, which explains Zimbabwe’s present economic crisis.
The Farm Invasions The whole crisis started in 2000 when ZANU PF gangs armed with axes and pangas invaded white – owned farms across the country. Government vehicles were used to transport the invaders to the farms. It is noted that by March 2000, the invaders had occupied nearly 400 farms (Meredith; 2003: 169 -170). On the farms, some gangs caused disruption, others were more aggressive, threatening violence, slaughtering cattle, demanding transport, and breaking into farmhouses. As Meredith notes, a High Court order declared the land invasions illegal and instructed the police to evict the invaders within twenty – four hours, and personally instructed Chenjerai Hunzvi, Chairman of the Zimbabwe War Veterans Association, not to encourage, allow, or participate in any invasion. Interestingly, Hunzvi retorted that he would defy it saying, “We cannot accept the humiliation of being told by a white man to pack our bags and leave our land” (Meredith, 2003:170). Mugabe described the invasions as demonstrations. Amid rising tensions the Britain raised the temperature further, indulging in a war of words with Mugabe.
Meredith explains that once more the Courts ruled the land invasions illegal and called on Mugabe “to recognize that it is in the permanent interest of Zimbabwe and the rule of law to bring an end to the farm invasions” (2003:170). According to Meredith, Mugabe shrugged off the High Court Order. Meredith notes that “returning from a visit to Cuba,” he said on arrival: “I know there is an expectation that I will say to the War Veterans ‘Get off the land.’ I will not say so or do that.” Nor would he instruct the police to act. “There is no policeman who is going there. We have said ‘no.’ If the British have their own police, they must send them there.” Hunzvi’s response was similarly blunt. “They [the Judges] can go to hell. They are part of the system that hanged us when we fought for independence” (Meredith; 2003:170). Meanwhile, on the farms under occupation, white farmers faced daily harassment. Meredith confirms that “One Karoi farmer and his family, confronted by an armed gang, were given ten minutes to get off their farm (2003: 170).
Sanctions and the Battle for Land It must be emphasized that to oppose the sanctions is not equivalent to supporting the regime of Mugabe. To oppose sanctions is to support the Zimbabwe people. Some critics have argued that Mugabe is a murderous dictator who promotes those who are loyal to him and kills those who voice opposition to his regime. True, unemployment stood at more than 90 per- cent, a third of the population had gone into exile, and millions were hungry in a country that, until recently had grown enough crops to feed itself and much of southern Africa. Moreover, sanctions have not affected the lifestyle of Robert Mugabe or his inner circle. Food and medicine are available to those who can afford it. The sanctions hurt only the Zimbabwe people.
It cannot be disputed that the land question is inseparably linked to the issue of sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the UK, US and EU. According to Sir Shridath Ramphal, former Commonwealth Secretary General who acted as adviser to Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo at the Lancaster House negotiations, “It was about land in the beginning……it has remained about land today.” However, Chua sees Mugabe as a key reason for the economic collapse of Zimbabwe (Miller: 66- 167). She points out that “President Mugabe has encouraged the violent seizure of 10 million acres of white – owned commercial farmland (Miller: 166-167). It is noted those two days after a white farmer Henry Ellsworth was killed in an ambush near his farm, Mugabe said, “This country is our country, and this land is our land,” concluding, “The white man is not indigenous to Africa. Africa is for Africans. Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans!”(Meredith, 2002, p.121).As one Zimbabwean explained, “The land belongs to us. The foreigners should not own land here. There is no Black Zimbabwean who owns land in England. Why should any European own land here?” (Miller 2000:166 – 167). Mugabe himself was more explicit, “Strike fear in the heart of the white man, our real enemy!” Most of the country’s white “foreigners” are third generation Zimbabweans. (Miller 2000: 166-167). Similarly, Mugabe occasionally resorted to rhetoric in addressing the land problem. “We can never have peace in the country unless the peasant population is satisfied in relation to the land issue,” he declared in 1981 (Meredith: 121). Mugabe whipped support over the land issue in advance of the 1990 election. “It makes absolute nonsense of our history as an African country that most of our arable and ranching