If genocide is around the corner again, we will not be able to stop it. If I have learned anything from the past few days, it is that the current human rights education strategy is failing.
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| Photography by Anna Rok |
I’m not suggesting that human rights education based in history has no benefits for society. Such education for the general population is useful for producing gradual long-term changes. On its first full day in the city, Team Warsaw explored these very issues, and the successes of the human rights discipline in creating these gradual changes in society through a legal means. Through a combination of lectures given by experts and professionals such as Janina Pietrzak and Zdzislaw Mach, the group explored the construction of stereotypes and prejudice both in general and also within the context of Polish national identity. At the Helsinki Foundation, we discussed the other side of the equation with Adam Bodnar, learning about educational and legal strategies to fight discrimination. The three presentations were each generally based in different disciplines – law, psychology and history.
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| Photography by Anna Rok |
The culmination of the day’s work for me, however, was undoubtedly related to the question of what exactly makes a person just, and thus willing to stand up to horrific acts of hatred and violence, and if there even exists an answer to this broader question facing the human rights activist community.
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| Photography by Anna Rok |
While I understand the move to define and set boundaries for what makes a person just, history demonstrates that being just is composed more of action than of ideas. As suggested by commentators in the film “Just People,” we can never be certain of how we may react when put into similarly trying situations.
But, we can be certain that without training and practice, we will never be able to stop genocide. Human rights education must focus specifically on training activists and people who have realized their inner predisposition and commitment to such issues. Resistance does not often come naturally, and well-planned and effective resistance even less so.
This is directly related to one of my concerns with the film “Just People.” The film presented Rosa Parks as “just another person,” who’d found the courage to take a stand. What often gets ignored in the discourse surrounding the Civil Rights Movement in the United States is the fact that Parks was a trained and well-connected activist, and her decision to sit in the front of the bus was not random or even the result of the feelings of an individual sick of being discriminated against. Parks made a deliberate and planned decision with the support of a well-developed activist network that was working towards civil rights for African-Americans.
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| Photography Anna Rok |
When we fail to acknowledge the importance of this activist network and support group, we do future activists and ourselves a disservice. No individual, no matter how committed, can drastically change a system alone. Overlooking the connections between these different activists presents the act of resistance as an individual act first and then an institutional one. Due to humans being naturally social and political, I think presenting such resistance as a group act is crucial.
We don’t expect every person who studies science in elementary school to want to or be able to excel at nuclear science. We train those who show an aptitude for science or a passionate desire to study it. I would argue for a similar approach to be taken with regards to creating activists who specifically deal with immediate response and resistance.
- Simmi Kaur (US Fellow)
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