Sharansky on Dissent

I'm thinking about dissent today and came across these thoughts from human rights activist Natan Sharansky, which ring especially true to me.

Will dissent be permitted? The answer to that question will determine whether the society is a free society or a fear society.

Fear societies are societies in which dissent is banned.

People may believe that there can be a society where dissent is not permitted, but which is nonetheless not a fear society because everyone agrees with one another and therefore no one wants to dissent.

If a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society. We cannot rest until every person living in a "fear society" has finally won their freedom.

- Natan Sharansky

Here's an interview PBS Newshour did with Sharansky about his book, The Case for Democracy.

Hero for the Day

My hero for the day is the conservative Republican lawyer, Ted Olsen, who is taking his "Conservative Case for Gay Marriage" to the California Supreme Court in an effort to reverse that state's unConstitutional Proposition 8. From his opening statement this morning:

The Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly described the right to marriage as “one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men;” a “basic civil right;” a component of the constitutional rights to liberty, privacy, association, and intimate choice; an expression of emotional support and public commitment; the exercise of spiritual unity; and a fulfillment of one’s self.

In short, in the words of the highest court in the land, marriage is “the most important relation in life,” and “of fundamental importance for all individuals.”

As the witnesses in this case will elaborate, marriage is central to life in America. It promotes mental, physical and emotional health and the economic strength and stability of those who enter into a marital union. It is the building block of family, neighborhood and community. The California Supreme Court has declared that the right to marry is of “central importance to an individual’s opportunity to live a happy, meaningful, and satisfying life as a full member of society.”

Proposition 8 ended the dream of marriage, the most important relation in life, for the plaintiffs and hundreds of thousands of Californians.

Some Thoughts on Torture

There are some subjects my idealistic self hopes people won't continue to politicize. Abortion is one and torture is most certainly another.

I'm less interested in what one person in any administration has to say about torture than what experts say, who refer to rational, carefully considered evidence. Empirical data.

Let's not fall then for the fallacy of anecdotal evidence. The possibility that torture "worked" on one person (and let's remember that 24 is fiction - and fiction created by a man who was an open fan of the Bush administration) wouldn't justify its use on prisoners willy nilly anyway - especially when those prisoners were often gathered on a so called "field of battle" without any evidence that they were actually participating in acts of terrorism. Sadly, some of the people have even been proven completely innocent later, though they have received permanent physical and psychological damage from their mistreatment.

Conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan has been carefully cataloguing the ethical and efficacy problems with torture for many months now. I recommend searching for "torture" on his blog and delving into the reams of thoughtful evidence he's compiled.

Let's also recognize that the mere fact that something might (upon rare occasions, possibly) prove effective, does not automatically justify its use. The ends does not justify the means. Otherwise, we might quickly return to all manner of barbarism.

It's surprising to be put in the position in the 21st century of arguing against the use of torture. What has 9/11 done to us?

Washington Post - "The Torture Myth"
Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq: Aside from its immorality and its illegality, says Herrington, torture is simply "not a good way to get information."

PBS - "Debating Torture"
Sen. John McCain: "First, subjecting prisoners to abuse leads to bad intelligence because under torture a detainee will tell his interrogator anything to make the pain stop."

"Science and Engineering Ethics," 2004 - Springer
A utilitarian argument against torture interrogation of terrorists

Salon - "Mixed Messages on Torture"
The U.S. Army declares torture useless
Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, the Army deputy chief of staff on "tough" interrogation techniques: "No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices," Kimmons said. "I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the past five years, hard years, tells us that. ... Any piece of intelligence which is obtained under duress through the use of abusive techniques would be of questionable credibility." Kimmons conceded that bad P.R. about abuse could work against the United States in the war on terror. "It would do more harm than good when it inevitably became known that abusive practices were used. We can't afford to go there."

