About Stealth Conflicts
Such conflicts are often referred to as ‘forgotten conflicts’ (or ‘forgotten crises’), but this term is misleading. For a conflict to be forgotten, it must first be remembered, and this does not apply to many of the world’s conflicts that fail to attract attention. They were not remembered to begin with. Furthermore, the term ‘forgotten’ suggests that the conflict has just accidentally slipped the minds of those in a position to respond, but this is hardly the case. The marginalization of these conflicts is the result of a series of deliberate choices on the part of those in a position to respond. There is nothing accidental about it.
Selectivity in the response to conflict is sadly inevitable, as is the existence of stealth conflicts, but the world’s deadliest conflicts should certainly not be among them. And yet they are, with the deadliest conflict the world has seen since WWII – that in the Democratic Republic of Congo – being notoriously missing from our consciousness.
This blog aims to shed light on such stealth conflicts and the mechanisms that are behind their marginalization. It is an extension and exploration of ideas contained in a book written by the author of this blog, entitled Stealth Conflicts: How the World’s Worst Violence Is Ignored (the book’s table of contents is here, the introduction is here and part of Chapter One can be found using the Look Inside function at Amazon). Links to reviews of the book can also be found on the right-hand side of this page.
In addition to the full posts, don’t forget to check out the shorter Quick notes, thoughts and updates section.
Do you have something to contribute on this important subject? Go to the newly opened Stealth Conflicts Forum and write your own post on conflicts that are ignored and marginalized. The floor is open!
For those interested in the UN Security Council, here is my other book – The Silence of the UN Security Council: Conflict and Peace Enforcement in the 1990s. This also deals with stealth conflicts (and conflict resolution), but through the Security Council.
Site banner created by David Ward
26 December, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Thanks for visiting my blog http://wafiyaf.wordpress.com/ and your encouragement. I found your articles very helpful and have linked to some of them. Please keep up the good work. Your book looks great but a little steep for my wallet, but I’ll see if the library can get it in. Thanks
Scott
27 December, 2008 at 11:59 am
Thanks for that Scott. The more people we can help to know about the conflict in the DRC the better (and there seem to be very few of ‘us’ out there). I understand the price of the book is steep – in its current form (hardcover) it is designed mostly for libraries, so I do hope your library can get it in. All the best and let’s stick at it!
28 December, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Virgil,
Thanks for the endorsement of my Congo article. And, yes, the world’s worst violence is ignored, or, in other cases, made to look like it is result of something else other than grubbing for money and riches.
Great looking site and I will definitely check out your book!
Ken
29 December, 2008 at 2:54 am
Hi Virgil,
Thanks for your comment. I like your path (going back to university after 6 years in the field is something I want to do). I am also very much interested on forgotten conflicts from a media perspective. I see here Ken Anderson writing, that´s funny, I also liked his article very much. I´ll follow your blog. All the best,
an humanitarian worker in Goma, DRC
http://stopthewarinnorthkivu.wordpress.com
30 December, 2008 at 1:11 am
Dr. Hawkins,
FYI, I published a plug for your book, which I am looking forward to getting soon, on one of my other outlets, the fairly well known team blog called Newshoggers.
Book Plug: Stealth Conflicts
Thought you might like to know.
30 December, 2008 at 7:42 am
Thank you very much for that, Ken! That’s really a great help. Let’s hope we can get more and more people thinking and talking about this issue. I really have to get cracking on writing some more posts.
3 January, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Hi Virgil
Thanks for the comment. I will add you to my blogroll.
Samson
18 January, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Hi,
I am having trouble understanding the layout and content of your site. I click “dictators” and all I can read about is the case in Guinea, with a reference to Niyazov.
I would have expected a more comprehensive treatment of *all* conflicts, dictators etc. that just are not making the news. I live in Yemen where the government has been waging a war with Zaydi rebels for the last few years. Journalists have been shut out and thre’s hardly been a whisper in the media or from the US government, for whom Yemen is an ally in the “War on Terror”.
