Winter Law School Program - Wits, South Africa

It was almost eleven years ago that I walked along the beautiful coastline of the Cape of Good Hope, stood upon a 1.5kg ostrich egg in wine-lands, trekked along the rugged peaks of Signal Hill to watch the gorgeous sun set, captured panoramic view on the cable car trip to Table Mountain, hopped on the train to Gugulethu township...amongst others. Although, I could not make it to the most famous prison site - Robben Island Museum - I had a fair bit of chance to roam one of Africa's most beautiful city and it's surrounding for close to 2 months. When it was time to return home, I left the apartheid-laden republic with the hope of coming back someday. Little did I know it would be within the space and time of 11 years.

On March 8, 2010, after several months of exchange between the University of Witswaterstrand, I booked my flight to Johannesburg via the United Arab Emirates. This time, it was to attend the Winter Law School at the Mandela Institute of School of Law, a joint exchange program mainly organized for students from Seattle University School of Law, in Washington State, USA. I believe that South Africa and Liberia has some similarity in their cultural history of oppression. BUT unlike Liberia, RSA has managed to develop and implement laws, policies and programs to deal with various forms of equality. My hope was to learn from Africa and explore opportunities of borrowing best practice with regards to sexual violence against women.

In addition to doing South African Constitutional Law in Comparative Context and International Dispute Resolution we have the privilege of visiting some of South Africa's highly acclaimed touristic sites (Constitutional Court, Soweto, Pilanesberg National Park, Apartheid Museum, the Origin Centre, South African Commission for Human Rights, the African Leadership Academy plus the added benefit of watching the opening ceremony of the historic FIFA World Cup (bafana bafana) where I had the most delighted opportunity to not only live next door to the Brazilian Football squad but also watched them practice (courtesy Lydia & Viv). I was also able to attend the Tribute to Mariam Makeba at Mary Fitzgerald Park in Newtown - courtesy Lydia & Sammy). I just could not have asked for more...it was a BLAST!!!

Even though I have many memorable experiences in Johannesburg (most positive and few negative), few illuminates my inner spirit:
1. Seeing the King of the Jungle - a male lion - roar in its majestic tone few meters away whilst sitting in the safari truck.
2. Meeting Judge Zak Yacoob of the most progressive courts in the world - South African Constitution Court.
3. Being divided into Blacks and Whites as we entered the Apartheid Musuem - a "very miniscule experience" of what black South Africa faced during apartheid.
4. Walking through the cells at Constitution Hill where Gandhi, Mandela and others were imprisoned for "being black".
5. Solemnly imagining Winnie and Nelson Mandela time in their small house on 8115 Vilakazi Street, Soweto at the same time striking a pose in-front of Bishop Desmond Tutu's house right down the road.
6. Leaving my purse in the library for 5 minutes only to return and realize that almost 2,000 rand had been stolen but all else in tact - DEVASTATING.
7. Having serious trouble taking public transportation from Honeydew to University of Witwaterstrand.
8. Eating bitter leaf stew and Simonella (not the gram +ve bacteria but a wheat flour) with my ten fingers at a Nigerian restaurant in the city center
9. Returning from the grocery stores around 8pm only to realize that somebody was following us - I quickly turned and said to him "you're not going to get what you are looking for because we'll fight for our lives."
10. Instantly realizing that the whole city is literally "embellished" in barb wires, iron bars and security alarms for fear of being robbed or killed.

Overall, my time is Jo'burg was AWESOME except for the sounds of "fufu sellers" (vuvuzelas) at the airport...

The Epitome of Academic Expedition: My First Book Publication

Anyone in academia will know that publishing is crucial. It is one of the major expertise potential employers (mostly universities and colleges) look for when assessing resumes of job applicants. The pressure to publish gets even more intense after you have been employed. So, anyone who desires to teach, always find his/herself juggling tedious school work (if you are still a student) and/or teaching in order to maintain his/her job as a professor. For those hired with tenure track, the likelihood of losing their tenure position with the university is higher, if after a said period of time, s/he have not published or conducted major research. For me, the experience is a bit different as starting a career in academia is only one of the numerous opportunities education has offered me so far.

