Computers, Compassion, and Corporal Punishment: Alan Turing to Today’s Bloggers and the State of Human Rights in the World

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I meant to publish this a while ago, but didn’t. With the start of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, and the worldwide attention on Russia’s extreme anti-gay laws, this post seemed especially appropriate now. I’d also like to thank Tim Schleck for his contributions in the field of knowledge of Alan Turing and the time and effort he spent offering his opinions as I wrote the first draft of this post.

I’m going to write about two seemingly disparate topics. There is a direct link however, to how societies treat their most vulnerable and most vocal citizens. This is not true everywhere, at all times, but it’s pervasive enough that it warrants attention.

Recently, the pardon of Alan Turing made international headlines. On December 24, 2013, after 61 years, Queen Elizabeth II issued a royal pardon for Turing’s crime of homosexuality. This act of pardoning is seen as progressive in some circles because it dovetails with a movement of greater acceptance of homosexuality in the UK (including the recent national legalization of same sex marriage). Others, however, see it as a kind of window dressing.

Alan Turing was a brilliant and visionary pioneer who helped formalize the theoretical underpinnings of computer science. Two of his most well known accomplishments are that of the Turing Machine, a precursor to personal computers, and the Turing Test to measure artificial intelligence. (If you’ve ever seen “Bladerunner”, the test given to the replicants is similar.) The personal accomplishments of Turing’s short life are extensive and have played a critical role in the development of technology in the 20th and 21st centuries. By collaborating on the very first computer that was used to crack encrypted messages generated by the German Enigma machine, Turing played an invaluable part in aiding the UK and the allied powers to victory in World War II.

While the Queen’s gesture is certainly better than nothing, I would argue it’s too little, too late. An opinion writer at CNet seems to agree: http://m.cnet.com/news/alan-turing-gets-royal-pardon-on-homosexuality-crime/57616268 Turing was betrayed by the very government he so expertly aided in its most desperate hour. Government agents stalked and monitored his daily activities, resulting in the revocation of his security clearance, smear campaigns against him, and his eventual trial. He was charged with the then criminal act of homosexuality (called “gross indecency”) for admitting to having sex with a man, for which he was offered the “choice” of jail time or chemical castration. After choosing chemical castration, Turing’s suffering intensified. When he was found dead two years later after biting into a cyanide-laced apple, many people attribute his apparent suicide to his societal and governmental condemnation and subsequent punishment.

The pardon itself is sparse and offers no real apology. While former Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued an official apology in 2009, he only did so after bowing to the pressure of an intense internet campaign. Turing was a pivotal man in history, and although the standing of a citizen in society should not determine his or her treatment, it’s instructive when looking at other people who deviate from the norm of who offer value to their societies in a way that challenges convention. The most vocal may also be the most vulnerable, especially in strictly conservative countries.

The number of political prisoners in the world is unknown, but if the hundreds of thousands of documented Syrian prisoners and victims of torture and murder by Bashar al Assad’s government are any indication, holding individuals as political prisoners is not a rare phenomenon. Syria, while in the throes of a civil war, is no anomaly. These are all people who have been put in prisons because they challenged the government in some way. It may have been purely due to their very existence as members of a certain religious or social group seen as a threat that landed them in these hells. In countries such as North Korea, entire families are forced into oppressive labor camps where children are born into lives of captivity for no actual crimes. There are others who speak out against the actions of their governments, courageously trying to inspire more egalitarian and democratic laws in their home nations.

One such example is a Saudi Arabian man named Raif Badawi, who, due to his allegedly seditious activity–blogging about greater freedom in Saudi Arabia–has spent a year in prison, enduring physical and psychological torture. He is being charged with a crime akin to heresy: denying Islam. His punishment? 600 lashes and seven years in prison with another 3 months tacked on for disobeying his parents–an actual crime in Saudi Arabia. He has already been found guilty of various “cyber crimes”. If he’s found guilty of “apostasy”–the official name for the denial of Islam–he will be sentenced to death.

