tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22284881597104927142024-02-02T19:26:37.840-03:00My End of the Bargain...Life handed me a free J.D. See what I have done and will do to deserve this as you help keep me accountable to holding up my end of the bargain.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.comBlogger306125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-64266119078143713702017-04-07T06:04:00.001-03:002017-04-07T06:09:23.018-03:00The Launch of @Femails...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2G_N_iqgVxNDDgfNatgtOUE8SK779TVejW64DjD3Irckh_U99P5vG8zeDjkVgKgGJbSE9R85MAFxD40CUQFVeKavRr1kUArVFKgmqrHdqGEiieyPq_RV0zSVo0GQNklXI6TcSugT9/s1600/Blog+lips.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2G_N_iqgVxNDDgfNatgtOUE8SK779TVejW64DjD3Irckh_U99P5vG8zeDjkVgKgGJbSE9R85MAFxD40CUQFVeKavRr1kUArVFKgmqrHdqGEiieyPq_RV0zSVo0GQNklXI6TcSugT9/s320/Blog+lips.JPG" width="230" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/getwoke?source=feed_text&story_id=10105476804995743" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;"><span class="_5afx" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #4267b2; unicode-bidi: isolate;">#</span><span class="_58cm">getwoke</span></span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"> </span><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/empowertheconversation?source=feed_text&story_id=10105476804995743" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;"><span class="_5afx" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #4267b2; unicode-bidi: isolate;">#</span><span class="_58cm">empowertheconversation</span></span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"> </span><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/politics?source=feed_text&story_id=10105476804995743" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;"><span class="_5afx" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #4267b2; unicode-bidi: isolate;">#</span><span class="_58cm">politics</span></span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"></span><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/equality?source=feed_text&story_id=10105476804995743" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;"><span class="_5afx" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #4267b2; unicode-bidi: isolate;">#</span><span class="_58cm">equality</span></span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"> </span><span class="_5afx" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; direction: ltr; text-decoration: none;"><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/educate?source=feed_text&story_id=10105476804995743" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #4267b2; unicode-bidi: isolate;">#</span><span class="_58cm">educate</span></a> </span></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #365899; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">#Coates </span></span><span class="_5afx" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; direction: ltr; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #4267b2; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/educate?source=feed_text&story_id=10105476804995743" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">#</a>femails </span></span></div>
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<span class="_5afx" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; direction: ltr; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #4267b2; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/educate?source=feed_text&story_id=10105476804995743" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">#</a>holdthefloor </span></span><span class="_5afx" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; direction: ltr; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #4267b2; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/educate?source=feed_text&story_id=10105476804995743" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">#</a>ModernArt </span></span><span class="_5afx" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; direction: ltr; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #4267b2; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/educate?source=feed_text&story_id=10105476804995743" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">#</a>politics </span></span><span class="_5afx" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; direction: ltr; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #4267b2; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/educate?source=feed_text&story_id=10105476804995743" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">#</a>TaHehisiCoates </span></span><span class="_5afx" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; direction: ltr; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #4267b2; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/educate?source=feed_text&story_id=10105476804995743" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">#</a>WednesdayWisdom</span></span></div>
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<span class="_5afx" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; direction: ltr; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #4267b2; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/educate?source=feed_text&story_id=10105476804995743" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">#</a>smashthepatriarchy </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">There's nothing like a good
conversation among good female friends. It can honestly be one of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>the</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>most empowering times for me. A space
where I feel the most heard, the most profoundly understood, the most passionately
educated and the most encouraged to speak freely—without the
typical consequences that usually meet outspoken women. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">So when the idea of sharing the conversations hatched in this
space occurred between me some of my writing-inclined women friends, <a href="https://femails.org/">@fe_mails</a>
came into being. But for me, this conversation collaborative is actually
something that has existed all along; now it is just time to share it with
others in the hopes that they can gain those same feelings of being heard,
understood, educated and encouraged.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Many of my shares often focus on the intersectionality of feminist
ideals, and well, the <i>world</i> because…if you have ever had a conversation
with me…there is no avoiding it, nor should there be. But how I navigate this
space (particularly when advocating my points of view to those with whom I cannot agree) can at least be entertaining. I apologize in advance for my use of
profanity; it’s a coping mechanism that I cannot shake. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">All exchanges are cleared for
permissions with authors (aka do not be afraid to email me and have it randomly
appear on the internet). </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Check out
the official first femail here: <a href="https://femails.org/2017/04/05/some-airplane-reading-for-you-contd/">https://femails.org/2017/04/05/some-airplane-reading-for-you-contd/</a></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-90979417084978934972017-04-04T11:42:00.001-03:002017-04-04T11:42:20.578-03:00Teaser Launch of New Writing Project...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2wmZbEM2npSt_bD0bg0AMUhE5aFXDdGiAErALNJiX-LXRkGeTH9wWWmc58T_c2I14bZkOmuTgnWX7HHzz9QaJnOyKpF5-OAjFhF77te3rkofv-UY6tP5UBvqp4RNItKCfYsWXw93Y/s1600/Femails+Blog+Post.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2wmZbEM2npSt_bD0bg0AMUhE5aFXDdGiAErALNJiX-LXRkGeTH9wWWmc58T_c2I14bZkOmuTgnWX7HHzz9QaJnOyKpF5-OAjFhF77te3rkofv-UY6tP5UBvqp4RNItKCfYsWXw93Y/s320/Femails+Blog+Post.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 18px;">PREVIEW <a href="http://femails.org/">Femails</a>, our new conversation collaborative, before it launches tomorrow! Source: </span><a href="https://femails.org/2017/04/04/some-airplane-reading-for-you/">Some airplane reading for you </a></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-56460236107371546782017-01-27T15:45:00.004-03:002017-01-27T15:45:37.684-03:00The New President and a Possible Return...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Because this:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrg_tJ9QdU8hjXyP3i8yu6j5p4nmkbyDdW0qKt1fs4_aYCuKmnWDtWJMw6VkNgU-uePOrpRh7X1sDvvNHODO7MB1UDIo1Q12Z29KYksxpun2V5ZazQSXiF4kdWZCrmNYbbvIEnbtPP/s1600/ugh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrg_tJ9QdU8hjXyP3i8yu6j5p4nmkbyDdW0qKt1fs4_aYCuKmnWDtWJMw6VkNgU-uePOrpRh7X1sDvvNHODO7MB1UDIo1Q12Z29KYksxpun2V5ZazQSXiF4kdWZCrmNYbbvIEnbtPP/s320/ugh.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Leads to this:</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">____________________________________________________________________________________________________________</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">27 January 2017<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Center for
Reproductive Rights<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Attn: Human Rights Assistant <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">707 8<sup>th</sup> Street SE, No. 200<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Washington, D.C. 20003<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Dear Human
Resources Department:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">It is no secret
that this country’s new administration is targeting, in a direct, comprehensive
and deliberate manner, the dissolution of women’s reproductive rights, even
more than the already well-established attempts to do so. Watching these developments—from
the reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy to the outright elimination of
federal funding to Planned Parenthood—unfold so quickly has been simultaneously
terrifying and stirring. This is precisely why following the inauguration, I
have applied to several positions at several levels within the Center for Reproductive
Rights; it has been therapeutic in a way, especially since I currently reside
outside of the United States. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">There exists only one
thing that makes me want move back despite the extremism of the current
leadership, and it is to work to protect women’s reproductive health and
autonomy, specifically with the Center. As such, I would like to be considered
for your Senior Human Rights Counsel position. With my advanced degree in
international law and substantial experience in human rights mechanisms, I can strategically
assist the Senior Director in not only protecting, but in advancing women’s
reproductive health, self-determination and dignity. My experience working with
governments around the world to protect, respect and fulfill legal obligations
with respect to human rights, particularly in terms of women’s health, makes me
an ideal candidate for this position. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Firstly, as the
designated focal point on human rights under the World Health Organization’s
(WHO) treaty, I have direct experience developing and leading the Secretariat’s
engagement with international and regional human rights mechanisms to ensure
accountability of Parties, including non-Party observers like the U.S., to
respect their human rights and treaty obligations. As a Technical Officer
(legal), I regularly provide technical assistance to a variety of key stakeholders,
including but not limited to, implementation partners, designated experts and
expert groups, intergovernmental working groups, domestic and international
human rights organizations, governmental and non-governmental advocates, and
networks as well as coalitions dedicated to the work. In this capacity, I have
also developed a human rights advocacy plan for 2017, which includes both a
dedicated budget and an evaluation plan for all aspects of our human rights
work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Furthermore, I
worked at UNHCR Headquarters in Geneva as a human rights liaison lobbying
various Treaty Monitoring Bodies (TMBs), including several Universal Periodic
Reviews, to include specific refugee issues within country reviews based on
confidential comments received from UNHCR country offices, including several
submissions regarding asylum cases in the United States. I covered closely the
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and have proven
knowledge of the international legal framework governing reproductive rights,
which has substantially informed the rest of my legal training and career.