MSNBC - "Military agency warned against 'torture'"

Red Cross Report - "ICRC Report on the Treatment of 14 'High Value Detainees' in CIA Custody" [PDF]

U.S. Department of Justice - "Torture Memos" [PDF]

Finally, Amnesty International enables you to write your senators and state representatives asking them to investigate and prosecute those who responsible for encouraging a climate of torture on behalf of the United States.

Guantanamo To Go

Great change is already afoot in the United States as our newly minted President, Barack Obama, ordered the shutdown of Guantanamo Bay, saying the orders reflect "an understanding that dates back to our Founding Fathers: that we are willing to observe core standards of conduct not just when it's easy, but also when it's hard."

You can commend Obama on his action via Amnesty International's prepared message, which also encourages him ensure that an independent commission to investigate abuses committed by the U.S. government in its "war on terror" is set up and to ensure that anyone responsible for human rights violations is held accountable."

U.S. Department of Paranoia

Via Reuters: A Muslim family was kicked off an AirTran flight yesterday after passengers heard them talking about safest seats.

What's unclear to me is: why weren't the complaining passengers the ones kicked off the plane? After all, they were the ones creating the ruckus, not the Muslim family. Apparently, to be Muslim is to be guilty by default.

Close Guantanamo Bay

Amnesty International has a petition asking that President Obama make it a high priority to announce plans to close Guantanamo Bay soon after taking office.

Go here to sign it.

A List of Demands

OK, these aren't so much demands - that's an allusion to an excellent Saul Williams song - but here's a list of 10 reforms and changes I'd like to see take place now that we have a left-of-center President and a majority Democrat Senate.  Some of these reforms may confirm the suspicions of the moment's more dismayed conservatives. They needn't worry: I'm probably further to the left of President Elect Obama anyway ... 

Let's

1. Work with the Iraqis to plan an appropriate time to leave the country, and funnel more aid towards Afghanistan.
2. Institute universal health care.
3. Remove all travel restrictions for Americans and Cuban-Americans to Cuba.
   
4. Reinstate trade with Cuba.
5. Close Guantanamo Bay immediately. 
   
6. Start a movement to have anti-gay marriage laws struck down as un-Constitutional. Pass legislation which legalizes gay marriage in every state in the Union. 
   
7. Legalize marijuana for both medical and recreational use and determine what, if any, fronts in the "War on Drugs" are actually successful, dismantle the rest.
   
8. Install a highly-qualified female Muslim to a position in high office. 
   
9. Provide amnesty for illegal aliens who meet certain conditions.
   
10. Reform our prisons, which are cesspools of violence and turn criminals into monsters.

If you believe in any of these causes, why not track down a related non-profit you can support or at least join a Facebook group, so you can keep track of the issues. 

And feel free to add your own "demands" in the comments, too.

Saving the World With Video

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

- Article 19 of UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Tonight, I went to a panel at The New School, entitled "Saving the World, One Video at a Time." Each of the four panelists represented human rights organizations, which focus on the use of video (chiefly in the form of documentaries) to educate and promote social change. A few details about each of the agencies follows:

• Arts Engine - Maintains MediaRights, a database of some 7000 documentaries on the subject of human rights, available to educators, librarians, and activists. It also presents the Media that Matters film festival each June, a showcase for a dozen new short films on human rights issues.

• Human Rights Watch International Film Festival - Human Rights Watch selects documentaries from over 500 submissions to feature in this festival each year. The festival encourages film makers of any age and point of view to submit their work.

• Video Volunteers - a social media network, which focuses on issues pertaining to the poor in rural communities around the world. Maintains Channel 19, an online network for distributing community-produced media in India.

• WITNESS  - Encourages people to create videos about or depicting human rights violations and to submit them via The Hub, a sort of YouTube site for human rights videos.
  

The panel was organized by The Center for Communication and The New School's Department of Media Studies and Film.

Some Good News

Amongst all the bad news, finally some good news: an advancement for human rights in Connecticut as the court decide that banning marriage for gay couple is un-Constitutional and that the state's law banning gay marriage discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation. It's good to know that even with a guttering economy and under a belligerent and hawkish administration, we're still making progress in areas where it counts.