Yes, you read that right. If the 600 lashes themselves don’t kill him, he will then be executed. The idea of heresy in 2014, you ask? What is this, medieval Europe? No, it’s the present day Middle East. Of course, it’s not fair to take a monolithic view of an entire region, but any government that condones corporal punishment and capital punishment–especially for the supposed “crime” of expressing oneself–obviously does not have basic human values as its moral compass. Not beating and killing someone for writing a blog (however seemingly insulting) is not even a progressive stance. This is not an issue of cultural relativism or a so-called “Western value”.

What hope do we have for humanity if we turn a blind eye to such atrocities? These actions occur every day. Far from the exception, they are commonplace. The fact that people like this blogger know the risks of speaking out, and choose to do so anyway, stands as a testament to just how brave they truly are. It also presents a stark contrast with the agents who seek to silence them by the most cruel and permanent means available.
That United States officials have very little to say on the state of political prisoners (particularly those in countries with which the U.S. is a close ally or trade partner) is beyond shameful. It is detrimental to the reputation of the United States, and it gives the signal that countries can get a free pass. There are a plethora of ethical and strategic reasons why those in government positions outside of the offending countries should be doing more. Of course, the United States practices its own forms of cruelty. That doesn’t absolve Americans of the responsibility to do something more to help out fellow human beings anywhere in the world.

After the Olympics end three weeks from now, and the media buzz dies down, try to remember the dismal state of human rights in Russia. Remember how anachronistic the criminalization of Alan Turing’s homosexuality seems, how “gross indecency” was a prosecuted crime. Think about how he was only one of over 100,000 men in the UK to be punished for such a “crime”. Think about how that was over 60 years ago, but today, from Uganda (where you can be killed for being gay) to Saudi Arabia (where you can be killed for attempting to engage in free speech), human rights are not protected universally. We need to be aware, and learn from the horrors of the past. That this horrific backwardness still exists anywhere is unacceptable.

Syria’s Weapons of Mass Deterrence?

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Here’s a worrying admission: Syrian officials have admitted to possessing “weapons of mass destruction”, though they claim they would “never use them on civilians…no matter how the crisis evolves”.  The weapons are reserved for “foreign” invaders.  Comforting? Not really.

“Weapons of mass destruction” is a loaded term to begin with.  While there are standard definitions for such weapons, has the Syrian government not already sanctioned the killing of its people on a “mass” scale?  Maybe nearly 20,000 lives violently extinguished over a 16 and a half month period is not massive enough.  I guess it all depends on how one defines the word “mass”, but semantics aside, it’s evident that tens of thousands of Syrians have died and many more have been injured by weapons, causing gut-wrenching destruction.

“WMD” or not, how is anyone–Syrian citizen or otherwise–supposed to trust Syrian authorities?  Enough have proven themselves untrustworthy and unreliable at best and extraordinarily cruel and willing to do anything to hold onto power at worst.  “Don’t worry.  We would never release this Ricin or drop these Anthrax-tipped bombs.  Your children will be safe.”  Tell that to the people of Homs, whose city has been shelled relentlessly since the beginning of the “crisis”.  Or tell that to the millions of residents of other areas of the country whose names appear in international news stories daily because of the constantly rising death toll.

The message is, then: We draw the line at using WMD on our citizens–or so we say–but conventional weapons are fine.  Of course, this scene-stealing story might very well be a strategic attempt to ward off would-be interventionist nations.  I’m not quite sure how that would work in the U.S. case since we all know the United States predicated its invasion of Iraq mainly on the premise of the existence of WMD there.  However nuanced the international relations considerations were in this decision (which I’d say were not very nuanced at all), the fact remains: The United States invaded Iraq, a country believed to have WMD, that ended up not even having WMD.  I think if anything seriously deters America from intervening in a humanitarian fashion in Syria, it won’t be the Syrian government’s claims of WMD.  These claims might even serve as a motivator.