Since then, I have continued to draft several submissions to various TMBs throughout
my career and I am currently collaborating with the Gender, Equity and Human
Rights division of WHO as well as with the Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights on submissions to the CEDAW and CRC Committees related to our work
and in accordance with my human rights advocacy plan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Second, </span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">building the capacity,
expertise, and resources of advocates to promote policy solutions at the state,
national, and global levels is central to my current work with the WHO. In promoting
Protocol ratification, I have worked to build alliances across diverse sectors
including policy makers at all levels of government and within different
ministries (Health, Justice, Finance, Customs, etc.), the general public health
sector, and among advocates. In addition, working for the United Nations has
allowed me to: (1) conduct joint advocacy and policy initiatives in relation to
the sustainable development goals with my work under the UN Special Rapporteur
for the human right to water and sanitation, (2) provide technical assistance
to support government advocates during my time as United Nations Volunteer
under the UN Development Programme, (3) collaborate with public health and
medical sectors throughout my time with the WHO, and (4) influence federal
policy to integrate human rights recommendations on reducing maternal health
disparities as evidenced during my time with Amnesty International in working
with its seminal publication ‘Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Care Crisis
in the USA.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Third, as Women’s
Rights Commissioner for Seattle, a two-year term that I served during my legal
education, I worked tirelessly serving as a liaison between my community and
the local government to ensure that women’s voices were heard throughout the
decision-making process. This involved leading and supporting all logistical
aspects of advocacy events as well as tracking gender-balanced budgeting within
the City Council. In keeping with this ‘think globally, act locally’ mentality
to this day, I also served on the Volunteer Committee for the Geneva chapter of
the Women’s March that occurred this past weekend and assisted with the Social
Media Team’s efforts to vocalize ‘women’s rights are human rights’ (and the
wonderful diversity of meanings this phrase embodies).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Finally, I am also
my office’s focal point for the Eastern Mediterranean Region (WHO’s MENA region
equivalent) having just finished the Seventh Session of the Conference of the
Parties under the treaty in New Delhi, India from 7 to 12 November 2017. At
this Session, I also helped to pass the treaty’s first ever decisions on gender
and human rights, which as you know, is no easy feat. Helping lead a UN treaty
conference for the 180 Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
demonstrates that I have excellent interpersonal and communication skills as
well as a high level of comfort working with diverse populations. It also speaks to my ability to remain highly
organized and work collaboratively in high pressure environments. My secret:
having a well-developed, good sense of humor is crucial to surviving these
events. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Please do not
hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions and thank you for your
careful consideration. I hope that my dedication to reproductive rights as well
as my extensive knowledge of the human rights legal framework governing
vulnerable populations is not only demonstrated through my resume, but also
made clear in this letter. I look
forward to hearing from you in the near future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Kind regards,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #c00000; font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-no-proof: yes;">Ms Johanna Gusman, </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #c00000; font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-no-proof: yes;">M.Sc., J.D.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #c00000; font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-no-proof: yes;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #c00000; font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-no-proof: yes;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-no-proof: yes;">Technical Officer<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-no-proof: yes;">Legal, Trade and Protocol Team<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-21100643091744828342017-01-26T14:42:00.001-03:002017-01-26T14:45:58.973-03:00The New President and the Border Wall...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioyG4io2VoYElzsecPJp95Bu9Awc-SDV4PbiBWoqzkernoyj_UIAzS-z367KEptwJB7aKAxkHrjhbQ2ztv3nO2SYnD3czbCL0QARC5J28d6So_ofm00eVJ4t-0NB7w7GTGYqdezOtl/s1600/FullSizeRender+%25283%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioyG4io2VoYElzsecPJp95Bu9Awc-SDV4PbiBWoqzkernoyj_UIAzS-z367KEptwJB7aKAxkHrjhbQ2ztv3nO2SYnD3czbCL0QARC5J28d6So_ofm00eVJ4t-0NB7w7GTGYqdezOtl/s320/FullSizeRender+%25283%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11pt;">It is no coincidence that George Orwell's infamous book 1984 has reached
record sales since the new president was sworn into office. When terms like
'alternative facts' enter into political discussion, a response in increased
literacy is welcomed. But I imagine that new readers of this prodigious novel
may begin to wonder if they have the power of reading into fruition the words
on those pages.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11pt;">Less than one week into the presidency, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/donald-trump-immigration-234142">several executive orders on immigration</a>, including the construction of a wall along the border of Mexico,
have been signed that would make Winston Smith shudder. While Orwell’s story is
noteworthy in that it is relevant to whatever political structure exists in whatever
era of history, it is hard to not to feel that it’s especially applicable to
America’s current state at this exact moment in time. Ushering in such Orwellian
immigration policies, particularly its orders to publicize crimes committed by
undocumented immigrants on a weekly basis, demonstrates that the current
administration is committed to 'ignorance as strength'. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11pt;">Xenophobia and hatred for the ‘other’ have tangible consequences
that are <i>not</i> unprecedented in history. We know exactly the kinds of
terrible things that the <i>literal</i> building of walls can lead to and it is
absurd that such an act can already be celebrated as ‘Wall Day’. This is the
stuff that dystopian <i>fiction</i> is made of, <i>not</i> reality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11pt;">I am beginning to regret the challenge I made to myself to post
something positive every day for this president’s first 100 days in office as
it has been absolutely astonishing what he has been able to do in such a short
period of time; I find myself without the ability to process many of these
actions. ‘Doublethink’ has truly come to life. So in order to fight feelings of
complete powerlessness, I have to do something, and the best thing I know how
to do is share my experience through writing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11pt;">Thus, in order to combat yesterday’s orders from the Oval Office,
I think it best for the story of U.S. immigrants to be told through their own
words. Take the time to remind yourself of what is at stake with each executive
order signed—actual human life, and as Orwell has so eloquently warned, it
should not be taken lightly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11pt;"><a href="https://myimmigrationstory.com/">My Immigration Story</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11pt;"><a href="http://www.humansofnewyork.com/tagged/refugee-stories">Humans of New
York: Refugee Stories Series</a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11pt;"><a href="http://www.unhcr.org/children-49c3646c1e8.html">UNHCR: Stories of