land is still in the hands of our erstwhile colonizers, while the majority of our peasant community still live like squatters in their God – given land.” He promised a ‘revolutionary’ program of agrarian reform to redistribute land (Meredith: 121). Meredith notes that Mugabe announced the expropriation of a total of 5, 000 farms, and covering 19 million acres. An upsurge of violent incidents hit the white farming community. Squatters and war veterans laid siege to farming families in their homes, destroyed crops and seed beds, wrecked farm equipment, cut off water supplies, and set fire to grazing land. An elderly white farmer died after being struck on the head with an axe (Meredith, 2002, p. 219). With so many farms disrupted, destroyed, and left untended, Zimbabwe now faced serious food shortages to add to its list of woes. In November, 2001, Mugabe delivered his final blow. By presidential decree, he ordered the expropriation of virtually all white –owned farms without compensation. Farmers were told they would be given ninety days to vacate their homes and were threatened with imprisonment if they tried to interfere (Meredith; 2003:213). According to Hill, by 2004, all but 300 of the original 4000 white farmers were off the land. One in three Zimbabweans had left the country, pushed out by violence and inflation running at more than 500 percent. Cash crops like tobacco, cotton, flowers, corn and vegetables had been among the countries’ chief exporters earning valuable foreign exchange, but as the sector imploded the economy collapsed and unemployment soared (2005:18). Hill continue to observe that basic foodstuffs, including maize, meat, milk, and bread, grew scarce, and as prices rocketed, the government imposed controls which in turn, gave rise to a black market that pushed the cost of goods even higher (2005: 18). In her celebrated article “The Spread of Global Free – Market Democracy,” Professor Amy Chua looks at the impact of the land invasions in Zimbabwe, and explains that “Watching Zimbabwe’s economy take a free fall as a result of the mass land grab, the US, the UK, and the EU together with dozens of human rights groups urged President Mugabe to step down, calling for free and fair elections” (Miller 2002:166-167). The point here is that, it is the land occupations that prompted economic sanctions which have adversely impacted the country.
It is noted that sanctions advocates argue that the value of smart sanctions “lies in the fact that they focus pressure on the targeted leadership or group, with little or any negative impact on civilian populations.”[1] Instead, I contend that economic sanctions often do harm than good and often target the vulnerable groups and civilians at large. This essay, systematically examines the effectiveness of economic sanctions imposed by Britain, the European Union, and Zimbabwe. In will examining the economic and social impact of sanctions on this country, I also consider how they affected the population. I argue that because of the impositions of sanctions, the most vulnerable groups have been the hardest hit, especially children under five years of age who are being exposed to unhygienic conditions, particularly in urban centers. I conclude that “targeted” sanctions have not affected the lifestyle of Robert Mugabe or his inner circle, but instead, the sanctions have hurt only the majority of the Zimbabwe people.
Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA)
America’s Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act supposedly meant to support the people of Zimbabwe in their struggle to effect peaceful, democratic change has since missed its intended target damaging the general population it is intended to help. So, by taking a closer look at Zimbabwe’s land question and discussing it in the context of the War of Liberation, and the Lancaster House Agreement, I draw attention to the reasons that led Britain ,the European Union and United States to impose sanctions, question whether the sanctions have been successful in destabilizing Mugabe they claim to target. Finally, I conclude by showing how the case of Zimbabwe is clearly evident that sanctions never fully achieve their stated objectives having little or no impact on the behavior of the targeted political leaders.
To this end, the case study on the impact of sanctions imposed by Britain, the European Union and the United States against Zimbabwe, whatever their effectiveness, show that sanctions frequently miss their intended target and do often damage the very groups they are intended to help. Evidently, the main impact is upon the civilian population in the target who are unable to protect themselves and often have little or no influence on the policies which sanctions are intended to change, (Doxey 1999: 207).
