Imagine being forced to flee your home because the military is attacking and killing your neighbors, burning down your village, and raping and abducting your wife and children. You want to turn to your government for help, but it doesn’t even recognize you as a citizen. Your only options are to flee, or be killed. This is the plight of the Rohingya in Myanmar.
Last year I headed to Washington, DC with a small group of ladies, not quite sure what to expect, but positive we wanted to be there to make our voices heard. What we experienced was history in the making. Millions of people taking to the streets across the world to protest the new American president, and the danger he posed to all of us. We knew we were ready to fight, but I don’t think anyone had a clue what this year had in store for us all.
I’ve been to other protests throughout 2017, for the Muslim Ban, Charlottesville, DACA–none of them as big, but all of them as impassioned. As I’m sure many of you have, I spent the year sending letters, emails, and making phone calls to Congress. The New York Times might not be handing their opinion pages over to The Resistance, but it is a thriving and mighty force in America right now. There has been a definite shift from the naive country we were on November 8, 2016, and the determined movement emerging today.
The feel was different at the Women’s March this year. Less trepidation, more determination. Fewer people were taking to the streets just because they felt like they had to, and more people were talking about their duty to be there. There was the sense last year that many people at the Women’s March had never been to a protest before. That it was their first time making a protest sign, learning the chants, figuring out how the crowd moved. That was not the case this year. One year into the Trump presidency, and we’re all seasoned activists now. This is no longer our first rodeo.
As you may recall, I went to last year’s protest intending on covering it as a journalist. As I became overwhelmed by the enormity of the event, I decided to simply pass around a notebook, asking others to write why they were marching. While it was an unplanned collection of stories last year, I decided it would be very interesting to repeat this year in New York. Below are a few of my favorite messages from the day:
Hey everyone! So, it’s been a long time coming, but the day is finally here! “When We Let People Die,” an essay collection detailing the many failures and complications of the Responsibility to Protect, is finally out today. We have published the introduction in its entirety over at The Mantle, and I would encourage you to give it a read, and then head on over to your favorite e-reader site and pick up a copy. I look forward to hearing what you think!!
In The Mantle’s sixth virtual roundtable, I brought together three experts to discuss borders, their purpose, and who they serve. Roundtable participants delve into topics such as the shift to more solidified, violent borders post – 9/11, border identities, and the dichotomy of closed borders in a globalized society.
Over the last 16 years, the question of how to operationalize the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), bringing it “from theory to practice,” has been the focus of great debate among UN member states and human rights organizations. Created as a response to the devastating genocide in Rwanda, the international community has struggled to find a way to enforce this non-binding principle aimed at helping states to prevent and respond to mass atrocities around the world.
Yet, the question remains, how do you make states act for the benefit of those outside their own borders without the force of international law? How do you convince states to stand up for those who need their help, even when the situation is complicated, difficult, and not necessarily directly beneficial to their own people?
I’m having a hard time with humanity today. I’m having a hard time understanding how eyes can be so closed, and hearts can be so cold. I’m having a hard time understanding why living in a different country makes you less deserving of life.
As news stories, videos, and pictures spread of the most recent chemical weapons attack in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun, the hashtag #SyriaHoax began to trend on Twitter (It is, in fact, still trending.). I won’t repost here what those tweets contained, as they don’t deserve repeating. Suffice it to say they were ugly, sad, and full of dangerous lies.
It is unimaginable to me that someone would, with a straight face, say these atrocities aren’t happening. That these images are fake. I just honestly have no words.
I’m not going to offer a policy laden post here. I’m not going to tell you how our governments should respond — although I do have thoughts about that.
I simply have a request. Those of us who have the privilege of ignoring such atrocities. Those of us who live in peaceful countries, with no fear of war, and no concept of what these people must be experiencing. Make the choice to pay attention. Make the choice to see these atrocities. Make the choice to see the Syrian people for who they are — people.
Here are a few stories I’ve collected from the past few days:
This video is definitely hard to watch, but I think it’s important. This shows the immediate aftermath of the bombing, as well as the work of the White Helmets as they attempt to save people suffering from the chemical attack.
This father lost his 9 month-old twin babies, his wife, and 25 members of his extended family.
This 13 year-old boy watched 19 of his family members die in front of him. That he survived is a miracle.
As I wrote this post, the US launched more than 50 tomahawk missiles at Homs. This scares me. There is no strategy here. There is no plan. My thoughts are with the people of Syria, as I believe even darker days are yet to come.
I went to Washington D.C. with a group of ladies. Some I’ve known, some I met for the first time on November 12, 2016, as we took to the streets of New York to protest the election of Donald Trump. Marching that weekend didn’t feel so much like a decision as a necessity. It was the first moment of catharsis I’d had since that fateful Tuesday.
Marching on Washington this weekend felt very much the same way. I’m not sure I ever really made the decision whether or not to go. I simply asked, “who is going with me?” As luck would have it, seems we were all headed to D.C.
Since November, I’ve been asked often why I’m marching. I find the question difficult to answer – not because I can’t think of a reason, but because I simply have so many I’m not sure where to start. This inability to put into words something that weighs on me so heavily, sparked a desire to discover why exactly everyone else was marching.
So, I thought I would go to D.C. not simply as a citizen, but as a journalist. I fully intended to cover the march, take pictures, interview folks, and do a full write up. As we arrived though, it became clear this thing was bigger than we’d ever imagined. The introvert in me was overwhelmed, so I took out a notebook, wrote “Why I March” on the front, and began to pass it around to those standing near me in the crowd.
Truth be told, after about 11am, even that became too much and I decided to set down all thoughts of being a journalist, and just became a full participant, taking in the whole, overwhelming experience.
What I’ve included below is a collection of the responses written in the notebook (most unsigned by their authors), and what I managed to (poorly) capture in photo. I hope it gives at least a slight glimpse into what this weekend meant for us all.
When you’re sitting at a cafe reading a book called A Journey to the Dark Heart of Nameless Unspeakable Evil, people tend to get curious. In response to the side-eye, I often found myself describing it as probably the only book you’ll ever read about mass atrocities that has you busting up laughing. At that point, the curiosity usually turned to confusion…which was my welcome cue to turn back to my reading. Read more…
Here is a great interview I conducted last fall with activist and advocate Betsy Kawamura, founder of the non-profit Women4NonViolence in Peace+Conflict Zones. Ms. Kawamura has spent more than fifteen years working with survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, particularly women who have fled the violent regime in North Korea and are now living as refugees around the world. For this article—and for the work Ms. Kawamura does—gender-based violence is understood as violence targeted at a specific group based on their gender; often manifesting in acts of rape, forced prostitution, sexual assault, sex trafficking, and other similar crimes. As a survivor of gender-based violence herself, Kawamura is able to enlighten us not only on the experience of survivors, but also why it is crucial to address sexual and gender-based violence as a matter of international politics and international law.
I wrote a guest post for the Stop Genocide Now blog this past week on the call for Darfuri refugees living along the Chad/Darfur border to voluntarily repatriate themselves. Click here to read more.