Unaccompanied Minors</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-62534492609089178372017-01-25T08:50:00.000-03:002017-01-25T08:50:41.996-03:00The New President and the Global Gag Rule...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZHbAtlTA1ceuNmBM15VHsKoFh2DqUpw2rbiYTeJYumPS4CvOF419LpnN0XWWqrOBTm0mgc3ZHYGRpTHf_nfK7-fdsP7Hs_U4vdpCPRXyxQNqUG462jrYXb2DLi7Zl6zttm0oOM8ow/s1600/jpg+%25281%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZHbAtlTA1ceuNmBM15VHsKoFh2DqUpw2rbiYTeJYumPS4CvOF419LpnN0XWWqrOBTm0mgc3ZHYGRpTHf_nfK7-fdsP7Hs_U4vdpCPRXyxQNqUG462jrYXb2DLi7Zl6zttm0oOM8ow/s320/jpg+%25281%2529.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On 23 January, the newly inaugurated president reinstated the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/23/presidential-memorandum-regarding-mexico-city-policy">Mexico City Policy</a> that blocks federal funds from supporting international organizations that provide necessary reproductive health services (e.g. abortion services), even when U.S. funds do not directly go towards such provisions. He did so with only men surrounding him as he signed the 'Global Gag Rule' (as it is more commonly known) that will effectively deny whole hosts of women and girls in developing countries their right to reproductive health and autonomy--rights that already have substantial barriers in their full realization. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While this policy is limited to non-U.S.-based organizations that receive U.S. funding (e.g. many USAID projects abroad)--the Helms Amendment is what prevents international health organizations from accessing federal funds for abortion services--it will still have far-reaching consequences. The evil brilliance behind this policy is that it bans these organizations from using <i>any</i> money to provide <i>any</i> abortion service (including counselling women and girls on it as an option for family planning), even with the money received from <i>other </i>governments or organizations that gave funds without such strings attached. Hence the name 'Global Gag Rule' as it essentially coerces international women's health organizations from even telling and/or hinting to patients that abortion is a service provided. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Considering that the United States is the single largest global health donor, in order to combat the effects of this dangerous policy, please consider giving to the following organizations that will be most impacted by this policy change:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.ippf.org/">International Planned Parenthood Foundation</a> </span></li>
<li><a href="http://www.unfpa.org/donate">UNFPA</a></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">USAID global health projects on <a href="https://stories.usaid.gov/usaidmap/">this map</a>, especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Middle East</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://donate.pai.org/page/contribute/donate">PAI</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Any local Planned Parenthood Association (or the derivative thereof) in any low and middle-income country, simply choose one and donate!</span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You can read about the devastating effects of the previous Global Gag Rule in a series by PAI <a href="http://pai.org/gag-rule/">here</a>.</span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-84871676917697618492017-01-22T07:49:00.001-03:002017-01-22T07:54:01.455-03:00In Response to the New President's First 100 Days…<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 17px; text-align: justify;">The first one hundred days of president's term are supposed to act as the measuring stick against which the country can gauge his/her (yes, one day…) approach to the new job. It's the amuse-bouche of the next four to eight (please gawd NO…) years of leadership. Until yesterday, I felt pretty hopeless against the 98 days ahead (I can only imagine it in terms of days at the moment), even though I do not reside in the States. After participating in the Women's March here in Geneva, I have decided not to live in despair and I have instead challenged myself to post something positive every day to counter the action items in the </span><a href="http://www.track-trump.com/" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 17px; text-align: justify;">45th president's plan for his first 100 days in office</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 17px; text-align: justify;">, beginning today. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 17px;">Aptly, yesterday marked the worldwide Women's March movement, when an entire gender and its allies marched against the rhetoric of the past election cycle and instead delivered an unignorable message to the new government on its first day in office: women's rights are human rights (and the beautiful diversity of meanings that this statement embodies). So it makes spreading positivity and love quite easy to do in my first post. There is no better way to start off this challenge than with these inspiring images:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
<span style="font-size: 17px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Consider doing the same in order to combat the spreading of xenophobia, racism and hate. Just post something simple with a positive message and perhaps we can all 'Make America Kind Again.' Or better yet, 'Make America Think Again.'</span></div>
</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-48484636312354267762016-08-11T12:41:00.001-03:002016-08-11T12:54:51.595-03:00To Travel is to Live...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM1Ufk91v8OSL49C2bOibWs24YdiT42UhD4QhFRswOzgHLaZ4KeqddVZHwva9sblZ0Zc-s1AT8RIDkMhERHqd2FkzRCJHI4jnFSg5CqKXamZZ3_AJRScL_u09LqwW8Xa-qOUVPbL0k/s1600/to+travel+is+to+live.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM1Ufk91v8OSL49C2bOibWs24YdiT42UhD4QhFRswOzgHLaZ4KeqddVZHwva9sblZ0Zc-s1AT8RIDkMhERHqd2FkzRCJHI4jnFSg5CqKXamZZ3_AJRScL_u09LqwW8Xa-qOUVPbL0k/s320/to+travel+is+to+live.jpg" width="219" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">I admit it. All signs point to it. Just
look at my </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/gusmanjl/" style="font-family: georgia, serif;">Instagram</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"> account
and there is no denying it: I am addicted to travelling, to seeing the world.
Wanderlust no longer quite captures this insatiable craving because I appreciate
even the most unromantic parts of travel. The layovers, the being ripped off at
airport cafés, the never having the right plugs or adapters, the stiff necks,
the rude flight attendants, the bad hair, the jet lag—I love it all. I do
because I recognize the privilege of the experience and I make sure that its exceptionality
is not lost on me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";">Thus far this year, I have visited over a
dozen countries and seen at least double that amount of new cities. In my
lifetime, I have set foot on all but one of the seven continents, and I have
plans to see Antarctica before I turn forty (the visit will likely involve
penguins, my favourite animal). I say these things not to illicit jealousy, but
to inspire action. This blog has captured a fair chunk of <a href="http://my-end-of-the-bargain.blogspot.ch/2015/03/fulbright-update-village-consultations.html">the
stories surrounding my travels</a> and <a href="http://my-end-of-the-bargain.blogspot.ch/2014/07/the-fulbright-clinton-fellowship-and-my.html">the
motivation behind each move abroad</a>, but the common link to each is my desire
to make the most of this tiny life I have been given.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";">To live is the rarest thing in the world;
most people just exist. Thank you, Oscar Wilde, for the reminder. For me, to
travel is to live and I have constructed a life that allows me to experience it
to the fullest. And I am a woman obsessed. But in this obsession, this
domination of my thoughts by a persistent idea or desire, I have started to chronicle
its benefits, particularly to life’s seemingly unending problems:</span></div>
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; text-indent: -18pt;">Travel cures close-mindedness. It shows you that there are
other ways to do things, not superior or inferior ways to do them, just other.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; text-indent: -18pt;">It expels ignorance. When you begin to actually see the
world, and see it differently, you become a more conscious and whole human.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; text-indent: -18pt;">It inspires confidence. If you can navigate the public
transport system in a foreign country, in an unfamiliar city, using an unknown
language, you can do most anything.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; text-indent: -18pt;">It creates experiences with enduring memories that last a
lifetime, which science says </span><a href="https://youtu.be/Q4ffxJx-Q0g" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-indent: -18pt;">helps make
you happier</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; text-indent: -18pt;">.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; text-indent: -18pt;">It keeps you curious and adventurous; after all, adventures
are the best way to learn.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; text-indent: -18pt;">It reminds you to stay thankful and diligent—the majority of
the world cannot travel freely and due diligence requires we act to change that
fact</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; text-indent: -18pt;">It unites. We all have more in common than we think. Every city
in the world can be described in the map below, and that is something to
celebrate.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPKUyrixvEeuUi8WWr7hUmHuRsXdUsumZ2nED-dqW9a4UxytzELxdxuZ9VNTVV6o9v8_SRLsO3A8TcE7FIDzN94tXNeEcRyxlUPcwLl0ZKj0_sE2e3v1GsKQUDTafujVjTxdXJBjS7/s1600/A_Map_of_Every_City.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPKUyrixvEeuUi8WWr7hUmHuRsXdUsumZ2nED-dqW9a4UxytzELxdxuZ9VNTVV6o9v8_SRLsO3A8TcE7FIDzN94tXNeEcRyxlUPcwLl0ZKj0_sE2e3v1GsKQUDTafujVjTxdXJBjS7/s320/A_Map_of_Every_City.png" width="320" /></a></div>
</span></li>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-18498435061776012202016-06-06T11:06:00.000-03:002016-06-06T14:35:24.979-03:00The Art of Falling Forward...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoE-dTjmSHhReXowPrCr6yO-vY1xj2sQNE3PiGzi7y9T4LVF4WkCyoQnETcj3B82-AG-gSV3pO5sOhxr-r211iQWICSFByXG4YNW03gslwel5WzVKxsZgZAmc7uo8pJ6CDDp3vL0UG/s400/blog+pic.jpg" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">When Hollywood stunt