Targeting Zimbabwe, not Mugabe Critics have blamed the economic collapse on poor management by the government claiming that the sanctions were not targeted at the country as such, but at named individuals. I argue that to blame the decisions made by a single individual is, indeed, absurd in explaining the fate of the national economy. There is no possibility that a single individual could single-handedly ruin a country. In this context, one of the serious implications of the above discussion is that there is nothing like “smart sanctions.” Sanctions hurt the general population and have made Zimbabweans suffer. In this context, I disagree with Cortright and Lopez who write that “a ‘smart sanctions’ policy is one that imposes coercive pressures on specific individuals and entities and that restricts selective products or activities, while minimizing unintended economic and social consequences for vulnerable populations and innocent bystanders” Cortright and Lopez; 2002:14) . An interesting question to ask is: why did the US, UK, and the EU impose sanctions against Zimbabwe soon after Mugabe’s fast-track land reform program, under which it compulsorily acquired land from mostly white farmers and redistributed it to peasant farmers. John Gatling has the answer to this question. For example, Galtung defines sanctions as “actions initiated by one or more international actors against one or more others with either or both of two purposes: to punish the receivers by depriving them of some value/ (in this case land) and or to make the receivers comply with certain norms the senders deem important” (Galtung 1967:379). On the other hand, Roger Fisher explains that “in international conflict as elsewhere our first reaction to somebody’s doing something we don’t like is to think of doing something unpleasant to them” (Fisher 1969:27-28). Clearly, in the context of Rogers’s definition and Fisher’s remarks on sanctions, one can clearly identify the reason for the imposition of sanctions by the U.S., UK and their allies. This is not about human rights, bad governance and the rule of law. The truth is that when Mugabe seized the white – owned farms, the UK, EU and the United States retaliated by imposing economic sanctions against that country. The point that must not be forgotten that “When Mugabe’s government took over in 1980, the country’s economy was aligned to the West and most of the fertile land was in the hands of the Europeans.” When the Zimbabwe nationalists leaders differed on the questions of land British Prime minister Tony Blair decided to fight Zimbabwe by using political, diplomatic and economic instruments. Britain does not talk about the difference between Britain and the West and Zimbabwe as being the land issue and the compensation from Britain that it dishonored. No, he refers to good governance, human rights and rule of law. He then persuades the members of the E Uand the United States to impose sanctions on the poor country. Persuaded by Britain to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe, the EU and U.S.say these are “personal sanctions” targeted at the economic and political elites. As Lind and Tamas note in their Controversies of the George W. Bush Presidency., They note that President Bush supported sanctions against the Zimbabwe government. The authors maintain the tyrannical government of Mugabe “stands accused of severe repressive actions against its own people to illegal land seizures and distributions.” They write that President Bush has support from both UK, EU; they imposed travel bans and other economic restrictions on their citizens and on Zimbabwe. As some analysts have suggested, the weapon of sanctions continue to be unleashed upon innocent populations and have left thousands of children and old people dead. World Health organization reports have exposed the following undesirable effects of sanctions on the vulnerable groups of Zimbabwean society: High death toll due to inadequate health facilities; acute shortage of basic commodities leading to high prices, malnourishment and deaths. Elsewhere, Tom Gilten, in his Crimes of War Project (1999- 2006), has shown that children die because hospitals cannot get medicines. In the same vein, report by the British House of Commons Select Committee on Development highlighted the fact that economic sanctions, “unless carefully targeted”, have the capacity to kill more people than armed warfare. Sanctions are a form of warfare, and its effects on the country have claimed thousands of innocent lives. As Dr. Tafataona Mahoso, head of Zimbabwe’s Media and Information, characterized it, “There is a campaign of what can be called ‘economic terrorism’ against Zimbabwe mounted by Britain and its Western allies. In Mahoso’s view, “the UK, US, and their allies claim that they have only imposed “targeted sanctions” and “travel bans” on the Zimbabwean leadership and not economic sanctions on the whole country.” Mr. Mahoso maintains that “Sanctions have not affected the lifestyle of Robert Mugabe or his inner circle,” arguing that “The sanctions hurt only the Zimbabwe people.” According to Dr. Mahoso, “Sanctions have made the majority of the people suffer economic hardships since the year 2000 when the African people started to reclaim the land that once belonged to their ancestors” (Mahoso;2007:76). It is important not to forget that the reasons for the imposition of sanctions by the US and its allies are not only about human rights, bad governance and violation of the rule of law or human rights abuses. The truth is that when the Mugabe regime seized the white – owned farms, UK, EU and the US retaliated by imposing sanctions against that