Now, come on New York, get on the ball. We're only half-way there. 

The Cuban Five

Prominently placed at the boarding gate for international flights at the Havana airport, the above poster depicts the Cuban 5. Imprisoned in the United States for the past decade, the Cuban 5 appear on posters, billboards and murals all around Havana. The poster says they were put on trial in heavily conservative-Cuban Miami, Florida and then unjustly imprisoned. It's said they were prosecuted for stopping terrorism. As the Wikipedia article explains below, there's more to the story. Nonetheless, sentences were dropped for three of the men. Additionally, the United States has been criticized by human right advocates for not allowing the wives of two of the men visas to visit their spouses in jail.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Five
www.freethefive.org

Cuban Travel Restrictions

Havana, Cuba

A quick roundup of some Cuba-related news:

Last month a U.S. Senate committee actually voted to undo travel restrictions to Cuba the Bush administration had created, restrictions which currently prevent Cuban-Americans from visiting their own homeland more than once every three years.

Elsewhere, however, in Florida, the legislature is attempting to punish travel agencies, which enable travel to Cuba, even by Cubans. Under the new law, travel agents would be required to pay a $250,000 bond and share the names of clients in order to continue their business with Cuba. The legality of the new law is currently under review.

Ironically, as we're banning Americans from traveling to Cuba, we're also still imprisoning people without charge on Cuban soil at Guantanamo Bay - and sending athletes, reporters, camera crews and scads of tourists to China for the Olympic games.

A Jihad for Love

Congratulations to Parvez Sharma and Sandi DuBowski on the release of A Jihad for Love here in NYC at IFC Center. The documentary details the live of gay and lesbian women, who are also Muslim. It was filmed over 5 1/2 years in 12 countries and in nine languages.

More details on Facebook, too, if you're in the area. You can also read Sharma's blog on his experience making the documentary and watch the Jihad for Love trailer.

With the debut of this film here in New York and California's recent confirmation of gay marriage, it's a remarkable week for human rights, coast to coast.

Related:

• A report from Turkey on Jihad for Love
• Now Sulu can get married

Pray the Devil Back to Hell

"Does a bullet know Christian from Muslim?"
- tagline from Pray the Devil Back to Hell, and a paraphrase from one of the interviewees

I had the opportunity this afternoon to see the excellent documentary, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which one best documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival. It features several Liberian women, who lead the effort to capture the attention of Charles Taylor and the warlords, who had been terrorizing Liberia. These women banded together and eventually forced Taylor and the warlords to both to dialogue with them and to engage in peace talks with each other. They even played out a real-life version of Lysistrata along the way.

It's a tragic and often harrowing story that also proves extraordinarily inspiring in the end. Watching the film, I wondered what you'd have to do to nominate these incredible women for a Nobel Peace Prize. Because these women certainly went to greater lengths to forge peace than some who have won that prize.

The documentary also focuses on how Christian and Muslim women alike united in their cause, realizing that their common plight as humans had grown far more important to them than their religious differences. So too women from traditionally unfriendly ethnic factions joined together, aligning themselves against the war.

The film-makers have been showing the documentary around the world in similar places that are being torn apart by various factions. And already women are uniting in similar fashion, motivated and empowered by what they've seen.

Now, by the way, with Charles Taylor is on trial at the Hague for crimes against humanity, and Liberia's current President is Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the first elected female head of state in Africa's history.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell just won Tribeca's World Documentary Competition. Last year Taxi to the Dark Side won that award and went on to win the Academy Award for best documentary. One can only hope for similar success for this year's winner.