The Syrian government can’t be trusted.  The world is supposed to take officials at their word when they claim they wouldn’t use weapons of mass destruction on their own people?  I don’t buy it, and I don’t think informed Syrians do, either.  Bashar al-Assad and members of his regime have continued to assert that Syria is under attack by “armed terrorist thugs”.  They have claimed foreign influence against the country before.  Why wouldn’t they attack these so-called enemies of the state?  Even if they don’t really believe what they’re saying, the government’s rhetoric underscores the very reasoning for why it could seek to justify future WMD attacks on its own civilians.

The calculation that strong enough weapons can insulate a country from a kind of breeching its borders foreign intervention is an understandable one since the United States has limited its actions in certain countries with known nuclear weapons, although even this assertion is not always true.  Drones in Pakistan, anyone?  Obviously, China and North Korea have much larger militaries and there are regional considerations, etc.  There are many variables.  Iran is an interesting case.  Regardless, when fewer than ten countries in the world have nuclear weapons, it is too small a sample to study in the case of the effect of interventionist policies on members of this exclusive club.  And even then…Syria does not have nuclear weapons, the crown jewel of fear-inducing weapons caches.

All in all, the existence of WMD in Syria is worrying.  The brazenness with which this information was announced is probably both a symbol of desperation and an attempt at showing strength, a last ditch defense mechanism.  The danger of such weapons is very real and duly frightening, but it shouldn’t deter the international community (whose “wait and see” ethic hasn’t worked very well) from doing more.  Far fewer people died in Libya than have already died in Syria.  In a strange moment of outreach to the “West”, Qaddafi relinquished his country’s nuclear weapons program in 2005, but WMD were still found in 2011, when he was overthrown and the humanitarian intervention was undertaken.  Again, comparing Syria to Libya brings up a host of other variables.  My point is that WMD need not be a disqualifier from further international action in Syria.

Who is the real armed terrorist thug, Assad?  If we are true to our ideals of defeating terrorism around the world–and this is not only state-sponsored terrorism, it is state-practiced terrorism—American government representatives would not turn the other way, issuing empty statements on how “Assad’s days are numbered”.  This is the official U.S. State Department line, by the way.  If we are committed to the rights of freedom and security for our fellow human beings, then Syria’s WMD tease should serve as a wake up call.

Voluntary Blindness

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The recent dramatic escape of blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng has shone a light on the cruelty of the practices used to employ China’s infamous “One Child” policy, and the desperation and barbary a government with unchecked power can utilize in the face of an ever daunting problem such as population control. Chen Guangcheng puts a face on China’s human rights problem. The activist and self-taught lawyer was jailed for four years for publicly protesting the forced abortions and sterilization of women in his country. (Read about these practices here: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/30/world/asia/china-forced-abortions/index.html) He was then transferred to house arrest, where he remained for 19 months prior to his incredible escape to the American Embassy over 300 miles away. Over the course of his imprisonment under house arrest, he had decried the abuse he and his family suffered at the hands of guards. He recalled an instance in which guards broke into his house and held his wife inside of a comforter for hours while they mercilessly kicked and punched her before doing the same to him

Chinese officials are ashamed. They know how things like this look to the outside world, and they know how their restive population will react. This is why they censor. Widespread and immediate censorship was practiced in relation to Chen, especially after news of his escape spread on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. “Ashamed” might be the wrong word. They just don’t want a public relations disaster on their hands. They needn’t worry, though. United States officials have not significantly responded to any of this, and now, a week after Chen’s asylum-seeking mission to the U.S. Embassy, he has been surrendered (aka “brought of his own volition”) to a Beijing hospital, where Chinese officials have made no attempt to conceal the fact that they’re very angry with him and the attention he’s caused.

International Relations 101 is that the international system is anarchic. The actions of individuals within this system couldn’t be farther from the truth. Individuals, just as the nation-states they comprise, act in rational self interest within the system–to an extent. By its very nature, the system of nation-states that dot the earth necessitates cooperation. This is becoming more evident every day, as an increasingly globalized world proves that no country is a (proverbial) island–unless that country is North Korea, and it isn’t actually isolated; despite its constant claims of “juche”, the country is held up by the aforementioned human rights abuser, China.

