New Internationalist AUGUST Issue 403 Southern Exposure

CONTENTS

From this month’s guest editor

New Internationalist editor Dinyar Godrej’s email asking us to participate in the 400th issue of the magazine a few months ago was a great opportunity. But with Dhaka in flames and our own struggles to ensure some semblance of fairness in the elections, we passed it on to other activists. Vanessa Baird’s subsequent email suggesting an issue of the New Internationalist based on our organization – the Drik photo agency and Pathshala photography school – as an example of how some of us in the Majority World are challenging the global information flow, came as an unexpected reprieve. Our immediate political problems in Bangladesh hadn’t gone away. An activist had been brutally killed by the army, and a journalist friend who had been courageously reporting on military misrule had been picked up in the middle of the night. So things were far from easy on the home front, but writing about, and showing, what had been our central struggle over the last 20 years was an opportunity we couldn’t miss. We had all lived it. More importantly, with our majorityworld.com site up and running and slowly beginning to get pictures into print, we weren’t

just talking about change. We were witnessing it taking place. This issue of the magazine could hardly have been better timed. Majority World photographers embraced the idea: from the small studio of VAST – a voluntary artists association in Bhutan – to a crammed office room in Santa Cruz, Bolivia; from the enthusiastic Photo Circle in Kathmandu to a hotel lobby in Dili, Timor Leste. Our FTP site has been busy and the pictures – some of which are featured in the pages of this issue – have been flowing in. After years of trying to persuade others, Majority World photographers have taken things into their own hands. Watch this space.

Shahidul Alam, Drik/Pathshala for the New Internationalist Co-operative shahidul@drik.net

14 GALLERY – Lifecycle: with few exits Images from Nepal and Bangladesh.

16 GALLERY – Coping with pain Images from India and Bangladesh.

18 GALLERY – Lifestyles: disappearing and aspired Images from Bangladesh and Japan.

20 Action Contacts and websites.

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4 Keynote – The Majority World looks back Shahidul Alam makes the case for fair trade in imagery.

10 GALLERY – Belongings: felt, presented, challenged Images from Bangladesh, Iran, South Africa and Sri Lanka.

12 FEATURE – A true Pathshala The story of an extraordinary school, told by Sameera Huque and Shahidul Alam .

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21 SPECIAL FEATURE The long wait for peace After 20 years of war, Northern Uganda could be on the verge of a deal to end the violence. But will it enable the region’s displaced and terrorized women and children to rebuild their lives? asks Rebecca Wearn.

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Regular Features

2 Letters Burqas in suburbia; Baha’i propaganda; is humanitarian intervention dangerous? PLUS: Letter from Mauritius

25 Currents Anti-slavery radio from Brazil; the G8 fails again; US private company to ‘reform’ Liberia’s army. PLUS: Wordpower and Seriously

28 Big Bad World Polyp on the ultimate naïïvety. PLUS: NI Prize Crossword

29 Making Waves An interview with singer and ‘World Citizen’ David Sylvian.

30 Mixed Media Including John Pilger’s latest film, music by Simphiwe Dana and Tito Paris, a change-the-world handbook and a ‘war on terror’ boardgame.

32 Southern Exposure A painting of village life by the Malawian artist Kingsley Maigwa.

33 View from Havana A pox on Harry Potter and Dan Brown: Leonardo Padura Fuentes stands up for ‘real’ literature.

34 Essay: Enemy of the state Shane Leavy tries to understand why the Chinese Government finds the Falun Gong movement so threatening.

36 Country Profile: Cambodia

We welcome feedback on this or any other issue of New Internationalist . Please feel free to email your comments to feedback@newint.org.

Front cover photograph: Bijon Sarker / Drik Picture Library Magazine design: Ian Nixon All monetary values are expressed in US dollars unless otherwise noted.