By David KucinskasThe Daily Northwestern
Tonight, Northwestern has the distinguished privilege of playing host to human rights activist Samantha Power. Power, who will deliver the 17th Annual Richard W. Leopold Lecture, has reported on the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the ongoing conflict in Darfur, Sudan, and she has taught at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She is one of the leading voices in the analysis of human rights policy.
Such a lecture could not come at a more opportune time. Both houses of Congress have simultaneously changed hands for the first time since 1994. Major questions of policy and human rights with regard to the Iraq War and the larger War on Terror, such as domestic wiretapping and secret prisons, remain on the agenda.
At first glance, such weighty matters appear far from the domain of the average student. What direct applications can we take from Power’s remarks? For one, we can take a more informed interest in the respect (or lack thereof) our government accords to human rights. That means paying attention to the news, and not just for Britney Spears’ latest indiscretion.
Finding information about human rights abuses isn’t hard. Stories of tragedy and human cruelty usually take a prominent place in the coverage of most press outlets.
But thanks to this morbid tendency of the Fourth Estate, many argue, the public has become increasingly desensitized to violence and destruction. From the point of view of the average citizen, then, the reaction is to change the channel or stop reading when the body count gets too high.
Journalists, on the other hand, must find ever more graphic stories in order to focus the public eye on important issues. The example that always occurs to me comes from the memoir of British journalist Aidan Hartley. In his book, “The Zanzibar Chest,” Hartley recalls hearing, while covering a famine in East Africa, a British TV cameraman reject filming a group of starving children because they weren’t thin enough, in the man’s opinion, to make an impact on viewers in the West.
Taking the time to care, even if only a little or about only a few issues, can be the pebble that changes the river’s course. And it’s not that hard.
Go to a rally for Darfur. Buy fair trade coffee. Write letters to the editor or to your senators, or engage in some such advocacy. I personally find writing, especially in this column, to be the most satisfying route. Even though much of what I write is likely idealistic sophomoric tripe, it’s weirdly flattering to have someone write a guest column telling you that your previous column shows you know jack shit about immigration. People do occasionally listen.
Or you can always take a pragmatic view of human rights advocacy. Just because the Constitution says you have a right, that doesn’t mean said right always will be ensured. Sometimes you have to fight for a right, so practice in such advocacy couldn’t hurt.
Medill senior David Kucinskas can be reached at [email protected].
