Activism & Advocacy
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Advocacy, Super-Sized
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Blog Action Day: Conflict in the Age of Climate Change
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Carl Wilkens: A True "Changemaker"
A Holocaust Victim on Facebook: Crude or Compelling?
Published November 19, 2009 @ 11:44AM PT
Holocaust education is important. Adolf Hitler famously quipped, "After all, who remembers the Armenians?" - education and remembrance are critical for moving the world closer to the still-hollow concept of "Never Again."
Devotees of the anti-genocide cause, both educators and advocates alike, constantly search for new ways to engage and expand their audience. But is a Facebook alter-ego of a child victim of the Holocaust going to far?
A 22-year-old Polish man created a Facebook page for Henio Zytomirski, a seven year old Jewish boy who perished in a Nazi concentration camp. The page is updated regularly with brief posts from the child's point of view, as if he is reliving the horrific experience:
"Winter has arrived. Every Jew must wear the Star of David with his last name. A lot has changed. German troops walk the streets. Mama says that I shouldn't be frightened, and always that everything is just fine. Always?"
I've written in the past about my unease with victim identification methods of education and advocacy. (The tactic has been widely discredited as a pedagogical tool.) While I recognize the need for creative approaches to grabbing and holding people's attention on such a depressing subject, putting words into the mouths of child ghosts seems rather tasteless.
Jewish World Watch in the Congo
Published November 08, 2009 @ 12:52PM PT
"When your translator is in tears, you know you're in trouble."
My friends at Jewish World Watch (JWW) are currently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), on a mission to record survivor testimony and to visit organizations working on the ground in the region. The travelers are diligently posting blogs, photographs, Tweets, and more and they make their way through what must be an emotionally and physically exhausting trip.
Here's more information about JWW and the Congo trip from JWW staffer Ari Averbach:
Vote for Google to Create a Genocide Alert System
Published October 01, 2009 @ 04:40PM PT
Can you spare 30 seconds to change the world? (No, I am not exaggerating.)
One of the projects currently up for voting at Google's Project 10^100 is the creation of a genocide monitoring and alert system. As reported earlier this week, internet mapping technology is already being put to good use in mass atrocity situations, but dedicated time and resources from the Google team could take the concept to a whole new level. As Google describes:
"Much of the necessary technology and data-gathering methodology already exists both for general crisis mapping and for early warning systems capable of preventing mass atrocities. A key remaining step is to make this data more widely available to strengthen international aid agency coordination, improve resource allocation, develop timely policy and help evaluate current humanitarian practices."
Google has the technology, the know-how, and the money -- lots of it -- so all you have to do is vote. And tell your friends to vote, before October 8. Never underestimate the power of peer pressure, especially when accompanied by an icy cold stare down.
For the social media-inclined, copy and paste this to your Twitter and/or Facebook pages: Pass it along - Vote to create a genocide monitoring and alert system at Google's Project 10^100 http://bit.ly/2IFNrQ
Do it.
(Thanks to several Change.org members for bringing this to my attention.)
The First Anti-Genocide Postcard Campaigner?
Published September 26, 2009 @ 07:12PM PT
Can activist postcard campaigns be effective? The tactic is often used by advocacy organizations, often mocked by critics, and often sidelined by skeptics as pointless.
Postcards certainly aren't a magic bullet -- nothing is -- but at least one example shows that they can have an impact. Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor who turned Nazi hunting into a profession, used postcards in several successful campaigns:
To convince Germany to rescind its statute of limitations of the prosecution of Nazi war criminals, he used postcards featuring a well-known photograph of a Nazi SS officer torturing Jewish prisoners (shown below). 
To convince Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to extradite Nazi fugitive Walter Rauff, he used postcards depicting the gas vans -- mobile gas chambers responsible for the death of an estimated 100,000 people -- that Rauff pioneered.
Wiesenthal's tactics were not without criticism, but they were effective. (And, as far as I know, Wiesenthal might have been the first to use postcard campaigns in a genocide-related campaign.)
[Photo of Simon Wiesenthal holding photos of Walter Rauff and a gas van used during the Holocaust.]
Darfur Activists Target World Leaders at UNGA, G20
Published September 24, 2009 @ 05:27PM PT
President Obama received applause from the UN General Assembly yesterday for his remark on the need to ensure lasting peace in Sudan. Though brief, the comment was delivered as part of speech that emphasized global responsibility for the challenges of our time, from climate change to crimes against humanity. "The magnitude of our challenges has yet to be met by the measure of our action," Obama said, as all too often grand-scale international blame games trump meaningful multilateral problem solving.
