I am the son of immigrants to the United States — a French-speaking father and a Spanish-speaking mother, who both learned English as children in the United States. One of eight kids, I learned the value of assuming responsibility and hard work at an early age. By age 11, I first began working to help supplement the family’s modest household income; I did this by delivering newspapers to households early in the morning before attending school and by going door-to-door selling newspapers subscription after school hours. At the age of 13, I received the California Newspaper Boy Foundation Scholastic Achievement Award due to both my work performance and academic achievements.
LEARNING ABOUT SOCIAL JUSTICE
At an early age, my Dad, who was a steelworker, encouraged a commitment in me to social justice. I recall, for instance, Dad’s story of disgust at the racial segregation he witnessed in the U.S. military during World War II.
HELPING HANDS THAT MADE EDUCATION A POSSIBILITY
I grew to appreciate the many helping hands that were there for me when I needed them. I received partial scholarships that helped me pay for my tuition at a nearby Catholic High School, and when I decided to go to college, the state of California designated me a “State Scholar” which translated into a four-year tuition paid scholarship to any university in the state of California. This generosity instilled in me a profound appreciation for the need to help people everywhere to overcome the obstacles to education and other opportunities posed by income inequality and discrimination.
I received a B.A. in History at the University of San Diego, and in my senior year I was recognized as an outstanding campus leader for my achievements as class president, for which I was entered into the Who’s Who of Students in American Colleges and Universities. At the University of California Los Angeles, I received fellowships that enabled me to earn an M.A. in African Studies and a Ph.D. in African History.
During this period of graduate study, I also spent an academic year at the University of Montpellier France. To conduct my dissertation research in Portugal, I received a Fulbright Study Abroad Fellowship, and produced a dissertation entitled Commerce, Industry and Empire: The Making of Modern Portuguese Colonialism in Angola and Mozambique, 1890 to 1914.
After earning my Ph.D., I became editor of the African Series of the Marcus Garvey Papers located at UCLA. During this period, I received a Social Science Research Council Post- doctorate Research Fellowship that enabled me to conduct historic research on Marcus Garvey’s Pan African movement in Benin, Belgium, Cameroon, Cape Verde, France, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal and Zimbabwe. With this support, I was able to chronicle the influence of the Jamaican-born Garvey with his plan for African liberation from European colonial rule; Garvey’s movement helped further the cause of anti-colonialism and African nationalism.
USING JOURNALISM AND BROADCASTING TO EMPOWER
Because of my expertise in the five Portuguese-speaking countries of Africa, the Voice of America invited me to become a broadcast journalist in its Portuguese-to-Africa Service. Soon afterwards, I was promoted to become the director of the Service which daily broadcast 1.5 hours of original programming to Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique and Sao Tome- Principe. In this new role, I sought to provide impartial and valuable news and information to people living in these countries, with a special focus on listeners in Angola and Mozambique who were caught in in bloody civil wars. These programs covered all sides in the conflicts and became a platform for peaceful dialogue and reconciliation. It was through this experience that I first learned of the potential of the media in promoting peacebuilding and reconciliation.
However, the apartheid South African government that was supporting the rebel movements in Angola and Mozambique had previously succeeded in infiltrating agents into the VOA Service. Apartheid South Africa took exception to the professionalism and impartiality that I had introduced in the broadcasts. So, in 1986-87, South African military intelligence carried out a covert campaign of intimidation and dis-information in an attempt to force my removal as head of the Portuguese to Africa Service; the goal of the campaign was to restore pro-apartheid South African programming to U.S. government airwaves. The FBI got whiff of the South African campaign and deported one of its agents who had infiltrated the VOA service.
Later, I became director of the English-to-Africa Service that daily broadcast 5.5 hours of programs to the 19 English-speaking countries in Africa; this occurred at a critical historic moment — coming after the end of the Cold War and at the time of the emergence of the multiparty democracy movements in many countries and the end of apartheid in South Africa. Under my editorial leadership, VOA increased dramatically its coverage both of the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone and of the political transitions in countries such as Malawi, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
Audience research showed that the editorial strategy was effective as VOA’s English-speaking audience size in Africa grew exponentially. On these shows, listeners could hear from political actors and reformers, rebel leaders, peace mediators, human rights activists, Nobel Laureates, and just ordinary citizens experiencing violent conflict and difficult political transitions. The programs, for instance, provided in depth coverage of the Rwandan civil war and its peace process, and eventually the horrific unfolding of the Rwandan genocide.
VOA Director Geoffrey Cowan invited me to use this programming experience in deploying radio to promote dialog and peaceful resolution of conflict to introduce similar strategies throughout VOA’s 53 language services. These conflict resolution initiatives were first supported by a private foundation – the Carnegie Corporation of New York –, and over time I managed to raise over $50 million from U.S. government and private sources to support innovative broadcasts and projects that promoted peaceful conflict resolution and health and wellbeing.
EC ASSOCIATES –“EMPOWERING COMMUNICATION”
In 2004, I started the firm EC Associates aka Empowering Communications. The firm focusses on behavior change communications, strategic communications and distance education issues with a strong emphasis in the areas of global health, governance and conflict resolution. Since founding the company, I have also published extensively on jihadism and peacebuilding, including the book: The African Jihad: Bin Laden’s Quest for the Horn of Africa.
HEROES
I would like to see a world where everyone feels surrounded by a caring community with leaders who promote authentic personal power rather than fear and hatred. Leaders like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi fit the bill. I have been impressed by Nelson Mandela’s personal journey as described in his autobiography, particularly in the way that Mandela recounts his personal evolution from a young man who was an incessant liar to someone who became known for speaking truth to power and overcoming bitterness to promote reconciliation and justice in a post-apartheid South Africa.
As a journalist, I came to know many activists fighting for democracy, human rights and better environment. I have been inspired by their example, many of them endured considerable suffering for promoting justice. Among them, there are:
- Wangari Maathai, — a Kenyan woman who started an environmental movement that plated 30 million trees in Africa and who campaigned for women’s rights and greater democracy in her home country: she won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. I recall interviewing her when she tooko public stands for the introduction of multi-party democracy and freedom of expression in Kenya
- Mashood Abiola, who won the presidency of Nigeria in free and fair elections in 1993, only to be arrested by military rulers, eventually dying in prison in solitary confinement.
- Anglican Archbishop Denis Sengulane of Mozambique who was the first to make the call for peace talks in the country’s long-running civil war; I planned with the Archbishop to make this appeal while being interviewed on the Voice america. The Archbishop then continued to play a central role in peace talks that ended the civil war. Later, Archbishop Sengulane founded Mozambique’s Iterreligious Program to Fight Malaria, which brought together leaders of diverse faiths — Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Baha’is and others to mobilize their followers to prevent malaria. I was privileged to have had the opportunity to help organize this interfaith coalition so that it would be eligible to receive funding from the U.S. Presidential Malaria Initiative.
- The American Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron, has had a profound influence on my thinking about personal empowerment. Her books, When Things Fall Apart and Escape from Nowhere helped me on my personal journey to overcome the burden of suffering and to transform crisis into self-empowerment