When I started out as a young lass in 7th Grade, I had always wanted to be a pediatrician. Though the dream has not faded, life's roller coaster has projected me into a melange of academic learning, which I think it's the most appreciable trajectory for any young person with similar background. I started writing since I was a little girl - in the beginning I kept detailed dairies of my daily experiences. Then, I kept records of my family and I experiences during the war in Liberia - which my mother destroyed for fear of losing our lives if caught with the manuscripts. Along similar lines, I still document my experiences as I travel around the world. Nevertheless, through all of these experiences it never occurred to me that I could publish any of my written work. In actual fact, I had been afraid to nurture the thought due to the biases, stereotypes, discrimination publishers (mainly Western companies) hold against emerging writers from the Global South. They usually say,

"English is not your first language"
"your writing is terrible"
"you have to read more fiction so that you can be able to write"
"you write like you speak"
"get use to rejection from publishers because your writing is not good enough"
and the list goes on.

For me, these discouraging lies are all the more reasons I dare to publish. As an intelligent human being, I am teachable and I have the ability to learn new things. So, I took on my first book challenge last year. I thought to myself, if I have received "A's" in most of my essay assignments then it's an indication that my papers are good enough and worth publishing. Sometimes, I wish my professors would have encouraged me to publish long time ago. Anyways, never too late as I am a self-motivator. After organizing one of the most successful conferences at York University's Centre for Refugee Studies, I decided to lead the conference speakers into a dream of their life - i.e., turning the papers they presented at the conference into an edited book. Without any prior training in the process, I got to work by preparing a format/guideline to send out to all speakers. By the end of the deadline (October 7, 2010) 11 papers were submitted - almost ready for publication.

The next step was to find a publisher. My first choice with Oxford University Forced Migration Review. Unfortunately, the Review does not take such large publication as it focuses more on non-academic publications. I was disappointed, but I continued my search. Whilst on Christmas holiday in Rhode Island, I stumbled against Brown Walker Publications. One email was all it took. By February 2010 Documenting the Undocumented: Redefining Refugee Status was published. This was the beginning of my "publishing snowball." The second book (Legal Discrepancies: Internal Displacement of Women and Children in Africa) followed in May with a book chapter (Mother Passed It On) in September. Since January 2010, at least four journal articles and two non-refereed papers have be produced with more underway.

Noteworthy, the process I have described above is not as simple as it is written. It requires lots of commitment, diligence and focus. But in the end, the reward is great. At this juncture, there is no stopping - titles are already lined up waiting to complete including the Good Citizens Project Human Rights Series for children in Liberia/Africa.

Liberian Studies Association Conference at Temple University, Philadelphia

The last time I ever gathered in the same setting with that many Liberians was probably sometime is July 1992 when we piled up on the deck of a peace-keeping ship en route to Ghana searching for peace and security as refugees. For some reason, I have always found myself in places where Liberians are "naturally" hard to find. I must emphasize that, Liberians tend to have this "twisted idea" that "their forefathers (not their foremothers) came from America." So, before the inception of the civil war - the "Great United States of America" was the only country on the planet. According to Liberians informal standard, if you had not travel to the US, then you've not travel anywhere. The point I'm drifting at is that, outside the US, you seldom see Liberians (although the trend is changing mainly due to the civil war). Even more pronounced is that, with such small population as a country, the few of us that make it to "proper" universities (if you know what I mean?) are in the minutest number, especially outside of the US.

For example, at the University of Ghana we were only three Liberian female students between 1997 and 2000. At the University of British Columbia, we were only two female students between 2001 and 2004. At the University of Nottingham, before I enrolled as an international student for academic year 2005/2006, I specifically requested to be connected to other Liberian students, there was none! Later on in the year, I will find a Liberia-British student who didn't consider herself to be a Liberian because she's never lived in Liberia. At York University, where I'm currently studying, I know of only two other Liberians students (a male and a female) c'est tout! In the grand scheme of things, my limited sample is apparently a happenstance, albeit, some level of "truth" can still be seen. Thus, you can appreciate my excitement when I received an email from Professor Elwood Dunn (my mentor) encouraging me to submit a paper to the 42nd Liberian Studies Association Annual Conference.

I was truly elated! I immediately submitted my abstract and invited my good friend to apply as well. By mid February both of our papers were accepted for oral presentation. We quickly booked flights and organized accommodation with family members in anticipation for our first Liberian academic gathering ever! Nevermind that, on March 25th I had to teach between 8:30am and 10:30am before boarding an American Airline Flight which later delayed for almost 6hrs pushing my ETA to almost 1am so that I ended up having only 3hrs of sleep in order to make my 9:30am presentation - I still made it just in time!