country. For example, the New York Times noted that “Western governments have withdrawn all financial aid, aside from food, from Zimbabwe to protest the land seizures and the attacks on the political opposition” (Swarms, 2002, p.1).Mugabe charged that EU and U.S. sanctions against his regime had crippled his nation’s economy and fuelled popular unrest, and he described the sanctions as not only illegal, but unjustified and cruel,” arguing that “they have also contributed deeply to the suffering and the poverty-induced polarization of the people of Zimbabwe.” President Mugabe accused donors of punishing Zimbabwe for his land reform program Moreover, Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, noted that “sanctions on Zimbabwe have had a devastating effect on the nation” (Gono 2007: 86). Dr Gono emphasized that the Western sanctions are killing Zimbabwe’s economy and noted that the withdrawal of financial support has seen the country’s import cover decline. According to Dr. Gono, “The country is no longer able to import critical items such as drugs, food, fuel and electricity, and more than 600 people have died following an outbreak of cholera because the country cannot afford to buy drugs and chemicals to treat drinking water” (Gono 2007: 86). As mentioned earlier, the sanctions have had tremendous impact on the people of Zimbabwe. Mugabe took over from Ian Smith in 1980, the economy was aligned to the West and most of the fertile land, as well as the manufacturing and mining sectors were was in the hands of the Europeans. The struggle for land began and differences between Mugabe and Tony Blair arose because of the land issue and the compensation from Britain that they dishonoured. Blair decides to fight Zimbabweans using political, diplomatic and economic instruments and does not talk about the differences between us as being the land question. He refers to good governance, human rights, and rule of law. He then persuades the members of the European Union to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe, and they say these are “smart sanctions” targeted at the leadership.
Public Health Crisis
Some special attention must be paid to the public health conditions, for it helps explain Zimbabwe’s problem with the unavailability of drugs. Sanctions regrettably, continue to claim the lives of millions of children through the denial of medical equipment, drugs and food.
As UNICEF and Government of Zimbabwe Ministry of Child and Health Welfare Report notes, sanctions target the weakest and most vulnerable members of Zimbabwean society –poor, elderly, newborn, sick, and young. It is true that sanctions tend to disproportionately damage innocent populations because such populations often have little capacity to affect their government’s policies. In order to be effective, sanctions must impose costs on the target’s ruling elite. To be humane, they must avoid damage to innocent civilians. By 2004, average life expectancy, which stood at fifty six years in 1975, had slipped to just thirty-three, the lowest in the world. A quarter of the adult population was HIV positive or suffering from full – blown AIDS, 70 percent lived below the poverty line, with almost as many not having enough to eat, and the state allocated just 3 percent of its budget to health, while more than twice that figure was spent on defense. For example, figures published by UNICEF suggest that 25 percent of Zimbabwean teachers are HIV- positive, and that by the end of 2010 some 38 000, or just over a third of the current staff, will have died (Hill 2007: 32). And unless billions have been spent on the country’s health system, there will be little help for patients afflicted with a headache, let alone HIV/AIDS. But there is another problem – cholera. Water treatment has suffered because foreign currency was not available to import chlorine and other chemicals, and gastro-internal diseases are common. Outbreaks of typhoid and cholera are annual events; waste disposal is erratic, and when people get sick, they are hard pressed to find help. On average, developed countries have 320 doctors per 100 000 people. In Africa, it’s only twelve, (IOM) and Zimbabwe falls near the bottom of that list, with just six. (United Nations Development Report, 2004, quoted in The Zimbabwe Independent, 8 October 2004.) By 2005, in rural areas government introduced ox- drawn ambulances because fuel and spare parts couldn’t be found for the vehicles that used to transport patients to hospital. The cost of seeing a doctor was more than the average monthly wage. One witness in Zimbabwe is a horrific mix of the AIDS pandemic and an intense political and economic crisis. The medical infrastructure in the country is limited to begin with. Add to that a situation in which one in three adults have HIV and no access to antiretroviral, and the result, at the ground zero level, is unimaginable human suffering. Patients with medical complications of HIV are packed into run-down wards. The morgues are full to capacity and the coffin industry is booming (Hill2007: 37). The inability of the country to make repairs of the sewage treatments plants and water purification plants means the continuation of malnutrition. This meant that 14 million people would be denied clean water resulting in the absolute devastation of the civilian population. The largest number of casualties has been the result of dirty, contaminated water caused by inadequate sewage –treatment and water treatment facilities. What that means is that children are dying in Zimbabwe of eminently treatable diseases: simple diarrhea and other contaminated –water-borne diseases. The spare parts and this led to the