joel marion (dot) blogspot (dot) com
My name is Joel. This is my Blog.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Election Observers Left Holding their Breath
(this piece was written for an as yet unpublished Menno Simons College newsletter, and is reproduced here in full)

Boarding the first of four planes to get to the Democratic Republic of Congo, it really hit me that I was crossing the line from theory to practice. Through four years of study at the University of Winnipeg and Menno Simons College I had seen the stats, analyzed the paradigms, and tried to wrap my head around the absolute destruction that had wracked the Congo. Even with that knowledge, I felt like a child stepping into the unknown.

In Kinshasa, the sprawling capital, I was overcome by the sense of chaos. My assumptions of order, process, and rules were quickly and unceremoniously trampled by the mad rush of people. The chaos of traffic in the streets was a constant symbolic reminder of exactly how far the country had fallen into disarray. It was not just that the government had fallen apart. The entire system of infrastructure had simply crumbled through years of kleptocracy and neglect.

As we set out to observe round one of the elections, it became clear that this was merely a milestone in an enormous reconstruction project. Imagining the enormity of the job – rebuilding government, the economy, the military, infrastructure, civil society – it was easy to feel unimportant.

One election, after all, does not make a democracy, and democracy does not guarantee rights, or food on the table. But it does provide the framework to build those fundamental needs. It was our hope, as international election observers, that we could help that process move in a positive direction.

Now, with the second and final round of the presidential election on October 29, 2006, there is a sense of nervous anticipation over that process. The potential for post-election violence is high.

Our biggest hope is that our reports on the first election are taken seriously. If the recommendations made by international observers have been effectively implemented, the likelihood of fraud or manipulation will be extremely low.

But with a diminished international presence in the second round due to fears of election violence, it's hard to be optimistic. Whether or not the moderate UN military presence and international attention is sufficient to pressure the runner-up to accept the results is a looming question, leaving us all holding our breath.

* * *

Joel Marion is a student of the University of Winnipeg and Menno Simons College, currently completing his BA in Politics and Conflict Resolution Studies.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Blogsite Reformat
Well, it took me long enough, but I finally got the page to look the way I wanted. That silly offset where the middle column and right column didn't quite fill the screen were driving me nuts. But the sillier part is that it took something completely different to inspire the adjustments... I was getting ready to grade papers for the class in which I am the TA, and I wanted to look up UNESCO on the web, for whatever reason. Then, as is my custom, I did a bit of wandering around their site. Somehow I ended up on some other site (and no, I have no idea now where I ended up), and they had this great "banner across the top" style, full-page with side columns ... bla, bla, bla... it looked nice, is the point. and it got me thinking, geeze, I keep sending people to my blogsite and I still haven't fixed that stupid column issue... well, now I'm happy. Of course, someone's gonna have to tell me it doesn't work on their platform because their screen is at 400x600 or they're using the opera browser or something like that. Well, if that's your problem then let me know, and while you're at it, read my html, and research how I can make it compatible, because i'm tired of fiddling with code and I need to sleep.

goodnight, and thank you for being bored at my blog entry.

-joel

---{an afterthought: yes, I realize now that it doesn't look right in internet explorer... you should be using firefox anyways... grrr.... I'll fix it later. }--