doubles train for serious action sequences, they often learn what is called <i>ukemi</i>,
a specific aikido technique to falling. They are taught to roll into the fall,
going with the motion not fighting against it, so that they are not injured
upon impact. The <i>ukemi</i> technique is often referred to as the ‘art of
falling’ and aikido experts certainly do make it look like one beautiful,
smooth motion. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">When it comes to
falling, I have been known to trip <i>up</i> the stairs, accidently plunge
myself (as well as a complete stranger) off of the side of a five meter cliff
into pure blue Hawaiian waters, and otherwise inadvertently injure myself in
the act. If anyone needs to learn how to make falling look good, it is me. But
for the grace that I lack in the physical act of falling, I make up for in the
theoretical act if the <i>ukemi</i> technique is applied to life circumstances.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">As most metaphors go, I
believe there is an art to falling forward in life, particularly when it comes
to taking chances. Call me reckless, but when an unexpected opportunity
presents itself in life, I tend to—just as the aikido experts advise—throw
myself directly into the experience, not fighting against it, properly bracing
myself for the impact. This is certainly the ‘shoot first, ask questions later’
approach to life, but it has served me well over the years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">During an epiphanous
moment, I woke this week to a notification on my phone of a memory from a year
ago: a picture of me on a bike in Samoa. Just one year ago I was <i>still</i>
finishing my Fulbright, even though it feels like a lifetime away. It
was then that it really hit me the extent to which I have embraced this art of
falling forward in life, this idea of going with life’s flow.</span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Admittedly, I tend
towards being a control-freak and holding myself to incredibly high standards,
so learning to let go and being okay with failure certainly does not come easily
to me. However, living in three distinctly different countries within the span
of a single year requires a high degree of flexibility, an extraordinary comfort-level
with change and a certain emotional openness to others that my younger self did
not have. It forces you to take things as they come and improvise when they do
not work out as planned. </span></div>
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<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I have officially been
out of law school for as many years as I was in it (crazy realization by the
way), so I am beginning to understand the elusiveness of time and the humor in trying to plan around it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I find myself back in Geneva—a good five years
after I first came here while I was still in law school—working under a United
Nations treaty and feeling the dizziness that exists after allowing oneself to
be fully taken up into the whirlwind of life. Sometimes falling forward brings you
back to where things first began. It is equal parts poetic and circuitous, and it
matters to take a step back and observe the journey. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Never could I have
imagined that since graduation, my career path would take me from D.C. to
Manila to Samoa to Cairo to Switzerland; none of that was planned. There’s a
whole host of dreaming, reasoning and decision-making that went into that path
as well as several moments of serious self-doubt and heartbreak, some of which I
have discussed on this blog, others I have yet to discuss with anyone. <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">But the reason I share any of it is because I
know I am not the only person to struggle with wanting to make a difference and
not knowing exactly how. My act of falling forward in life may not be as smooth
and beautiful as I would like to make it look, but I am here to encourage
others to take chances without resisting them—things will likely turn out better
than you could ever have envisioned. </span></span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-1751634654973081592016-04-24T13:52:00.001-03:002016-04-24T13:52:20.668-03:00A Fearless Pursuit...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzpzRtJjvZ05lL516NXVuKR6eRUbpZVh-SP4sjutiiILq_06nImR7KbnpK59VGbeDM0CSyFNDAlm4-OUHEocUIUbtMXTkLn6MQd3qCfK43kHrsOGFFU74gtX41C46ZtPjj-_8JGSKN/s1600/47cb19c205802f881fa63eae4db5a9af.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzpzRtJjvZ05lL516NXVuKR6eRUbpZVh-SP4sjutiiILq_06nImR7KbnpK59VGbeDM0CSyFNDAlm4-OUHEocUIUbtMXTkLn6MQd3qCfK43kHrsOGFFU74gtX41C46ZtPjj-_8JGSKN/s1600/47cb19c205802f881fa63eae4db5a9af.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: Georgia; text-align: justify;">Aligning one's passions with one's work, particularly
in the legal field, requires an inordinate amount of determination and an
almost saintly ability to ignore disapproval. I have set for myself the goal of
'being the change', and have learned that in order to do so, I must stockpile enough
willpower to maintain my mental, physical and emotional health, especially in
the face of persistent criticism, self-doubt and rejection. </span><a href="http://my-end-of-the-bargain.blogspot.com.eg/2014/07/the-fulbright-clinton-fellowship-and-my.html" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">While I have long known that my career path would
be non-traditional</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia; text-align: justify;">, I still marvel
at how challenging it can be to use my degree to actually help people in some meaningful
way, and I still question whether or not I am on the path to doing that.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">When I accepted my contract to become a United
Nations Volunteer (UNV) in Cairo, I half-expected that my passion and my work
would eclipse, just as it did when I worked as a <a href="http://my-end-of-the-bargain.blogspot.fr/2015/03/fulbright-update-village-consultations.html">Fulbright-Clinton
Fellow in Samoa’s National Human Rights Institute</a>. In moving to Egypt, I
could implement change using both my legal and health degrees, travel to a part
of the the world I had never seen before, and work for an organization with
core values I prescribed to—after all, the UNV’s mission is peace and
development. Most realists scoff at my decision to join the United Nations (UN)
as a way to implement the change I desire and most cynics mock my belief in any
system—be it government, UN or otherwise—to actually be an agency of change. Working
in development requires compromise. And compromise, like always, exists
somewhere in the middle of those extremes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">However, living in Cairo taught me that even my
very definition of ‘change’ needed a transformation. Progress never comes
easily, but the situation in Egypt takes that to levels I have never before
witnessed. The seeds of change that I began to see in Samoa prior to leaving
for Cairo was not going to be matched. I learned quickly that making any sort
of meaningful impact in my UNV position was not possible, at least not in the
way I desired and most certainly not within the timeframe, so I had to shake
things up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Considering the amount of times I have been
reprimanded by leaders from within the World Health Organization (enumerable mainly
because they do not even realize the number of times I have circumvented
protocol in the name of action), it’s a wonder that they decided to hire me at
their headquarters at all. It’s also a bit of a mystery that I have decided to
continue to work with WHO despite this. Perhaps I am still too young and too green,
or my idealism is getting the better of me, but I still have hope that these
massive bureaucracies can do some good in this backwards world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">As a Legal Officer in WHO’s Convention Secretariat,
I plan on gaining concrete legal skills (this time in the field of liability
and trade law) to take down bad corporate actors, like those in the tobacco
industry. I will learn how to take human rights principles and apply them to
forms of international law that have more teeth, thus balancing my human rights
background with the substantiated legal action outside the typical policy ‘wish
lists’ I have become so accustomed to writing. Hopefully with this, I can
transition to other conventions, like the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and continue to develop these
skills, back in the field, outside of Geneva; at least that is the goal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">In the past year, I have lived in Samoa, Egypt and
Switzerland—three places that have very little in common. The transitions have
not been easy. The thing about making such disparate decisions like this is
that there’s no telling which trajectory can possibly be the 'right' choice, if
that even exists at all. Since moving to Geneva I have had anxiety-induced
dreams like driving a high speed car without working breaks, riding a roller
coaster without a harness, or being chased by an army for some unknown reason.