destruction of the country’s life support systems, especially its ability to produce and distribute clean portable water to the population. Because of sanctions, water and sewage treatment plants continued to operate at a critically reduced capacity. Children who drink untreated water in Zimbabwe are at great risk. The water – borne cholera epidemic has had severe consequences. The health care system had collapsed as a result of the unavailability of humanitarian supplies including medical equipment, along with water pumps and water – treatments plants had been held by the European Union and the United States and were not available. They had died as a result of an embargo on commerce with Zimbabwe. These economic sanctions are a silent war in which only the weakest, most vulnerable and innocent, non-combatant civilians, – women children and families – continue to suffer. The imposition of sanctions in 2003 significantly constrained Zimbabwe’s ability to earn the foreign currency needed to import sufficient quantities of drugs to meet its needs. The dramatic impact of sanctions could be described as a genocidal onslaught on the people of Zimbabwe by the UK government and can be seen in the huge number of children and adults dying from the spread of infectious diseases due to the closure of waste water treatment plants. Sadly, water- borne diseases such as cholera, typhus, and typhoid fever have had severe consequences. The breakdown of Zimbabwe’s water and sanitation systems has led to a cholera epidemic that is spilling over the border into South Africa. Zimbabwe’s Health Ministry itself acknowledged note that cholera had spread to nine of the country’s 10 provinces.
The country has indeed been seriously impacted by a cholera epidemic which has affected thousands of Zimbabweans. It is noted that according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare (MoHCW) of Zimbabwe, “as of 18 February 2009, 79, 613 suspected cases, including 3, 731 deaths have been reported by the Ministry of Health since August 2008” (WHO 2009: 1). It is important to emphasize that sanctions hurt the poor people and are designed to produce deprivation and poverty; hence it is not surprising that they bring about widespread malnutrition and increased mortality. Sanctions, of course are designed to give economic pain; but who, in practice is being hurt? Not the power elite, not the leaders, but the poor and vulnerable. (Arnove 2002:199). There is insufficient evidence that human rights and governance are responsible for the economic collapse in Zimbabwe. I therefore argue that economic sanctions imposed soon after Mugabe seized the land from white farmers and redistributed it to peasant farmers are to blame for the present woes.
The chief aim in this paper has been to identify and to begin the task of providing an answer for an important but neglected problem in dealing with the impact of economic sanctions, with specific focus to the majority of the suffering Zimbabweans caused by the current economic dilemma. In this context, my argument has been that “the international community needs to examine alternatives to economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe, which by their nature impact the weakest members of society first and the leadership last and therefore violate basic principles of international law” has been central to my thesis (Normand 1996:43).This indeed, is an important question that students and scholars of social science need to consider in the debate over the reasons behind Zimbabwe’s economic troubles. For this reason, this analysis would not be complete if I would not discuss the role played by the notorious Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA), enacted by President George W. Bush on 21 December, 2001” to destabilize Zimbabwe economically. Even more obvious about the economic sanctions, the US imposed the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act which they passed into law in December 2001, which effectively imposed stringent economic sanctions on Zimbabwe. They interfered with the international financial institutions, so that even though the Mugabe regime paid its debts to the IMF, the US still persuaded the IMF not to give the Zimbabwe government the balance of payment support that it deserve. And even the country is a member of the World Bank, and the country has complied with the Bank’s rule, they have also imposed sanctions against the landlocked country. As Baffour Ankomah points out, “For those who still don’t believe that Britain, America and their Western allies have imposed economic sanctions on Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act is one such law passed by the US Congress in December 2001” (Ankomah 2007:80). It is noted that by promulgating this law, the U.S. President was empowered to instruct representatives of the U.S. in the multilateral lending agencies for such as the IMF and World Bank to vote against credit facilities, in all their different forms to the impoverished nation of Zimbabwe, until that country improved its compliance to the rule of law, holds free and fair elections, and improved its human rights record. This marked the sad beginning of Zimbabwe’s economic and social crisis. (2007:80) The promulgation of ZIDERA empowers the U.S. to prevent Zimbabwe from getting finance from the main global multilateral lending institutions. I argue again, declaring sanctions on an impoverished developing African nation such as Zimbabwe is a crime against humanity because, as Gono points out, “Sanctions….continue to claim the lives of the millions of children through the denial of medical equipment, drugs and food (Gono 2007: 87).