I mention all of this because I see Earth’s population as a single entity: that of human society. International law, for all of its failings, exists for a reason. This is to exert order on an otherwise “anarchic”/chaotic world and to set standards for the behavior of members in the society. Apologists fearful of stepping on toes will employ the ethic of moral relativism, claiming cultural imperialism and the like, frightened of offending a subculture within world society, and therefore not reaping the individual benefits for their home country. Case in point: The United States’ unwillingness to intervene in a very obvious instance of a human rights abuse by China. Journalists reported that President Obama remained “tight lipped” on the issue of Chen Guangcheng’s detention, daring escape, and limbo-like existence as he took refuge in the American Embassy in Beijing. The American Embassy! Could there be a clearer appeal to aid from the United States?! Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a former advocate of Chen Guangcheng, remained silent on the issue, even as she arrived in Beijing for an economic summit with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. In fact, both parties–the U.S. and China–deliberately informed the world that the summit would not focus on Cheng, that the triviality of his plight should not get in the way of larger economic issues. You know, issues of global significance, unlike the issue of human rights. Read more here: http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/02/world/asia/china-clinton-visit/index.html

President Obama offered up this single comment on the situation: “Every time we talk to China, the issue of human rights comes up”, he claimed. Does it? Perhaps. Or, perhaps, the idea that America owes China money (an issue which isn’t quite that simple and America could actually use to its advantage) has cowed America, and made it China’s bitch. Not very diplomatic? Looking the other way while a country tortures its people while the first country loves to proclaim its “shining beacon on a hill” status every chance it gets, is much less diplomatic. It is shameful, disturbing, but, perhaps, worst of all, it is unflinchingly hypocritical. Some countries–those with less strategic importance, perhaps–are punished, while China is given a gold star. Even if American representatives don’t approve of China’s treatment of its citizens (citizens of the world, fellow human beings), they issue their tacit approval by not speaking out on such matters. There are a select few people in positions of power whose voices carry a disproportionate amount of weight, yet they choose to remain silent because silence is easier and more convenient than standing up for human dignity when it counts.

What will Chen Guangcheng’s fate be? What does the future portend for the millions of women who have been forced to undergo painful, sometimes life-threatening abortions and forced sterilizations? What about the women and girls who daily exist as members of a society in which they are told they are unwanted, if they are lucky enough not to have been killed at birth or abandoned? A society of 1.35 billion people–females and males alike–is scarred by the destruction wrought by the Chinese Communist Party. A worry of the Party is the disproportionate number of boys to girls born in the country: 118 boys to 100 girls, the only country in the world with a significantly higher proportion of boys than girls. A telling statistic, but why does the Party mention it? It is worried about the “many unhappy bachelors” of China’s future. This type if statement is emblematic of the prevailing view in China of men as substantially more important than women. Some efforts have been made to curb violence and cruelty against women, particularly women carrying a second child or a female child, but these efforts are half-assed at best, and not uniformly enforced. This is why figures like Chen Guangcheng emerge. Courageous individuals attempt to protect their fellow human beings because the government–whose first duty is to protect its people–has failed them. Worse yet, it is the perpetrator of violence against its own. Other countries Iike the United States have a moral obligation to try to aid these suffering people, fellow citizens of our global society. The United States could certainly facilitate protection for Chen and his daughter, mother, and wife. US State Department officials reported that Chen did not seek asylum in the United States, but it has been widely reported that he was coerced into leaving the U.S. Embassy because his family’s life was threatened.

Articles on Chen’s coercion to leave the U.S. Embassy and the reaction of Chinese officials:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-17920910#TWEET136101

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/05/chen-guangcheng-coerced-to-leave-embassy-dissidents-say.html

Instead of attempting to secure the safety of Chen Guangcheng and his family, and using this situation as a springboard from which to discuss the brutality of China’s One Child policy and its crackdown on dissidents, U.S. officials chose not to help. A single blind man has seen more than powerful sighted people who have averted their eyes.