But I have no idea if your site mentions this conflict – I wouldn’t know where to start looking.
I think your blog needs more encyclopaedic content, sorted and searchable by conflict, actors, region, etc. – but that’s just my thoughts.
Otherwise, good idea.
Marc.
21 January, 2009 at 1:19 am
Hello Marc,
Thank you for your comments. I would love to be able to provide a comprehensive coverage of all conflicts and dictators that are ignored. Unfortunately, though, there are so many conflicts and dictators that are ignored (most of them are!), and I have just recently started this blog, so I still have written only 12 entries. I find myself quite busy with other work, and am only able to come up with about 1 blog entry per week. So at this stage, with few entries in each of the categories, it is probably best to look not at the “Categories”, but instead at the “Recent Posts” as they are slowly added.
Furthermore, I tend to concentrate on Africa in this blog, because it is the host to almost 90 percent of the world’s conflict-related deaths in the last twenty years. Despite this, most are ignored. I am also trying to respond to major events as they happen (coups, massacres, and major developments in conflicts, for example), particularly those that seem to be ignored.
That being said, thank you for the tip-off on the conflict in Yemen. This is indeed a stealth conflict. I understand that between 2 and 3,000 people have been killed since 2004 in this conflict, and you are right – there has been hardly a whisper. It would appear that it is uncomfortable for the US government to draw any attention to the conflict (which would make its ally look bad), and the media follows suit (as it usually does). I hope to be able to work in something about this in one of my future posts.
I wish you all the best in trying to draw attention to this terrible conflict.
8 February, 2009 at 12:14 pm
As there are clearly several of you who are interested and involved in trying to inform the world about the many under-reported conflits in Africa and perhaps elsewhere, may I suggest that, instead of a blog, you start a wiki that focusses on conflict? Doing so would allow those with knowledge to share it, and prevent all the work from falling on just one person.
If you are concerned about sabotage, you coould control who is permitted to add to to it and edit.
Keep it up!
p.s. I learned about your site through a NI blog posting.
http://blog.newint.org/majority/2009/02/05/stealth-wars/
8 February, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Thank you for the suggestion, Martin. Sounds like a good idea! I will definitely look into doing it. It would be a good way to get a broader group of people interested – including many who don’t happen to stumble upon the blog.
16 February, 2009 at 10:02 am
Hi Virgil! I just saw your movie for the first time today. Nice work!
I’ve been out of the loop for a few weeks, as I’ve just moved to Amsterdam, so I don’t know how long ago you put that up, but it is great intro. Anyway, hoping to get back into the groove soon.
16 February, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Hi Ken, and welcome back to the loop. I hope you are settling in there in Amsterdam. Thank you for the encouraging words on the video! I’m glad you liked it. I put it up in early February. You may have also noticed that I have started Stealth Conflicts Forum (just yesterday actually). I hope to have people with an interest in this issue writing posts. I know you are busy with your own blogs, but it would be great to have you write a short post for it if you have the time and the interest!
17 February, 2009 at 4:30 am
Virgil,
Yes, I’d be happy to jump in when I can. I have found a particularly interesting article (from Friends of the Congo) about the “arrest” of Nkunkda people interested in such things might find informative.
cheers!
17 February, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Great! Will look forward to it!
3 March, 2009 at 4:46 am
I embedded your video into my blog in order to spread your word!
4 March, 2009 at 4:33 am
Thanks for that, Suzanne. Let us all continue to spread the message.
16 March, 2009 at 9:52 am
Hi Virgil,
this looks great, very interesting indeed. I’m just starting a blog up about Congo myself to discuss the under-representation of media reporting in the DRC to coincide with my thesis on the same subject. I’m also hoping to link together people like yourselves and hopefully spread the discussion.
Who knows, it might even make it into the media one day….
