Liberty: A How-To Guide

This past Thursday I headed down to Seattle Center to check out the Seattle Red Cross event, “Women in War: Challenges and Consequences.” This event was a part of their current photojournalism series called “Our World at War.”

Speaking that evening were three women who have all lived through the horrors of violent conflict; their experiences ranging from the atrocities in the Congo, the military junta in Burma, and Cambodia under the reign of Pol Pot. While these three women brought to the table very different stories of struggle and survival, all surprisingly agreed upon a singular message.

Pwint Htun of Burma said it best in quoting Aung San Suu Kyi: “Please use your liberty to promote ours.”

Here in the United States we often take for granted the liberty we enjoy. While there are of course times in which our liberties are infringed upon, in the grand scheme of things we are the beneficiaries of a unique level of freedom and liberty. As these three women spoke on Thursday, the vast discrepancy between the liberty we experience and that which is desired by those living in conflict zones became glaringly apparent. Their charge to us in the audience was to take advantage of the liberty we enjoy in our efforts to fight for human rights worldwide, and to use our liberty to fight for theirs.

I found myself in complete agreement with this idea on its own. Yes, we as a privileged society ought to use that privilege to help those in need and to speak for those who are unable to speak for themselves. It seems only reasonable that we would use the resources available to us as Americans to do so.

What struck me most throughout the conversation were the opinions as to what form this sort of activism should take. Jeanne Tshibola of the Congo was most adamant that rather than send money and support to local or international organizations, we as activists ought to go to these places ourselves, see for ourselves, do the work on the ground ourselves. While the ultimate consensus was that you cannot trust the governments and organizations to actually get the aid to those in need, I began to question whether a better answer was for everyone to just head over to the Congo themselves. To what extent would this create more of a problem than a solution?

The question of what role concerned citizens ought to play in the fight for peace and justice continues to arise throughout the human rights community. When is it our job to urge the action of our government, to send money to international organizations, or to take a risk and travel to the war-torn areas of the world ourselves and help in seemingly more tangible ways?

As a person who has done a great deal of research on regions of the world I have yet to visit, this question of how to best serve is one I continue to struggle to answer. I generally find myself under the belief that there are organizations that do great work in these regions, and that I am most helpful when supporting these organizations. The message on this night, however, was that I am most helpful when I go there myself.

Beyond my kneejerk reaction of wanting to steer clear of the imperialistic and naïve assumption that I as an American can fix the world’s problems simply by showing up, there is a larger question for the human rights community to answer:

When are human rights activists most effective fighting human rights atrocities from home, and when is it time to pack our bags?

Photo credit: eschipul