I think my subconscious is not so subtly hinting at the stresses and fears I am
more or less internalizing when I make these decisions. But I know that being
fearless in my pursuit of using my legal degree to create change means becoming
comfortable in this space because that is the only way I know how to do what I
have set out to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">It is not easy to advocate for change because this world
has become so comfortable in the status quo. In fact, comfort in the status quo
has often induced violent responses to any challenge of the existing state of
affairs. Growing inequality and extremism threatens to make positive change
less and less possible all around the world (this is not solely in reference to
where I have lived). It’s like we are teetering on a diminishing fulcrum that does
not only mean a tipping of the scales in one direction permanently, but it
means a toppling of the balancing system altogether. The more I can do to
prevent that from happening, the better I feel in my decision to be a lawyer in
the first place, be it in Geneva or elsewhere. Obviously, I am still working
through where I am best suited and most useful, but at least I am trying to
maintain a level of fearlessness in order to do so. That is the only measure by
which I know I am headed in the right direction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-37245187918044076642016-02-07T07:32:00.002-03:002016-02-07T07:32:32.160-03:00Reflections on Samoa's State of Human Rights Report...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjONMNckcUS7ImXpABYI6diy-7mudE4hIF5KJduMmA5MYQiLogPtBoXMrQBhX5M5Vulad4NfXWcg5sZh4hTyxwqKyxE-lhjIb-ntrVlF8m6rLSkhJTsUDmLp-QXN19M2NXXRI5qKV7M/s1600/e4f1162ece3c735f159f835a0fcb3eb5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjONMNckcUS7ImXpABYI6diy-7mudE4hIF5KJduMmA5MYQiLogPtBoXMrQBhX5M5Vulad4NfXWcg5sZh4hTyxwqKyxE-lhjIb-ntrVlF8m6rLSkhJTsUDmLp-QXN19M2NXXRI5qKV7M/s320/e4f1162ece3c735f159f835a0fcb3eb5.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: inherit;">Below is Samoa's Head of State's reflections on the closing of the latest Parliamentary term, where he references important parts of the State of Human Rights Report--the work that I helped contribute to for my Fulbright-Clinton Fellowship. It is surreal to see portions of the Report already making significant impact on the realization of human rights in Samoa. Bravo to the Ombudsman/NHRI team!</span></div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: inherit;">Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Ta’isi Efi</strong></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<strong style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">The Head of State </strong></div>
<strong style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<strong style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">Message at the Official closing of the </strong></div>
</strong><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<strong style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">2011-2015 Parliamentary Term</strong></div>
</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Through God’s love and grace we have today reached the end of our 15th Parliamentary term. God has given us many blessings over the last five years, but equally He has given us many challenges and responsibilities. I offer as part of our proceedings some brief words of reflection, not only on our achievements over the last five years, but also on our challenges and responsibilities moving forward.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Last year Samoa published through its Office of the Ombudsman and the newly established National Human Rights Institute its very first State of Human Rights report.1</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Advocating for human rights is advocating for the humane treatment of all people at all times. It is advocating for the right of every human person, no matter what their status or position in society, to have all that they need to have to enable him or her to live a healthy, dignified, safe, and empowering life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The aforementioned Ombudsman’s report highlights the importance of probing and understanding how the concept of human rights, as an international discourse, sits within the conceptual frameworks of Samoa – within our faasamoa, our core values and customs. The report reminds us that concepts, such as human rights, make more sense if we can see how they relate to our everyday lives; how they fit within our visions and dreams for ourselves, for our children and the future.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Our Constitution, the supreme law of our land, prohibits inhumane practices. It prohibits the abuse of power and corruption in any shape or form; it counsels against violence and demands accountability and transparency.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Our Constitution holds the wisdom and dreams of both our forebears and our children to come. We must always tread carefully, not with fear but with love, whenever we revisit the Constitution, lest we tread carelessly on those dreams.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Our government, public servants and civil society (including our faith- based social services) have worked hard and invested resources in projects that promote positive and increased awareness of civic rights and responsibilities, including the translation of universal principles and concepts, such as human rights, democracy, development and good governance, into local frameworks and vice versa.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Our 15th Parliament has served Samoa well, not only in terms of its work in the area of human rights but also in raising critical public consciousness about their civic rights and duties, both core to the foundations of a Parliamentary democracy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The following provides an indication of the achievements of this Parliament over the last five years. It is indicative not exhaustive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In 2011, the first year of this 15th Parliament, the government owned SamoaTel was privatised. This move by government enabled the introduction of new technology and competition to Samoa, bringing submarine optic fibre cable connectivity to Samoa for the first time and enabling the set-up of Moana TV, an internet protocol television service – a first not only for Samoa but also for the South Pacific.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On the 1st of June 2012 we celebrated Samoa’s 50thanniversary as an independent modern state and paid tribute to all who sacrificed so that we can enjoy the freedoms and liberties we now take for granted. In December of that same year we were once again reminded, however, of our increasing susceptibility to natural disasters. Cyclone Evan was heralded as the worst cyclone to hit Samoa in two decades. It took a dozen lives in Samoa, much less than in Fiji, and destroyed many homes and livelihoods.2 We will always be grateful to all who gave so selflessly from around the world to our recovery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Of note in 2013 was the amendment to the Constitution that has enabled a definite increase in female participation in national politics next election – an assured increase in female political participation in Parliament from its current status of just under 5% to at least 10% of the House. This is a major milestone for Samoa and for a Pacific Parliament.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Women today make up just under half of Samoa’s total population and are slightly more in number than men in the 65 years and older age group. And women and children are highlighted in the Ombudsman’s report as the main victims of domestic violence, including sexual abuse and incest. It is time that we as leaders of our great nation find effective ways to deal with this problem. The cost, as we are now witnessing, of not doing so is too high.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Throughout this five year Parliamentary term, this 15th Parliament has made significant inroads into addressing youth offending, family violence and alcohol and illegal drug dependency. The establishment during this period of the Olomanu Juvenile Facility, the Family Court, the Family Violence Court, the Drugs and Alcohol Court, and the National Human Rights Institute, is clear evidence of a commitment by the key partners to working effectively together – i.e. the Law and Justice sector, the Law Reform Commission, our donor partners and this 15thParliament.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The inaugural State of Human Rights report specifically mentions “data collection” as a key area for future Parliamentary attention and strengthening. Education and community outreach, policy and funding were also recognised as overarching areas in need of closer attention. Best practice and/or evidence based decision-making, especially at the national level, relies heavily on the proper development, maintenance, collection and reporting of good quality research and evaluation data. This is a key challenge for the next Parliament.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In 2014 Samoa hosted the 3rd United Nations International Small Island Developing States (SIDS) conference which, in the main, focused on the two key themes of the century – climate change and sustainable development. Both impact most on the health and wellbeing of small island states like Samoa.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Over three and a half thousand delegates from 115 countries across the world participated in the conference, enjoyed our hospitality and contributed to our local economy. Hosting the SIDS conference was a significant milestone for Samoa and for this Parliament for it lifted Samoa’s international standing as a host nation and undoubtedly contributed to our winning the rights to host the Commonwealth Youth Games the following year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Samoa can be proud of her sports men and women, her public servants and private businesses. Many have achieved international standing in their chosen fields and despite considerable odds. They are inspirational role models for all but especially the young.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I end my reflections by first recognising those private citizens and active coalition groups – those within government or across governments, the opposition, donor groups, the diplomatic corp., the public service, churches, villages, civil society, and private businesses –who have made a public stance, whether large or small, against personal and/or institutional violence, corruption and/or abuse over the last five years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pope Francis in his New Year’s address this year warned against the destructive forces of cynicism and indifference. He encouraged us “not to lose hope in our human ability to conquer evil and to combat resignation and indifference” and spoke inspiringly about our human capacity as God’s children “to rise above self-interest, apathy and indifference” to ultimately do what is right and “to show solidarity” in times of crisis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Our Constitution and its supporting institutions and structures were made for us by us; they were made by our forebears with the assistance of some wise counsels for our current and future benefit. As prudent and loving leaders we must be constantly open to evaluating and re-evaluating the wisdom, relevance and justice of our Constitutional provisions before we exercise our power to amend them. Constitutional amendments ought only to be done where it is determined, after rigorous debate and scrutiny in the House and the appropriate support of the people, to be the right and just thing to do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Secondly, I acknowledge all our overseas families and friends who have continued to faithfully contribute to our remittances income, which alongside what we earned through tourism, has helped to finance all of our foreign trade (of goods only) deficit since 2005.4 We acknowledge your sacrifice and your love and support of your families and friends. I know that your families thank you and Samoa thanks you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I want to leave you with the words of a native American Indian priest, Father Paul Ojibway, who in reflecting on the lessons learnt by his Indigenous people, said that: “...when all manner of things are described, the lasting task the Indigenous of the New World teach[es] us to care about is the most obvious and probably the most difficult in becoming human beings – [that is] how to forgive one another”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But forgiveness, as Biblical scholar Andrew Pinsent points out, is “certainly not the same as excusing, tolerating or otherwise endorsing what is wrong”. Forgiveness is both a process and a state of heart. It involves reciprocity and goes hand in hand with accountability and remorse. In the world of leadership doing what is right is sadly often more difficult than doing what is wrong. And, for far too many it seems easier to just stay silent. The words of Martin Luther King may serve as lodestar in moments of hesitation. He says: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As leaders we have a sacred duty to be vigilant about our democratic processes, about universal principles of due process and transparency and about the rule of law. We have a sacred responsibility to ensure that we are accountable not only to ourselves and to our nation, but also to God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Today let us both celebrate our achievements this past five years and remember all the efforts and sacrifices made to ensure peace and good governance in our nation. I commend the government, the opposition, the independent members of the House, and all Parliamentary staff who have contributed to the successes of this 15th Parliament, for your loving work and commitment to Samoa and its living legacies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mr Speaker, those are my reflections. May God bless the remainder of our proceedings. I now pronounce this 15th Parliament of Samoa officially closed. Soifua.