Why Zimbabwe?
Furthermore, there are questions that need to be answered here: Why Zimbabwe? Why not the countries of the Middle East where women are forbidden to vote, where there is no freedom of expression and speech, and where there are human rights abuses and extreme torture? Again, why Zimbabwe? Why not Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak where presidential elections are predetermined? Why not countries like Pakistan where the Presidents come to power through coups? Why not nations such as Uganda where there are no multiparty politics? How about Ethiopia where presidential elections are clearly rigged, students not allowed to demonstrate and are detained, and there is torture? Why not China, or Libya, both countries transacting trade with the EU and US, though they not democratic and basic human rights are not observed? I do not dispute that because Zimbabwe is no different from other nations there must be no consequences for the absence of free and fair elections and human right violations. My argument is: It is not right to cause an economic implosion to Zimbabwe only to rid Zimbabwe of one person, Mugabe. The advocates of sanctions argue that the value of smart sanctions” lies in the fact that they would focus pressure on the targeted leadership or group, with little or any negative impact on civilian populations.”(United Nations Secretariat 2000). I do not agree with proponents of sanctions who argue that this produces various concrete benefits including; the protection of innocent people, exclusive targeting of political elites who have the capacity – directly or through political pressure to alter government policy. As Bull and Tostensen correctly puts it, while concept of smart sanctions is politically attractive to sender governments, “the operational problems are so numerous and formidable that a smart sanctions regime is hardly feasible to enforce” (Bull and Tostensen 1999/2000:85). Most scholars have cast doubt on the utility of smart sanctions as a “magic bullet” (Hufbaeur 2000). In sum, while the body of empirical work on the general issue of sanctions is considerable, there is little systematic empirical research directly comparing smart against traditional sanctions with respect to effectiveness or impact. It remains an open empirical question as whether smart sanctions represent a viable alternative for policy makers, and it is for this reason that a comparative assessment of trade and financial sanctions is needed. To date, studies examining the impact of sanctions, as in the case of Zimbabwe, have tended to ignore its impact on the general populations while focusing on the political and economic elites. The result as noted above is the conclusion that sanctions are in general are not very effective, and hurt the people they are intended to protect. As argued earlier, sanctions miss their intended target and often do damage to the very groups they are intended to help. The major impact is upon “the civilian population in the target who are unable to protect them and often have little or no influence on the policies which sanctions are intended to change (Doxey 1999:207). For example, scholars note that sanctions against Iraq were the direct cause of suffering for literally “hundreds of thousands of children” under the age of five (Normand 1996:40).