I had prepared a 4-page paper to present in 20 minutes - I usually refrain from doing power-point presentations because I personally think they can be too distracting - but I ended up speaking for 10 crisp minutes. I did not realize how captivating my presentation was until I had finished and saw participants lined up to speak with me. I am always very humbled by such reaction at conferences/events as I consider myself to be simple, down-to-earth and approachable. I do appreciate how far I have come in life but it is no excuse to be pompous, proud or snobbish, in fact, I detest such people because I believe, though I had to work hard to acquire my achievements, it is only by chance that opportunity was granted me (know what I mean?). In other words, no matter my hard work, if (say) WUSC had not offered me the opportunity to emigrate to Canada, I'm not sure I would have had this much successes - Note: there's no way of predicting otherwise though.

Anyways, the long to the short is that, for three consecutive days, I was blessed to be in the presence of renown Liberian scholars, activists, entertainers, and more. The highlight of the conference was when Professor Elwood Dunn appointed me to be a part of LSA Ad Hoc Committee, whose major goal is to review the organization's Constitution as well as make recommendation(s) to the Executive Team before the next conference in 2011. Finally, after all these years of education, I have established my links with Liberian academics - the best is yet to come!

Queen's University International Development Conference

I must admit that I am one of few academic breeds who get accepted to speak as some pretty prestigious conferences around the world for example, the World Public Health Congress 2009, Istanbul, Turkey; the International Union for Health Promotion and Education 2010 Geneva, Switzerland, and the World Medical Law Congress 2010, Zagreb, Croatia (to name but a very few). But of late, I am rather getting invited - now, I think that's really cool! On January 25th, I received this letter from Queen's University International Development Conference (QIDC) Team:

Dear Ms. Veronica Fynn,

My name is Teddy Lui and I am the Speakers Coordinator for Queen's University's upcoming International Development Conference (IDC) taking place on March 12-13, 2010. This student-run conference will be held in Kingston, Ontario. Hopefully you are familiar with it.

I am contacting you on behalf of our conference team with an invitation requesting your attendance as a guest speaker for our panel entitled Human Trafficking: The Fight Against Modern Day Slavery. Your wealth of experience in this area before law school and also in Geneva would undoubtedly engage bright young students who are passionate about making a difference in the international development community.

I have attached to this email an official invitation to IDC 2010. Please don’t hesitate to reach out and contact me if you have any further questions.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Best Regards,

Teddy Lui
IDC 2010 Speakers Coordinator
Queen’s University, Bachelor of Commerce 2010

Earnestly, I thought it was a spam because I do get those sometimes, inviting me to register for a conference. So, I went to google (as usual) and did my search. QIDC truly existed and Teddy was a human being! Knowing that my calendar gets full really quickly, I immediately accepted and confirm my attendance. On March 12th, all roads led to Queen's University. It was awesome to see participants and speakers from all walks of life with diverse perspectives on international development. Hats-off to the students for putting on, what I called, an atypical conference organized by students - from the hotel accommodation, to the quality of speakers and overall service delivery - I left Queens feeling very lucky to have been invited!

Keynote Address at University of Waterloo - WUSC Symposium

The World University Service of Canada (WUSC) is a significant part of my relatively young history. We go at least 9 years back. As such, I am actively engaged with WUSC - all centering around advocacy for refugee girl child education. On February 3rd, I received an email from WUSC University of Waterloo Chapter asking me to be the keynote speaker for their first symposium. The focus of the symposium was on Millennium Development Goals #2: Universal Primary Education for all Children. Knowing that my calendar fills up really quickly, I almost immediately accepted the offer as the topic is one that captivates my research interest.

After several email exchanges and planning, I finally made my way down to University of Waterloo on March 6, 2010. I arrived a bit later - courtesy - a hired taxi driver who felt the need to do a city contour before delivering me to my destination. As I hurried into the hall, there, stretched across the Great Hall, an estimated 40-50 students patiently peering and waiting for the event to begin. Professor Larry Swatuk opened up the program with a fantastic overview of the MDGs with regards to it's emergence, history, implications, and potential outcomes globally.

I mounted the podium after a somewhat elaborate introduction profiling my numerous achievements. With clear enunciation, articulation, bouts of quizzical pauses and humour, I spoke for 45 minutes on a hybridized topic: Faites Attention sur le deux: MDG and Universal Primary Education by 2015. Though, I was concerned about being too direct with respect to the UN obssession with the "For All Fallacy"; I managed to return positive feedback after my presention. I joined in with participants to discuss international development issues in a global cafe style. Many were able to ask questions and discuss critical perspectives on the pros and cons of international development work.

By 6pm, after settling down into my hotel, a group of 7, including the Symposium Organizers, extended an invitation to dine at the local Mongolian ALL YOU CAN EAT restuarant. You bet, it was sumptuous and filling! A day worth spending...