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-19702801108670322702016-01-27T12:01:00.001-03:002016-01-28T04:30:58.792-03:00Egypt: January 25...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="s5" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">January 25 marked the five year anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution, or what is more commonly referred to as the</span><span class="s5" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> start of the</span><span class="s5" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> ‘Arab Spring’ elsewhere in the world. Since moving to Egypt just over five months ago, I have been blissfully (or perhaps ignorantly) unware of just how much this city has changed since its pre-revolution days. </span><span class="s5" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">And it was not until a few days ago that I b</span><span class="s5" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">egan to understand just how thoroughly</span><span class="s5" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, and successfully,</span><span class="s5" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> the government exerts </span><span class="s5" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">social control </span><span class="s5" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">over its people.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">What should be a celebrated day in Egypt’s history—a day where the country came together to demand reform and </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">began the </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">oust</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ing</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> of </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">a</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">historically</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">oppressive and </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">authoritarian leader—was instead a depressing and</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> eerily silent day marked by an overarching sense of dread.</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Any semblance of </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">political reform and social justice that was called for five years ago</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> has been overshadowed by </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">scores of arbitrary arrests, the use of torture and ill-treatment by </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">‘security’ forces</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, and</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> continued corruption and abuse of power that is all too familiar to this region. </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">W</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">hen I speak to young</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, progressive</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Egyptians</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> (that is my exposure thus far)</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> about their experience half a decade ago, the overwhelming majority describe cheerful memories of a more free and open Egypt. They describe scenes from </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Tahrir</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Square of strangers sharing blankets and food, of Muslims protecting Christians during prayer and vice versa, of liberally calling for positive change against certain laws in their country and even of protecting the tail</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">s</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> of the beloved </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">lions on </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Qasr</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> al-Nil Bridge</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">from exploitative looters. As such, I was half-expecting </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">celebrations that bear a resemblance to this </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">comradery </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and empowerment</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> that took place not so long ago</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Instead, I was utterly</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> mistaken. </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Cairo is a crowded, crazy, loud yet decidedly lovable city. These are the characteristics many expats attribute to this place, but on the night before and day of 25 January, Cairo was anything but. A city of an estimated 22 million people</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">:</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> empty, ordered and silent. That was what signaled to me that I live completely outside of the reality that befalls many of my Egyptian peers. For the first time since arriving, I was legitimately unsettled</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">In the worlds of </span><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31583404"><span class="s7" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Alaa </span><span class="s7" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Abd</span><span class="s7" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> el-Fattah</span></a><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">’s family: </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">‘</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The regime in Egypt is waging a war against the young who dare to dream of a bright future for themselves and their country.’ </span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I could not agree more. The beginning of this week proved that authorities have sustained the crack down on free speech and expression as well as the right to assembly better than those outside of Egypt (especially human rights idealist like me) could ever have expected. After seeing the grand potential this place holds in only the short five months I have resided here, particularly with regards to its youth, this is what I find most disappointing.</span><span class="s5" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">To read more on the situation in Egypt and the region, please read this: </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/01/arab-spring-five-years-on/">https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/01/arab-spring-five-years-on/</a> </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-59975152325686508492016-01-20T12:15:00.000-03:002016-01-20T12:15:10.170-03:00Hello New Year...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A tad late to the game, but wishing everyone a happy and productive 2016!</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-90046277030825334582015-12-11T13:32:00.001-03:002015-12-13T03:47:53.480-03:00On Commitment and Fear...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have lived in a different city every year for the past ten years of my life. I used to think this was a phase that I would grow out of and that I, like the majority of my friends, would succumb to the desire to settle down as I entered my thirties. It is, after all, the litmus test of true adulthood: thirty-something and committed—to a career, a mortgage, a family, whatever. But here I am in my thirties still in that phase with no such desire. Given this, it is no wonder that I am often accused of having a deeper-than-average fear of commitment, be it geography-, job- or love-related. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In my twenties, I wore this accusation like a badge of honor. Oh, the luxury of un-attachment. Single, empowered female living her life the way she chooses—independent and free—residing where she wanted, working as she wanted, loving whom she wanted. However, while this lifestyle has made for some rich experiences, it has been poor at cultivating any sort of long-term commitment that exceeds a year's timeframe. I now have growing concerns about my ability to devote myself to a sustainable career in one place, let alone to a sustainable relationship with one person. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Rarely is the fear of commitment spoken about honestly for what it truly is—a fear. I am not talking about the idealized, rom-com type of fear that is in actuality just a delightful apprehension to fall in love or be committed. I am talking about a very real, very rational type of fear that is pervasive and (ironically) long lasting. This is the type of fear that constricts the space around you and the drives the oxygen from your lungs as if the decision you must make is coffin-shaped and resting upon your chest, squishing the very life and freedom out of you. You know, <i>that </i>kind of fear. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The funny thing is that having a fear of commitment does not mean that I do not desire commitment. It has instead become a self-fulfilling prophecy; I have grown to see commitment as a threatening thing, and because I do, commitment turns out, indeed, to be a threatening thing. Honestly, I am unsure if I even have the ability to be attracted to anything that does not have a shelf life. Every job offer accepted has been for short-term contracts. Every lease signed has been month-to-month. Every mouth kissed has been only after I have the guarantee that those lips are on the up and out. I cower at making life decisions by sabotaging potentially rewarding relationships or career prospects in order to remain commitment-free.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That's a difficult realization for me to admit (let alone state publicly), but I know it's the truth. And I think it's something that a lot of us do, whether or not we have commitment issues. Self-sabotage is a lot easier to face than outright failure. It gives us an acceptable out because it keeps 'fate' in our own hands, under our own control. It is as if I am alright with failure so long as I am the one in control preventing my own success. And how absurd is that? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Because I do not wish to be (nor do I see myself as) a fearful person, I have decided to make the painfully conscious effort not to run in the other direction of life decisions, but to commit to seeing them through. Overcoming the fear of commitment by committing, novel idea huh? I still feel a tightening in my lungs even when typing that sentence—it's a reflexive reaction at this point—but I do know that in even writing this piece I have found some consolation.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Naturally, I have yet to work out exactly what this looks like, perhaps because I have no previous examples in my life upon which to base this outlook, but I do know this: recognizing fear and embracing it is the best way of overcoming it. By doing so, we can live life less discordantly in the process. This, surely, is a worthy goal. </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-10152704205191536512015-12-10T07:57:00.001-03:002015-12-10T07:57:41.265-03:00Happy Human Rights Day Boys AND Girls...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3BxiOZoHgKRt1yxDuxt2kHVALKGTwTu8PjXQplALnmLMIE4nVjdR7VsjwGJg4ATo2dLwQTDVySgvxHHKSh2O8etoHC1odM69jv8T2uuK_eFgweJ3eXrmrUnZ4jG3urcl0e8anwh_m/s1600/hrd_english.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3BxiOZoHgKRt1yxDuxt2kHVALKGTwTu8PjXQplALnmLMIE4nVjdR7VsjwGJg4ATo2dLwQTDVySgvxHHKSh2O8etoHC1odM69jv8T2uuK_eFgweJ3eXrmrUnZ4jG3urcl0e8anwh_m/s320/hrd_english.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
year marks the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). These two crucial instruments in
international human rights law protect many of the basic rights and freedoms
underpinned in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and represent critical
steps forward in the progressive realization of human rights for everyone.