The spirit of "global solutions to global problems" is, indeed, at the heart of a veritable activist blitz targeting world leaders at the UNGA in New York City and the G20 summit now happening in Pittsburgh. As I write, STAND and Save Darfur activists are lining the streets around a G20 dinner, making their concerns visible to the delegates passing by. The message is simple: Sustainable peace in Sudan, along with justice for the victims and survivors of genocide in Darfur, is a matter of global importance.
On Tuesday night in NYC, The Darfur/Darfur photo exhibit was on display in Grace Plaza. The event, put on by Save Darfur, included remarks from US Special Envoy Scott Gration and Save Darfur President Jerry Fowler. Gration's presence was particularly welcome by the advocates -- those I spoke with were excited by his attendance and appreciative of his remarks. Given that Gration's began his assignment with a someone tense relationship with the advocacy movement, his participation in the event seems to indicate renewed cooperation.
For more information about Save Darfur's policy platform, see their memo on why G20 nations should not forgive Sudan's odious foreign debt, Jerry Fowler's recent piece on Obama and the UNGA in the Huffington Post, and the Blueprint for Peace policy paper prepared jointly with Enough and the Genocide Intervention Network. The keep up with the rest of the week's activities, Save Darfur staffers are Twittering away in Pittsburgh.
[Photo of the Darfur/Darfur event on Tuesday from Save Darfur's Flickr stream, used with written permission from the organization.]
Burn Your Bra
Published September 22, 2009 @ 05:46PM PT
Money speaks louder than morality. It's sad but true: International business interests rarely show concern over the connection between their activities and the abuse of civilians by their government -- unless consumer pressure makes them, that is.
Take Sri Lanka. The tiny island nation's 26 year civil war ended in May, but government abuse of ethnic Tamil civilians is gaining long overdue attention from the UN, foreign government, and human rights groups.
But despite the fact the over 250,000 displaced civilians continue to be forcibly detained in camps by the Sri Lankan government, which also continues to refuse all but the most limited humanitarian assistance to the camps, the war's official end precipitated an economic boost from renewed foreign investment. In particular, the country's garment industry is receiving increased orders from abroad, including from major American retailers like Gap and Victoria's Secret.
Victoria's Secret, in fact, remained largely undeterred by the conflict -- Sri Lanka's textile shops are among the popular lingerie chain's biggest suppliers. How do you feel wearing a bra that funds crimes against humanity?
According to the "No to Sri Lanka" campaign, which is organizing boycotts and a "Check the Label" movement, foreign investment accounts for the Sri Lankan government's primary source of revenue. And, don't ya' know it, the US is among Sri Lanka's top trading partners.
So take action: Join the boycott and let American retailers know that what they seem not to feel in their collective conscience they will feel in their pocket books -- it's the only thing that speaks to them, and it's an opportunity for you to have a tangible impact.
Why I Did Not Fast Today
Published September 21, 2009 @ 06:32PM PT
Over 450 people participated in the Darfur Fast for Life campaign today, but I did not join them myself. This is a difficult post to write, because I count many of those on the list as friends, and I have the utmost respect for them and the others. While I disagree with fasting as a tactic, I do not question the good intentions of those involved.
I am generally opposed to awareness-raising campaigns that involve victim identification or self-inflicted suffering, when the activists themselves are not members of the oppressed population. While the intent is to show solidarity with and draw attention to the victims and survivors of gross human rights violations, the actual effect is to divert attention away from the cause and turn it on to the activists instead. The sacrifice of the activist becomes the primary focus, rather than the cause at hand, and those whose suffering is not elective.
It worries me when I hear of young activists who see self-abductions and t-shirts decorated with AK-47s as the "next cool thing." Surely, human rights activism is in need of innovative new methods of grabbing attention in a world characterized by a notable "lack of give a damn," to borrow a phrase from Bread for the World President David Beckmann. But we have no shortage of creative minds in our ranks, and I believe that we can find a way to elevate our cause without resorting to gimmicks.
(Somewhat along these lines, victim "simulation" exercises have been discredited as methods of teaching the Holocaust.)
But the movement's critics, who've had a bloggers' field day with the fast campaign, are creating their own nits to pick, and at times seem more eager to grind their axes rather than make legitimate points. Oscar H. Blayton writes with indignant frustration over the lack of information on the Darfur Fast for Life website on "who is involved in this organization or how it is structured" -- it's a campaign, not an organization, which the website clearly states on its homepage was initiated by Mia Farrow and joined by a whole host of other individuals. His befuddlement over the absence of a place to make donations is almost nonsensical.