VBS.TV Travel Guide to Liberia -Open Apology

Last month, VBS.TV produced one of the most derogatory documentaries on Liberia. A friend of mine from Philadelphia, USA notified me and I instantly "took to my heels." I didn't just send the letter below to VBS.TV, I also contacted a whole network of Liberians urging them to do something about it. After about 2 weeks, the results were positive. First, they remove all those nasty documentaries and then wrote an open apology letter (see VBS.TV Open Letter to Liberia). Thanks to Liberians & non-Liberians everywhere for upholding our pride and dignity even in the midst of war and poverty - WE WILL OVERALL PREVAIL!

Sent: Jan 23 @ 9:35pm
Subject: VBS.TV Travel Guide to Liberia

After trying several times to get through to your phone lines I must resort to writing. As a PhD in Law student (in Canada) and a born and bred Liberian who experienced part of the civil war in Liberia; my natural instincts tell me to go after VBS legally to ensure that they pay for complete defamation and misrepresentation of information about a whole country. But then again, I shouldn't allow my anger to take the better part of me as a more sensible, resptectful, tolerant and morally upright human being.

I would really appreciate speaking with Mr. Shane Smith concerning VBS production on Liberia re: "....Liberia is the 4th poorest country in the world, (...) a large percentage of the population eat human flesh..." You must produce evidence for these statistics that so go beyond freedom of press toward violation of a whole country's right to dignity and respect. Given Liberia's under-development, there is no way you can tell me that you (or anyone for that matter) conducted a research on the entire population of Liberia (with a strong research power, of course) to prove these statistics to extent of generalizing in this manner?

I'm certainly going to go after VBS on this one. I'm so sick and tire of America/Westerners portraying Africa/Liberia with such disdain and disrespect when in fact the worse forms of crimes against humanity occurs in America. From slavery to KKK to the war in Iraq to racial profiling of Arabs/muslims, to Guantanamo Bay and all other forms of racial discrimination. How can anyone, suffice to say a whiteman of your calibre, have the audicity and impudence to portray a whole country in such a derogatory manner.

This makes me sick, it is disgusting and I'm going to rally Liberians in the US to ensure that you're brought to justice for this.

Thank you.
Veronica Patience Fynn

TEXAS TRIP

So, like I said, Ketele Torgborgee drove me to Texas. Long before the trip, I had spoken with my cousin to make some serious order. The conversation went like this:

Him: What kind of Torgborgee you want, bean or ketele?
Me: Ketele
Him: So do you want it hot?
Me: No, not too spicey
Him: What do you want inside?
Me: Dry fish, dry meat, shrimp, herring, and the real torgborgee oil
Him: OK we'll get it ready and freeze it for you.
Me: Thank you...I'll be there before Christmas day...

Yes, I did arrived as stated. My youngest sister, DG and I arrived at Greyhound's bus terminal downtown Sacramento at 9:40pm on December 18th. Little did we know that the bus will not leave till almost 2hrs later. Good thing that, my sister-in-law had packed us on our way with palm butter rice and lots of kaiyan (made from peanuts, gari, sugar and oil - ohmmm yummy). I literally survived on the palm butter rice for day one. Don't ask me about heating, warming, going bad etc...the bus was cool enough to keep it going for at least 12hrs - well, I did not get sick so nothing to worry about.

After hustling and bustling on "interesting" Greyhound, we finally arrived in Dallas on December 20th. I quickly rushed for the bathroom, cleaned up and headed for the kitchen. I was greeted with a massive pot filled with all the good stuff. Geez I delve in - and ate like a pig - no kidding. Then, we bought a container the next day, pour a significant amount into it for return to California and eventually Toronto.

It was great to so my cousin, his sister and his fiancee. We had a wonderful time with the best being - playing basketball together. Both of us were really thankful for the fact that, we did not die in Liberia's war. We remember playing basketball on Duport Road and Liberia Broadcasting Corporation Court, almost 21 years ago. He often drove by our house, over the weekends to pick me up so we could play together. Not much has change with me - he testified: "you're still a tomboy Veronica...still playing hard amongst the boys..." You bet I am! Actually, as a high school student at William V. S. Tubman High School in 1989, the girls basketball team "fell apart" that year and so, the coach asked me to play on the boys team and I sure did, even though ,most of the boys were angry. Never happened before at T-High!

In the end, DG and I had a great time in Dallas, albeit short! On return to Sacramento, this time we figured it would be better to fly after encountering that much hassle on Greyhound buses.