However, one aspect of human rights law that I consistently scrutinize is that
despite certain strides made, we still have a long way to go regarding the
equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of all human rights. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Both
the ICESCR and the ICCPR prohibit discrimination based on sex, but the actual
translation of the principle of non-discrimination and the ideal of gender equality
into reality has lagged far behind human rights law. In particular, women are
often systematically denied equal enjoyment of their human rights by virtue of
their lesser status ascribed to them through the intersection of sex with race,
religion, politics, disability, nationality (or the lack thereof), health, age,
ethnicity, economics and the list goes on and on. These distinct forms of discrimination
carry actual, substantive consequences for the everyday lives of women, and
still in many parts of this world, convey it in terms of life or death. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
expressions of formal equality can only go so far; there still exists a real
need for the idea of substantive equality to extend beyond mere jargon. This
requires cultural shifts in patterns of thinking that call for the abolition of
the laws, policies and practices that inherently disadvantage and debase women.
Unfortunately, change in this way can be volatile and sluggish. But every time
I begin to be depressed by this fact, I remind myself that—like many of the distinctions
made in the world today that are meant to divide us—gender is a social
construct and discrimination based on it is a learned behavior. Unlearning it
may be hard, but we can at least begin to eliminate that behavior in young
people today. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As
such, I find that the <a href="http://www.heforshe.org/">HeForShe</a> Campaign
does a wonderful job of deconstructing this destructive paradigm. HeForShe is a
solidarity movement for gender equality that brings together one half of
humanity in support of the other half of humanity in order to benefit all. It
calls for the engagement of key decision makers at all levels—governments,
corporations, universities, etc.—to make gender equality an institutional
priority, and in a very real way, change the world. I challenge you to <a href="http://www.heforshe.org/#take-action">support</a> this movement in
celebration of #HumanRightsDay and #take-action to make gender equality
substantive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAPofdMVBSJeajF9D5GskRmZwPHbaqu24L-4SCr1FSEexGePR8UTCSojCCxDBDpe7tEAmCB43CCLEyNj399fVzI_BXk-T_7I8bEaXy6BpQ91H-GeGQy3goRXvH9A8K80apoyObLg98/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAPofdMVBSJeajF9D5GskRmZwPHbaqu24L-4SCr1FSEexGePR8UTCSojCCxDBDpe7tEAmCB43CCLEyNj399fVzI_BXk-T_7I8bEaXy6BpQ91H-GeGQy3goRXvH9A8K80apoyObLg98/s1600/images.jpg" /></a></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-8967859396219182222015-12-03T14:44:00.004-03:002015-12-03T14:44:51.767-03:00Compassion is So Often the Solution...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghcmR2ojzLXvuFx75BAFbC2YFCvFFWu6rjrxtBDnDMQRc5P1FMjpuM109u-xcDXWVVffgsgMHUUOBH3DbZKAp2I3NQxZiDFGK7bfC8b6CKByHktQxdLJHjh1NvsJe7eiwxOga3TwGd/s1600/Blog+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghcmR2ojzLXvuFx75BAFbC2YFCvFFWu6rjrxtBDnDMQRc5P1FMjpuM109u-xcDXWVVffgsgMHUUOBH3DbZKAp2I3NQxZiDFGK7bfC8b6CKByHktQxdLJHjh1NvsJe7eiwxOga3TwGd/s320/Blog+photo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is becoming more and more difficult to open the news everyday because the world seems to be falling apart at its seems. Each headline adds another reason for despair. However, instead of mulling over the negative and diving down that pit, I chose compassion. Period.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-32395367189553323362015-12-01T07:51:00.002-03:002015-12-01T07:51:49.522-03:00World AIDS Day...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmCqP3tvSR79meDz2ivFRc8XfYxgyrUNphC57daRh91ukcW6JUkTRYln_CZ7aEKfX8PMHt5ZWuAjrH7KzISIoRMlj16C4oZWtXopq1RXlZ3_0FUCZT5PjnmjLeoHtehbSNk2hAZKg7/s1600/UNAIDS+Day.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmCqP3tvSR79meDz2ivFRc8XfYxgyrUNphC57daRh91ukcW6JUkTRYln_CZ7aEKfX8PMHt5ZWuAjrH7KzISIoRMlj16C4oZWtXopq1RXlZ3_0FUCZT5PjnmjLeoHtehbSNk2hAZKg7/s320/UNAIDS+Day.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Every
year, the first of December marks World AIDS Day. It was mandated as such to
unite people worldwide in the fight against HIV, to give an opportunity for
people to show support for those living with HIV, and to commemorate the lives
lost. <a href="http://www.unaids.org/wad2015/">UNAIDS</a>, the United Nations
organization tasked with advocating for global action against HIV/AIDS,
estimates that AIDS-related deaths have been reduced by 42% since its peak in
2004 and that new HIV infections have been reduced by 35% in the past 15 years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Despite
the enormous gains made, <a href="http://www.childrenandaids.org/">UNICEF</a> recently
declared that AIDS is now the leading cause of death for adolescents in Africa
and the second most common killer for adolescents across the globe. In fact,
the number of 10-to-19-year-olds dying from AIDS-related causes has tripled
since the turn of the millennium. Among those infected with HIV, adolescents
are the only group for which the mortality statistics are not decreasing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Considering
that today is about raising awareness around HIV/AIDS, I thought it best to
share this fact (one that I found shocking). Since many of the adolescents who
are dying were infected with the disease as infants, mostly due to
mother-to-child transmission and in the poor areas of poor countries, this
statistic demonstrates how much of an
outlier adolescents are to the AIDS response—often forgotten, discriminated
against, and mistreated during the length of their short lives. HIV/AIDS is not merely a health issue; it has social,
economic and cultural implications that affect who gets treatment and for how
long. It is almost 2016 and we know how to break the AIDS epidemic. It’s about
time we actually do it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-21579235033939154502015-11-30T04:54:00.001-03:002015-11-30T06:48:22.107-03:00For the Season of Giving, ShareTheMeal...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdW4Rwb4_wendwQSXii1PnD_-1Kwe6QH5iX1bStvDULzL3kcaHnIJa12mzhLZ0eqyiSmxMayvB277ZPuaHQ6DAdR5E1LDQMwF3pQCE4nzIqzCALt2MA16kgp_1WCId1yl5QvVLWysm/s1600/WFP+logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdW4Rwb4_wendwQSXii1PnD_-1Kwe6QH5iX1bStvDULzL3kcaHnIJa12mzhLZ0eqyiSmxMayvB277ZPuaHQ6DAdR5E1LDQMwF3pQCE4nzIqzCALt2MA16kgp_1WCId1yl5QvVLWysm/s320/WFP+logo.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Every
day last year an average of 42,500 people fled their homes in search of safety
and security due <i>inter alia</i> to
violence, conflict and persecution. This alone quadrupled the total number of displaced
persons in the world to a figure surpassing 60 million—the largest refugee
crisis in our history since World War II. Over half of the refugees in this
population are children, the highest figure that the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees has had in its care in over a decade. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Naturally,
these statistics indicate a dire need to support this population. Given that
America has just celebrated Thanksgiving and is ushering in the charitable
season, I wanted to draw attention to the easiest and best way to help—give food. The
World Food Programme (WFP) has innovatively responded to this crises by
developing a mobile app (aptly named <a href="https://sharethemeal.org/en/">ShareTheMeal</a>)
that lets people from around the world donate money to help feed refugees,
which is especially timely considering that the dry season in areas housing
large numbers of refugees begins in January. According to WFP, a nominal fifty
cents is enough to feed one child a full meal for a day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">WFP
is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger and it is also <i>entirely </i>funded by voluntary donations. What’s
more, it also has an ambitious goal of “zero hunger” and takes one of the lead
roles in the United Nation’s goal of ending world hunger by 2030; and it’s
doing so in a freshly progressive manner. In fact, Ertharin Cousin, the
Executive Director of WFP, was among Fast Company’s list of the most <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/3043915/most-creative-people-2015/ertharin-cousin">creative
people of 2015</a> for building tech-forward tools to tackle world hunger. Thus,
if you would like to combat the negative rhetoric coming from the United States
and actually help these refugees (half of whom are children) please consider
downloading the app and donating a meal. In dire instances like this, a little