“Targeted Sanctions” Target the Population
This essay offers a thorough analysis of the unintended impact economic sanctions have on the people of Zimbabwe. I argue that economic coercion is a counterproductive policy tool that do more harm than good to the populations. Many people believe that sanctions in Zimbabwe are only hurting a few targeted individuals, but nothing could be further from the truth. When a child fails to go to crèche or school, because the school bus, or family car has no fuel; When the elderly fail to get an ambulance service or appropriate medical drugs, because there is no fuel or the hospital has no access to drugs; When the employees have to come late to work in the morning and get home late into the night because of transport problems emanating from fuel shortages or lack of public transport contractor aspare4 –parts; When the rural folk fail to take their maize or small grains to the grinding mill next door, or when they fail to go to the clinic because there is no fuel or drugs; When hospitals and doctors have to operate in darkness because the national power utility (ZESA) has failed to get lines of credit to improve its operating capacity for power generation; When pregnant mothers fail to get an ambulance to take them to maternity wards because there is no fuel; And when the departed fail to get an ambulance to get a descent burial because the funeral parlor has no fuel to take the body to its final resting place all because of sanctions supposedly targeted at a few. Then it is time to ask whether the so called sanctions are the best form of dealing with differences between a people, dealing with differences between regions, dealing with differences between continents, and dealing with differences between economic trading blocks. One wonders whether the sender of sanctions is imposing those sanctions for the genuine benefit and interest of the general population in sanctioned country. The US government openly admitted that it is sponsoring regime change activities in Zimbabwe. The admission was contained in a State Department report, Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The US record 2006, released on 5 April 2007.In this report President George W. Bush admitted that “We are working for regime change in Zimbabwe.” I argue that instead of forcing the sanctioned regime into reforming itself, sanctions inadvertently enhanced the regime’s coercive capacity and created incentives for the regime’s leadership to commit political repression. The public health crisis and starvation in Zimbabwe and World Health Organization data support my argument, confirming that the continued use of economic sanctions in Zimbabwe (even when aimed at promoting democracy and respect for human rights) had pervasive and negative impact. This conclusion suggests that both policy makers and scholars should pay more attention to the externalities caused by economic coercion. Clearly, it is under this backdrop of the negative impact of sanctions, for example, that Weiss and Fausey have placed the utility and desirability of economic sanctions very much in doubt, such that there is now a growing call to bring economic sanctions under scrutiny from a human rights perspective. (Weiss 1999; Fausey 1994). It is noted that what caused the UK, US and the EU to impose sanctions is Mugabe’s decision to seize white farms, rigging elections and human rights violations. Correct and very true, but, again the question is: “Is it right to use economic muscle to blockade Zimbabwe, and not Mugabe from the international credit markets as punishment?” Well, if that is the universal standard, again, why is half the world not the subject of the same so called “smart sanctions”? The controversial question I have asked throughout this paper is who suffers, Mugabe or the people of Zimbabwe, who have even struggled to get rid of their leader? Moreover, because of EU and US foreign policy, Zimbabwe’s international debts have not been forgiven, as have those of other developing nations. I am not defending Mugabe from blame. But again, I ask, is it right to punish the people of Zimbabwe because of the behavior of Mr. Mugabe? So, it is on the basis of the above views that I contend that the sanctions are to blame for the economic crisis leading to the suffering of the population. As Gary Clyde Hufbauer have observed, “Sanctions are seldom effective in bringing major changes in domestic policies of the target country” (Hubfauer 1995: 82).
Cynthia McKinney, member of the U.S. House of Representatives has also argued, “Zimbabwe’s sin is that it has taken the position to right a wrong – to return its land to its people” (Ankomah, 2007:84). McKinney asked, “Can anyone explain how the people in question who now have the land in question in Zimbabwe got title to the land?” According to Ankomah, a fuming McKinney protested, “The truth was that the land was stolen from the indigenous peoples through the BSAC and any titles of it were illegal” (2007, p.84).
As McKinney put it, “The Zimbabwean government has said that a situation where 2 per- cent of the population owns 85 per – cent of the best land is untenable,” adding, “Those who presently own more than one farm will no longer be able to do so” (Ankomah, 2007:4). She asserts that “The real motivation for sanctions against Zimbabwe was their daring to embark on land reform which negatively impacted on white commercial farmers in the country” (Ankomah 2007: 84).