All the best,
Simon
16 March, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Oh, and I’ve already quoted you in my thesis…
18 March, 2009 at 4:27 am
Thanks Simon for the words of encouragement and for quoting me. I’m very glad to hear about your blog and your thesis. This is very encouraging. Let us keep in touch and keep pushing.
29 March, 2009 at 9:35 am
Hello!
Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language
See you!
Your, Raiul Baztepo
4 September, 2009 at 1:44 am
Cool site, love the info.
12 January, 2010 at 5:49 pm
great site, keep the good work rolling. thank you for the informations, it’s open my eyes!
30 March, 2010 at 11:13 pm
I visited this site for the first time since I knew this issue at One World Festival. Then we talked about UN OCHA. I wonder how that study goes. I’d love to learn more about the stealth conflicts.
26 April, 2010 at 9:35 pm
Katsue san,
Thank you for visiting our booth at the One World Festival, and thanks for visiting this blog! I hope you help spread the word, and that you can join in the next time we hold an event about these stealth conflicts.
28 April, 2010 at 12:08 am
Looking forward to that event!
10 June, 2010 at 5:55 am
Love is all we have, the only way that each can help the other.
google
18 June, 2010 at 1:59 am
Mr Hawkins
I found your initiative very impressive, and wanted to read your book. In fact I will participate to the international AUSTRIAN STUDY CENTER FOR PEACE AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION conference with an article. This years theme is about forgotten conflicts and media coverage. It is pitty that I learned about your book so lately. I could surely use it and could findvery impessive points to cite. So I searched the book in some libraries but couldnt find. I wish to ask if you know any place or publication center where I can find it ?
18 June, 2010 at 8:56 am
Hello Samil.
Thank you for your interest. The conference sounds very interesting. I checked Worldcat to see where copies of the book can be found. I don’t know if you are based in Austria or not, but there appear to be none there at the moment. There are copies in Slovenia (Institute of Information Science), Germany (Bavarian State Library and George C Marshall European Center) and Switzerland (ZHB and Zentralbibliothek Zurich). Perhaps you could put in a book request at a library near you, or use an interlibrary loan.
I hope you get hold of a copy.
22 July, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Just found the site – glad to be informed.
30 July, 2010 at 1:32 am
i’d like to add your blog to my blogroll as well. do you mind?
30 July, 2010 at 8:53 am
Thank you Masami. Please do.
5 August, 2010 at 11:07 pm
Dear Sir,
I have just sent the following email to Anne Nolan,the Marketing Director of your publisher.Please read it and explain to me why don’t you do something to make your book available to the general public?!
“Dear Madam
I see that your book STEALTH CONFLICTS is sold in Amazon for $100.As it seems,this unique and original book is not written in obscure academic language.Why don’t you make it available to the general public at a …normal price? I would have liked to buy this book for myself,as well as to give it as a gift to friends and…politicians.However,your price is prohibitive.Only institutions and libraries can afford this price.From similar comments in Amazon,it seems that other people share my view.I’m sure this important book will sell a lot if you make it available as a paperback at a normal and affordable price.
Hoping you will do it soon,
Regards,
Nicolas H.”
Thank you.
8 August, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Nicolas,
Thanks for the message. I appreciate your frustration. Unfortunately, the world of publishing can be a bit tricky at times. One of the downsides of publishing with Ashgate is the price – this is not just for my book, but it is pretty standard for all the books they publish. It is not negotiable.
Having said that, I also want to get my book out in paperback at an affordable price. I have, in fact, written to the publisher more than once about this, but have yet to make headway. I think your message to me is a sign that I need to try again and make it happen.
In the meantime, I wonder if you can find it in a library near where you are? Also in the meantime, I hope you continue to read this blog. I started writing this blog to get my message out to a much wider audience. While the information in my book is better backed up with references and data, and is more comprehensive and organized, the message, as you can guess, is quite similar.
Thanks for the interest, and I’ll see what I can do to get the book out in paperback.