On January 4, the Program on Human Rights at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law launched the inaugural Sanela Diana Jenkins International Human Rights Speaker Series featuring activist leader Jenni Williams of the Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) organization. Williams captivated an audience of 70 with her harrowing account of the persecution and violence non-violent activists face at the hands of the repressive Mugabe regime.

Jenni Williams, a Zimbabwean activist, spoke Tuesday as part of the Sanela Diana Jenkins International Human Rights Speaker Series. Williams is national coordinator of Women of Zimbabwe, Arise!, or WOZA, a nonviolent organization that protests against human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.

“We are human-rights defenders to the nation, mothers to the nation…we defy unjust laws and take our issues to the streets to find a nonviolent way of protesting,” Williams said after showing her audience a slideshow titled “Zimbabwe’s Elections: 30 Years of Torment, Torture & Death,” which depicted images of torture under Robert Mugabe’s regime in her homeland.

Following the slideshow and a video showing members of WOZA protesting for proper electricity, Williams started her speech on a somber note.

“2011 is going to be a year of hell in Zimbabwe, so excuse me for not saying, ‘Happy New Year,’” she said.

“If my grandchildren cannot get a better Zimbabwe, they will think of me badly. We have to correct the past wrongs and re-establish the social dignity of our people.”
-Jenni Williams

In a country where the average life expectancy for women is 37 years, the unemployment rate is 94 percent and Mugabe has been in charge for 30 years, leading a regime accused of corruption, nepotism, bribery and human rights abuse, WOZA seeks to bring democracy and justice to Zimbabwe, she said.

“We aim to mobilize through civic education,” she said. “We capacitate ordinary people with skills for community leadership…we’re creating a society where no new Robert Mugabe can flourish.”

WOZA has carried out 35 street demonstrations in the last 18 months. The grassroots organization relies on ordinary Zimbabweans. Both women and men have swelled its ranks to 75,000 members.

“Our activists are not the employed or the ones who go to university,” Williams said. “They are ordinary people struggling for ordinary everyday things that the politicians needs to be focused on.”

After choosing to remain in Zimbabwe despite mass exodus and the migration of her husband and children to the UK, she has been arrested 33 times, including after the electricity protest. She was held in prison for six days, then returned to her activism once she was freed.

Williams also moves between safe houses in Zimbabwe every six months and was at one time under risk of assassination, she said.

Nonetheless, Williams said, she believes fully in nonviolence, quoting Gandhi and saying, “We love anyone, even our enemies.”

“She’s a pioneer for protecting human rights,” said Davis Albohm, a graduate student in African studies. “She’s doing incredible work that I think a lot of people would not be brave enough to undertake.”

Williams credited her fellow WOZA members for their achievements.

“A shared burden is a burden lightened,” she said. “Our organization has empowered people. We’ve trained them to be human-rights defenders…we see the Zimbabwe we want in our mind’s eye, and we feel it in our hearts.”

Williams said Zimbabwe’s political environment “remains highly violent, uncertain and tense,” speaking of the very real possibility that President Mugabe, now 86, will die in power before opposition defeats him.

Williams said her group’s goals went beyond simply deposing Mugabe.

“Robert Mugabe is only the face of a political system…we want to put the democratic yeast within the society so the loaf will rise,” she said.

Victoria Alvarado ’14 said the talk was “very, very emotionally striking.”

“I found myself in tears at points. She came here to show us that we can help,” Alvarado said.

Williams’ suggestion to the audience was to “appreciate what you have and protect your own rights and freedoms. We need a model to copy.”

And on why she continued to fight a dangerous struggle, Williams cited the future, not only of her nation but of her family.

“If my grandchildren cannot get a better Zimbabwe, they will think of me badly,” she said. “We have to correct the past wrongs and re-establish the social dignity of our people.”

Despite all of the rhetoric, it is clear from the numbers that China's ascendency has not been at the expense of the United States.

-Thomas Fingar

China unquestionably occupies a significant place in the world's U.S.-led economic and political system. Will it continue to participate in the system that it has benefited from and contributed to, adapting its policies and practices in order to do so? Or, will it attempt to overturn the current system at some point in an effort to gain global dominance? Thomas Fingar, the Oksenberg/Rohlen Distinguished Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, will address these core questions in a new research project, arguing that the situation is neither so polarized, nor so simplistic. Former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, Fingar takes an empirical approach to his research, examining whether there have been recurring patterns to China's involvement in the global order; what drives, shapes, and constrains Chinese initiatives; and how others have responded to Chinese actions.

Fingar asserts that there have been patterns to China's participation in international economics and politics over the past 30 years, including a pendular quality to the U.S.-China relationship. According to him, relations between the two countries were largely instrumental during the Cold War era when the United States was at odds with the Soviet Union and China was undergoing a period of self strengthening. U.S.-China relations cooled following the Tiananmen Square incident, the timing of which coincided roughly with the fall of the Soviet Union. Trust between the two countries deteriorated as China displayed its more authoritarian side, and the United States responded with sanctions that did not significantly impede China's economic growth, but did change the relationship in ways that still shape perceptions of one another.

Economics are now the primary focal point of discussions about U.S.-China relations, with a negative light frequently cast on China. "Despite all of the rhetoric, it is clear from the numbers that China's ascendency has not been at the expense of the United States," states Fingar. Trade with China, in fact, creates jobs in the United States, but trade-related jobs are dispersed and therefore not clearly visible. "They are not concentrated in a place where a factory closed, often for reasons that that have nothing to do with China," says Fingar, "but the pain and the political impact is local. I would predict that when our economy turns around, the pendulum will swing further back in a less-worried, less-critical direction."

While China has a legal system and has adopted many international standards, Fingar asserts that "it is still not a society governed by law," and that it in fact does not always measure up to global or even to its own standards. He cites China's record of undesirable practices and issues, such as currency manipulation, government corruption, and intellectual property violation, which complicate and confuse understanding of its involvement in the global system.

Fingar does not believe that the U.S.-China relationship will ever return to the "honeymoon" era of the Cold War, but he says, "The swings of the pendulum and the perturbations in the relationship are less intense and of shorter duration; that is the pattern." Quoting Anne-Marie Slaughter, director of policy planning at the U.S. Department of State, Fingar suggests that the best vision for the global order is "a world in which there are more partnerships and fewer alliances." He cautions against disregarding important, long-time alliances, such as the U.S.-Korea relationship. He notes, however, the crucial fact that alliances assume that there is an adversary, which can marginalize and threaten regional neighbors, such as China, or put allies in the uncomfortable position of having to choose between siding with a neighbor or a distant ally. "We must find a way so that no one has to choose," says Fingar.

On January 6, Fingar outlined the primary points of his new research project at a public lecture co-sponsored by the Stanford China Program and the Center for East Asian Studies, part of the China in the World series. He will also lead Stanford students through an examination of related key issues and questions in "China on the World Stage" (IPS 246), a course that he is teaching during the current winter quarter.

In the January/February issue of Foreign Policy magazine, Thomas Fingar, the former deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, examines Chinese President Hu Jintao's assessment of the economic and political challenges his nation faces. China's "growth has bolstered national pride and earned the respect of people around the world," Fingar writes in an imagined memo from Hu. "But it has also raised expectations at home and reinforced foreign concerns about China's rise. Our successes have made it even more important to make progress on corruption, perceived injustice, and other long-standing problems."