Pale Blue Dot

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A growing awareness of the earth began in the 1960s.  The connection between astronomy/cosmology and environmentalism is a very clear one.  When NASA’s Apollo astronauts took photos of the earth from space for the first time (including the iconic “Earthrise”, an image taken by Apollo 8 astronauts during the first human space flight to orbit the moon in 1968), a never before experienced sense of awe was felt by humans who could truly see the sheer beauty of their home for the first time.  The environmental movement was born out of a convergence of factors, including mounting fears over nuclear weapons.  The photos the astronauts took transcended borders, and impacted people in a way political arguments never could.  It began in the United States, but in the decades since its inception has become a global phenomenon, celebrated in at least 144 countries worldwide.  Many of these countries recognize the accompanying Earth Week, the week leading up to April 22.

“Earthise”, 1968

In honor of Earth Day, I’d like to draw attention to the importance of preservation by highlighting one of the most visceral and affecting descriptions of Earth I’ve seen.  This description comes from the introduction to Carl Sagan’s 1994 book A Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space.

 

 

Credit: NASA / JPL

“Pale Blue Dot”, 1991

According to the Planetary Society, of which Carl Sagan was a co-founder:

“This excerpt from A Pale Blue Dot was inspired by an image taken, at Sagan’s suggestion, by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990.  As the spacecraft left our planetary neighborhood for the fringes of the solar system, engineers turned it around for one last look at its home planet.  Voyager 1 was about 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) away, and approximately 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane, when it captured this portrait of our world.  Caught in the center of scattered light rays (a result of taking the picture so close to the Sun), Earth appears as a tiny point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size.”

From http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/voyager/pale_blue_dot.html

“We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

-Carl Sagan

Earth, for all of its resilience, is a fragile ecosystem.  Science is miraculous, and life on earth is the most improbable of possibilities.  While the search for astrobiology continues in earnest–efforts not least of which have been made by Carl Sagan’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI—so far, our one planet is all we have and the only place in the universe that we know with certainty contains life.  As Sagan said, the responsibility of stewardship of our home is “up to us” because  “there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves”.  Not only should we direct our efforts at treating out fellow human beings with “kindness” and “compassion”, but we should “preserve” and “cherish” Earth.  This is the message of Earth Day, a message we celebrate every April, but one we should carry with us every day.

Invisible Intervention

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This post is going to be controversial. I give anyone who is reading this fair warning now.

I’d like to discuss the concept of humanitarian intervention in war zones around the world. I’ve mentioned my feelings on the genocide in Syria in a previous post. (Yes, I think the situation can adequately be described as genocide.) I believe humanitarian intervention in Syria in the form of military intervention is crucial at this point since the cruelty and murder of the Assad regime seems nowhere near abating. My thoughts on the Syrian situation are clear. I will elaborate further on those soon. While few people are actively speaking out on the genocide in Syria, a firestorm has erupted in the cyber world in relation to another issue: millions of people have been alerted to the cruelties visited upon Africans by the tyrant Joseph Kony, notorious for his horrific manipulation of children used in his child army. Joseph Kony is a killer and a despot, but I’m shocked that there is so much outrage about him in relation to Bashar al Assad. To be fair, these are two different scenarios. I’m seeking to illuminate the idea that people can get fired up about something via social media, and while this concept is amazing in theory (as with the dissemination of information in the Arab Spring), it also leads to the dissemination of disinformation and an inaccurate, superficial view of foreign conflict.

To begin with, let’s examine the situation in Syria. As I’ve said, I’ve described the situation before in a previous post, and if anyone is interested, he or she can look at my post “A Screaming Syria”. Senator John McCain does a very good job of describing the current state of affairs in Syria in remarks he gave to the Senate floor a few days ago, calling for multilateral military intervention with the U.S. leading. He is one of the few to do so, and in an unequivocal way, making the rounds on television news stations and publicizing his views on Twitter. His speech, which I think should be required reading for everyone can be viewed here: http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressOffice.FloorStatements&ContentRecord_id=e460be36-c488-e7de-8c38-64c3751adfce