Finally, a number of lessons can be abstracted from the sanctions episodes based on the experience of Zimbabwe. The simple truths are underscored by public health crisis and thousands of lives that have been claimed through the denial of medical equipment, drugs and food. For these reasons, it is clear that sanctions are decreasingly useful policy instrument. While advocates have argued that such sanctions represent the best alternative with respect to the protection of human rights, the paper argues that the effectiveness of such an approach has remained largely unexamined. Critics of trade sanctions have argued that the global community appears to be uninterested in coordinating policy with respect to the use of smart sanctions to protect human rights (Aznar-Gomez: 2002). Instead, individual governments tackle the problem in an ad way. One explanation for this approach is that the level of international coordination required for effective financial sanctions is significant. Indeed, critics of smart sanctions have argued those who recommend them do so with “a total disregard for the realities of global politics” (Bull and Tostensen 1999/2000:133). Another possible explanation which has been given is that policymakers are not yet fully convinced of the utility of purely financial sanctions. One implication of the findings here is that better coordination on this issue is justified and that smart sanctions advocates are justified in pushing for a consensus. However, the current view that, “the international community needs to examine alternatives to comprehensive trade sanctions, which by their nature impact the weakest members of a society first and the leadership last and therefore violate basic principles of international law,” is now well-established (Normand 1996:43). The findings here demonstrate that smart sanctions are a potentially attractive alternative. It is suggested that the scholars ought to now turn their attention to study the more nuanced aspects of financial sanctions. One important set of questions revolves around the different types of financial restrictions and their comparative effectiveness. In addition, there is considerable research on the problems of maintaining international cooperation between governments with respect to sanctions (e.g., Green 1983; Miyagawa 1992). While financial restrictions often require meaningful international cooperation, the conditions for successful collaboration have not been systematically explored. Not all potential targets of sanctions will be vulnerable to financial sanctions—if for no other reason than that their financial assets are not accessible. It worth mentioning that smart sanctions advocates will need to think about alternative mechanisms that serve the twin purposes of effective pressure, and the protection of basic human rights. Academics can also assist in this regard, as the other forms of smart sanctions—beyond the financial restrictions examined here—also demand further study. Unfortunately, there is little systematic data available, so the development of quality datasets remains a priority.
Financial sanctions may be more or less effective when combined with other forms of smart sanctions such as travel restrictions imposed on Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe. Understanding such interactions are a necessary condition for the delivery of effective and humane sanction bundles that both promote compliance and protect fundamental human rights.
Conclusion To conclude, it could be argued that the colonial system, the Lancaster House constitution, the British and Zimbabwean governments and white commercial farmers are all to blame for the current land crisis in Zimbabwe .Yet, the inescapable reality remains that the economic sanctions imposed as a result of the land reform wreaked havoc on Zimbabwe’s economy therefore impacting the general population, not the leadership. Even Arnove argues that “the embargo as a result of sanctions has had major effects on nutrition and health, ever-changing food prices, increased mortality and a general breakdown in the whole fabric of society” (Arnove 2002:199). According to Arnove, “Sanctions are an insidious form of warfare, and have claimed hundreds of innocent lives” (2002: 86). The inhumanity and criminal vindictiveness of sanctions against Zimbabwe struck me when on January 23, 2009, my mother, my sister and nephew all died following a cholera epidemic because the country could not afford to buy drugs and chemicals to treat drinking water. It is painful that sanctions against Zimbabwe are the direct cause of suffering for literally “hundreds of thousands of children “under the age of five (Normand; 1996: 40). This has placed the utility of sanctions of sanctions very much in doubt, such that there should be a call to bring economic sanction against Zimbabwe under international scrutiny from a human rights perspective (Weiss 1999; Fausey 1994). In sum, while the research recognizes the need for land reform, it acknowledges, however, that the land reforms were implemented in a chaotic manner which contributed to incalculable damage both to the economy. At the same time the research concludes by noting that Britain should honor its compensation obligations with regard to land reform made at Lancaster negotiations, bearing in mind that “political power alone is meaningless unless people have land,” yet also support Zimbabwe’s transition to democracy for a non-racial society. In closing, let me leave you with the words of former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, who, in speaking on the devastating impact of sanctions highlighted that: “Sanctions remain a blunt instrument which hurt large numbers of people who are not their primary targets” (New African, 2007:87). With these words it is important to point out that policy makers need to take a close look at the effectiveness of sanctions when designing foreign policy strategy. In most cases, sanctions do not contribute very much to the achievement of foreign policy goals and cause untold damage to innocent populations.
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