Jihad for Love

I'm trying to determine whether the documentary A Jihad for Love has been released in the United States yet. Apparently not, though it's been released elsewhere and seems to be doing the rounds at college campuses across the country. It's been screened in Turkey and banned in Singapore. Directed by Parvez Sharma and produced by he and Sandi Dubowski, Jihad is a natural companion to Dubowski's excellent documentary Trembling Before G-d about gays within the Orthodox Jewish community. Jihad, of course, concerns the lives of lesbian and gay Muslims. You can follow developments for the film on the director's blog.

Additionally, if you know me and would like to see Trembling Before G-d, I have a copy I'd be happy to loan you. A follow-up documentary Trembling on the Road is also available with the 2-DVD set, which is the one I have.

Update: As noted in the comments, the U.S. release for Jihad for Love is May 21 at IFC here in New York City. Can't wait to see it.

Support the Global Online Freedom Act

Via Amnesty International, support the Global Online Freedom Act:

Repressive governments are making Internet and technology companies allies in their efforts to censor the Internet. Without any U.S. regulation to specifically prevent this, companies like Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft have sacrificed international human rights standards, and their own corporate missions, in pursuit of new and lucrative markets. Ask your Representative to support H.R. 275, the Global Online Freedom Act of 2007, which would prevent U.S. companies from carrying out or facilitating the suppression of online speech in repressive countries.

Day of Silence

GLSEN (The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) is sponsoring a Day of Silence, wherein students "observe the day in silence to echo the silence LGBT and ally students face every day." The site explains that "the event brings attention to anti-LGBT bullying, harassment and discrimination in schools."

Unfortunately, today I received an email suggesting that if I have any children I withdraw them from school that day, describing the event as "quite appalling and an attack on our religious freedoms." The email and the site linked to continue by engaging the usual scare tactics about how the event will "promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools." There's so much wrong with that little phrase it's hard to know where to start. I suppose the black people who sat quietly and with dignity at Southern counters were "promoting the wickedness of racial integration" were they?

Anyway, I thought I create a promotional post here as a sort of Karmic response to the appalling feeling that came over me when I read that email.

Strength to the children out there who do have to suffer in silence out there daily because of society's primitive understanding of their sexual identity. Note that I didn't say "sexual lifestyle."

Consider making a donation to GLSEN.

Help Outlaw Torture

Via the Credo site, ask your Congressperson and Senators to override George Bush's threatened veto to anti-torture legislation. As Credo suggests, "Silence is assent."

Time to Say Sorry

The Australia government has officially apologized to Australia's indigenous peoples, the aborigines:

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and fathers, the brothers and sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

- Australia's new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

The phrase "stolen generations" refers specifically to mixed race aborigine children who were taken away from their families and made wards of the state, supposedly for their own protection. Phillip Noyce's heart-breaking movie Rabbit Proof Fence portrays the life of one such individual, Molly Craig, whose daughter, Doris Pilkington Garimara, wrote a memoir detailing her experience.

Maine's Morning Sentinel asks why is so hard for people to apologize without qualification. I often wonder, why is apologizing considered a sign of weakness, not a sign of civility? Some people bear the mantra "Never apologize" as a badge of honor. Seems especially the case in our society.

As far as I know, the United States has never officially apologized to the Native Americans for past government misdeeds, nor to African Americans for slavery, though resolutions have been presented to Congress. Under Reagan in 1988, the United States did officially apologize to Japanese-American detainees and presented them each with a $20,000 check. Republican Senator Sam Brownback also recently introduced an amendment to the Indian healthcare bill that would formally apologize to the Native Americans.

Video of Kevin Rudd's apology

Guantánamo

Bill Moyers gives us a recap of the excellent, if chilling documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side. I can't imagine how anyone one could watch it or Michael Winterbottom's film The Road to Guantánamo and not conclude that there's been something terribly wrong and immoral going on down in Cuba.

This debate is occurring because of the Supreme Court's ruling that said that we must conduct ourselves under the Common Article III of the Geneva Convention. And that Common Article III says that there will be no outrages upon human dignity. It's very vague. What does that mean, "outrages upon human dignity"?
- George Bush

Watch the Taxi to the Dark Side trailer

Update: Apparently, Discovery has dropped plans to air Taxi, since it's considered so controversial. When the truth is too controversial to show the American public, aren't we in a lot of trouble?