As Senator McCain mentions in his Senate speech, the United States and NATO intervened militarily in Bosnia and Kosovo when similar situations were occurring. As he mentioned to Anderson Cooper on AC:360 (also one of the only shows to shed a consistent light on Syria), the lack of intervention in Rwanda now stands as a shameful moment in our history. It is a moment when genocide was allowed to occur. I will not get into the politics of that particular event, but even the uninitiated know it was horrific. Surprisingly, the Senator claimed that “nothing in this world is predetermined” in reference to the Obama Administration’s repeated declarations that al Assad’s demise is “inevitable”. Essentially, morality dictates that we do not sit idly by while we cross our fingers and hope that the regime falls, and like he says, even if it does, it make take “a really long time”, causing the casualty count to climb in the process.

An additional consideration that I’m surprised has not surfaced among more politicians (in particular, among Republicans) is that of long term strategic advantage for the United States after the dust settles and the power shifts in Syria. Of course, there is the very real possibility that the ideal will not come to fruition, at least not as seamlessly as we can hope, but as Senator McCain said, we don’t even have a chance if we don’t intervene—and we really can’t afford not to. Put simply, Syria has oil. If we are friendly with the new regime, and the people see us as allies, this will be an important resource for the United States. In addition, Syria and Israel are not exactly friends. This assertion may seem overly optimistic, but if the United States has greater influence in a new Syria, perhaps our country can exercise diplomatic influence in the Middle East, especially between Syria and Israel, which might have an impact on such nations as Egypt to change their attitudes toward Israel. Of course, there is the obvious benefit of challenging Iranian influence in the region. Republicans seem to hate Iran—a hatred befitting the regime, perhaps, but too often directed in a misguided way toward the Iranian people. Perhaps the American relationship with Iran could also become a more positive one as the key Iranian ally of Syria becomes an American ally. NATO would be strengthened, and the role of Turkey would be a robust one. This is also in the interest of the United States. Finally, a multilateral military intervention in Syria would aid in ushering in the new era of 21^st century international cooperation. It would prove that the intervention in Libya wasn’t just a fluke, that even if the countries of the United Nations cannot agree to act in favor the moral high ground, other institutions exist that will promote the ideals of security, stability, democracy, and human rights—that international law is not dead, and that bloodthirsty leaders desperate to cling to power cannot act with impunity.

The 20^th century was the century of decolonization. It began with the fall of empires after World War I, and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the final decade of the century. The 21^st century has dawned with the fight for human rights for the people in many of those countries in which such rights have not been granted. We should not let the legacy of the Arab Spring falter in Syria.

Now, after that inspiring rhetoric, I want to contrast this movement with that of the #stopkony and Joseph Kony 2012 movements. For the last two days, Twitter has been inundated with trending topics referencing the warlord Joseph Kony. This movement has spread to Facebook and other social media and aggregate sites. Many people have linked to a video about Joseph Kony on the YouTube page of Invisible Children, a nonprofit organization who launched the campaign against Kony. The stated aims are to find Joseph Kony somewhere in Uganda or central Africa—it’s not quite clear since no one knows where he is at the moment—and bring him to justice. This is a worthwhile aim, but the Invisible Children campaign is not necessarily the right tool to use to do so.

Invisible Children mainly raises awareness. This is fantastic, but does not solve the problem. Millions of young Americans can tweet all they want, but how many actually understand the complexities of child armies in Africa? How many have even heard of the L.R.A? And how many have done any research into Invisible Children, except to watch the half hour promotional video put out by the group? As the sites I will link to explain, Invisible Children supports another Ugandan group that also uses child soldiers, that rapes and loots, and engages in unspeakable horrors in much the same way that Kony’s groups have. Invisible Children feels that this group is the best tool to find Kony. What kind of message does this send? That evil can fight evil? An eye for an eye? This kind of military action is very dangerous, and as one of the sources explains, retaliatory action has been taken when American forces have intervened militarily, and anything involving child soldiers is “messy”. Another fear is the racial and cultural element in that many people don’t understand the plight of rural Africans. This is not to say intervention is never necessary or that Joseph Kony should not be made infamous. As I stated before, the Rwandan genocide is a classic case in which military intervention in Africa was necessary and should have been undertaken.