Director Alex Gibney:

In refusing to air the film, Discovery is perpetuating what has become the policy of this government: it is ok to employ torture, just not to show it.

Child Bride

This photo by Stephanie Sinclair, a UNICEF Photo of the Year 2007, depicts an 11-year-old Afghani girl and her 40-year-old groom. Writing in Spiegel Online, Dutch writer Leon de Winter bluntly critiques the West's reaction to images like this one.

There are people who will look at this image and be able to continue with business as usual -- without disgust, nausea and rage. We are beholding the fiercest barbarism imaginable. But a carefree cultural relativism -- which this age has donned as its outward manifestation of decadent indifference -- allows many to simply look away. They turn away from the sight of an 11-year-old girl, who is about to be raped by the man sitting next to her.

The girl was sold by her parents, even if they probably wouldn't use that word. The caption that came with the photo quoted the parents as saying that they "needed the money."

De Winter points out that, at some level, this girl probably knows what is happening to her is wrong, but she also sees it as her fate. The man, on the other hand, is just sticking to tradition, which works decidedly to his advantage. He argues that we in the West have a responsibility, despite the trappings of political correctness, to do something about the situation.

Our eyes behold an abomination. Our eyes have learned to see the world from the perspective of a slowly acquired sense for humanity. And although more and more voices tell us that we -- the former colonialists and imperialists -- have lost the right to judge other cultures, we know just as well as this girl that this marriage is wrong. ...

Many of us in the West are convinced that our presence in Afghanistan cannot be justified, that our troops should withdraw and that Afghanistan should be left to the Afghans. They ask themselves: Who are we to believe that it is inhumane to sell an 11-year-old girl? Who are we to impose our values so vehemently on the Afghans, on this man and on this girl?

I don't have a clue who we are. But I know that this universe is not only a universe of iPods, Disneylands, CO2 penalties, tax write-offs, and New Year's sales in our department stores. No, I know that this is also a universe of human rights. I know that this universe is deeply shaken -- right down to its core -- by the suffering of this lonely, lonely little girl.

Elsewhere, I find that De Winter supported the invasion of Iraq. I can't agree that we should invaded Iraq, and I still don't believe we did it in the name of human rights. That's a revisionist history the Bush administration sold us after they failed to discover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But I do agree that if we're in Afghanistan, and ostensibly rebuilding that country, we should be doing all we can to maintain the rights of the people living there.

For the same reason, I find myself in the unenviable and unpopular position of being against the war in Iraq, but also against leaving any time soon. We should never have gone there in the first place, but we created the mess that's over there; we should be ashamed to leave it for the Iraqis to clean up. In other words, there's is a price to pay for the Bush administrations ineptitude. I don't think we can in good conscience create such a problem, then simply walk away, complaining about how the Iraqi leadership should've gotten their act together. We, as a country, voted for Bush - twice - and we should take the consequences that came with his administration's barbaric response to 9/11. Iraq isn't an iPod that fickle Americans can return because they decided they couldn't afford it after all. We have our starter marriages, we flip houses, we get liposuction instead of dieting and exercising. We want the quick fix. It's in our DNA. Well, that attitude will mean tragedy for Iraq.

I understand how some could perceive thoughts like this as a sort of 21st Century White Man's Burden. But I'm not suggesting we change people's cultures, that we make them all speak English and read the Bible. And I'm certainly not suggesting that we invade every country that has what we perceive to be human rights violations. Butt what do we do? Where do we draw the line? Do we ignore every transgression, equipped with the cloudy strain of moral relativism that de Winter angrily describes? Or do we decide as humans beings (not Americans, not Caucasians, not Christians) what the essential human rights are? I think so. And then we strenuously defend them.

One simple way to do that would be to support UNICEF.