Sources Skeptical of Invisible Children:

http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com.nyud.net/

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/conserving-freedom/2012/mar/7/kony-2012-bringing-joseph-kony-justice/

Invisible Children has many questionable practices, but has been made famous by bands such as Fall Out Boy in previous years and has now spread due to social media. I think that most people who spread the message are pure of heart and many want to be part of a larger movement to feel like they are making a difference in the world. This is commendable, though, Invisible Children and the entire Kony movement may not be the best way to go about solving the problem. The lesson that should be taken from this movement is that now that people are informed, brainstorming about a better way to end the kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder of children, as well as other members of African communities, can begin. Some people, it seems, just want to jump on the bandwagon and get involved in the latest trend. As one source said, sometimes doing nothing actually is better than doing something, if that something breeds more destruction.

Why is it that Syria has not garnered the same fevered attention as the Joseph Kony movement? There may be several reasons for this. There is a clear plan of action that can be taken in Syria, right now, with the aid of other countries within a reliable framework. The same cannot be said for the search for Kony in Africa. I urge humanitarian aid in Syria and a closer look at the Invisible Children-sponsored movement. Invisible Children has become very visible, while the idea of intervention in Syria has been nearly invisible.

Only Connect

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America, china, compassion, connection, connections, extremely loud and incredibly close, global consciousness, globalization, humanism, humanity, international relations, only connect, politics, Russia, social media, Syria, syrian revolution, twitter, U.N., UN, united nations, united states

As an addendum to my previous blog post on the mass murder going on in Syria, I wanted to include some links I’ve since found that connect a community.  The first is on an online newspaper that aggregates stories about the crisis from around the web using Twitter.  (My blog post was featured on the front page of the February 12^th edition (!), and can be seen here: http://paper.li/arab_revolt/1308958945/2012/02/12)  As far as I can tell, this newspaper (as well as a few others on various revolutionary movements around the world) is due to the tireless work of a single person behind the Twitter handles Revolutions Info and Revolutions Info 2.  If you’re reading this, and you’re interested, definitely follow this person.  His or her information is invaluable.  The link to that newspaper is here: http://paper.li/arab_revolt/1308958945

Another thing I wanted to include was a petition to Chinese President Hu Jintao, started by a Kuwaiti woman who was outraged that China and Russia vetoed a United Nations resolution denouncing the violence in Syria.  With Russia’s veto, some asked why China would veto as well.  There is speculation on Chinese issues with Turkish influence, its Uighur population, and its posture in relation to the United States.  The Syria situation should be a cause for global concern, however.  Denouncing horrific violence against fellow human beings should not require a second thought.  Even if this petition doesn’t do much concretely, at least it can stand as a symbol that people from all around the world are united for this common cause and stand with the people of Syria against the damaging actions by representatives of countries like China and Russia (though, in this case, the petition is particularly directed at China).  If you would like to sign this petition, you can click the link here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/10/stop-the-murder-in-syria/?cid=FB_Share

Last night, I saw “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”.  The take away of this movie is the importance of connections.  It was an incredible movie that didn’t sugarcoat the fact that terrible things happen in the world, you can never truly be safe, and sometimes people enact horrific acts of violence, destroying the lives of people they don’t even know.  It also served to underscore the beauty of the world and the humanity of most people.  Like E.M. Forster’s ethic “only connect”, one of the most meaningful endeavors in life is to connect with those around you.  As individuals, we can come together in a way that affects the lives of those miles away, all around the world.  I include this sentiment because it resonates with the idea that we should all be informed about Syria, to tell others, and to do what we can, but also because we should strive to strengthen our connections with those close to us and to treat people with kindness and compassion.  It’s trite to say so, but plenty of people take each other for granted and treat each other terribly.  If we can each do little things to make a difference in other people’s lives, the world could be a better place.

This is a short post, and not very politically charged.  Its aim is simple and direct: only connect.