goes a long way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-19468232422416814172015-10-05T18:09:00.001-03:002015-10-06T04:36:51.894-03:00The Sustainable Development Goals and the Inequality Issue...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio3eEReZAc7Q0gyJ1WaLajQEkwEQxjhckYoNNxcJxUJucbNL2UmUjFk4wMEpD5UOPncR3vKT6c4OJJ-wAL5L3gJceCyWh1vGOAPEArxmUZGFPMSw3sftDif_JSXrarNxV6XnndoSwK/s1600/264ac62ef8dd50685bf879bbcbfba2ff-450x0.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio3eEReZAc7Q0gyJ1WaLajQEkwEQxjhckYoNNxcJxUJucbNL2UmUjFk4wMEpD5UOPncR3vKT6c4OJJ-wAL5L3gJceCyWh1vGOAPEArxmUZGFPMSw3sftDif_JSXrarNxV6XnndoSwK/s400/264ac62ef8dd50685bf879bbcbfba2ff-450x0.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Last week the United Nations formally adopted the
<a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?menu=1565">Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)</a>—follow up targets from the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs)—that expand upon the previous framework and aim to
eradicate (not simply reduce) poverty in the next 15 years. These ambitious new
goals, 17 in total, take a more holistic approach to the fight against poverty
as compared to their predecessors, namely by attempting to tackle the issue of
inequality—one of the most glaring absences and common critiques of the MDGs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The fact that the SDGs include a standalone goal on
inequality must be commended. <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/WaterAndSanitation/SRWater/Pages/Post2015.aspx">Human rights advocates like myself have long been pushing for this</a>, recognizing that a development agenda that is
indifferent to addressing inequalities will fail, not merely in idealistic
terms, but also politically for not providing an incentive for governments, UN
agencies and donors to create social change. The trouble is, the inequality
issue—be it wealth, gender, or otherwise—is not very easy to comprehensively
address, with or without being encapsulated in a sustainable development goal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">In fact, the easy part is over. Now comes the hard
part: setting the actual statistical indicators to measure progress. Accurately
measuring inequality poses its own set of challenges and this is where much of
the development debate still rests. Governments do not want to push too hard
for change or admit failures. Take for example the previous <a href="http://www.who.int/topics/millennium_development_goals/maternal_health/en/">MDG on maternal mortality</a>.
It is one of the few goals yet to be realized, largely in part because it
requires addressing gender inequality, not just access to healthcare as it was
framed in the MDGs. Since this goal did not target the root cause of the issue, it had no hopes of being reached. Let me be explicit here</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">—</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">without addressing
the fact that women's lives are not valued equally to that of men, maternal
mortality rates will remain largely unchanged. </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">There is leeway in ambiguity and governments feel
most comfortable in this space. This is why development goals are stated so
vaguely and why targets tend to shy away from specificity, especially
politically-charged particulars. For example, SDG 16 aims to promote
"peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide
access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive
institutions at all levels." But what does this actually mean? How does
one accurately measure access or accountability? Setting a specific target that
addresses the racial and ethnic inequality rampant in many prison systems
around the world, perhaps through the examination of ratios comparing the make
up of prison populations to the overall population is a good place to start.
However, very few governments (especially my own) would agree to this, as it
will most certainly reveal systemic failures. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Despite reticence on behalf of those in power, goals
and targets dedicated to the elimination of inequality will draw attention to
the groups and individuals most in need, create incentives to end
discrimination, and adjust development aims to better respond to the reality of
marginalized populations on the ground. Setting measurable, time-bound goals
has a tremendous impact on national policymaking, priority setting and budget
allocations. Thus, if targets are set properly (this being a big
"if"), the SDGs have the potential to be a more powerful development
agenda because they require a fundamental shift in the way that policy is
created as well as the way that resources are shared. In order to do this, governments
must adopt creative and aggressive policies that properly target the vulnerable.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Many chose to simply focus on income inequality as the
silver bullet to addressing vulnerability, and while this will do a lot to shed
light on the extensive need to redistribute wealth around the world, it does not capture the whole picture. For example, a person with a disability
and a person from an ethnic minority might both be poor and lack access to
certain facilities. However, the reasons for their exclusion are different and not
necessarily based on economic status, and thus require entirely different
policy responses to provide them equal access to needed services. Thus, not
simply focusing on aggregate progress and outcomes like income inequality
coefficients are tailored to do, but ensuring that indicators target the most
consistently disadvantaged—including but not limited to persons with
disabilities, slum and rural populations, discriminated ethnic populations, refugees,
women and children—will do much more for eliminating inequality on the whole
and actually provide the impetus for change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">None of this is easy and every country has a long way
to go, specifically in the region to which I am currently assigned, but that is
another blog post for another day. Instead, I will simply end with this, hoping
that it is the inspiration behind the SDG measurements in the first place: "The
test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who
have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-80443907404755557292015-08-26T11:46:00.000-03:002015-08-26T11:48:14.927-03:00Transitions & Reflections...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">While packing for Cairo I found a note I had
written on the flight over to Samoa, dated the day I landed. It captured the
excitement and hope that always accompanies new transitions, but also the
anticipation of doing something meaningful with the short ten months I would
have there as a Fulbright. I had completely forgotten that I wrote it, but was glad
that I did because as I flew to Cairo, I got to reflect back on the
meaningfulness of one experience as I prepare for another. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></div>
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<br></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Samoa's first <a href="http://www.ombudsman.gov.ws/">State
of Human Rights Report</a> was launched the night before I left for Cairo.
Standing in that fale listening to the Prime Minister officially declare its
launch was surreal to say the least. Literal blood, sweat, and tears went into
completing that Report and I could not believe that our tiny office had
actually pulled off such a feat. Better yet, <a href="http://www.samoaobserver.ws/home/headlines/14160-violence-against-women-epidemic">the
Report is already making waves</a>, which helps prove that human rights are not
an empty concept; they have the power to change things and I got to see that
firsthand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">This may sound unreasonably smug, but when I
applied for the Fulbright, I knew that going to Samoa was where I was meant to
be—not because of any qualifications or academic prowess, but simply because
something was pulling me to be there. Ten months later, I see that my
confidence was not in vain; I was truly able be a part of something meaningful.
Assisting an entire country with compiling a status report on human rights is
an accomplishment I would have envisioned doing much further along in my career,
so seeing its completion prior to beginning a job with the United Nations is
precisely the send off I needed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Learning how to <a href="http://www.samoaobserver.ws/editorial/14141-of-human-rights-samoa-and-corruption">weave
human rights principles into existing laws and future policies in a culturally
significant way</a> is a lesson unmatched in any of my previous professional
ventures. I learned my personal limits on what I can handle regarding human
rights violations and I discovered how to creatively and strategically ensure
that those violations were dealt with in a lasting manner. Without learning
these hard lessons, there is no way to continue in this work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">As I transition to Cairo, I cannot help but wonder
if I made the right decision leaving Samoa. A part of me really wants to see
the impact that document can have, does have. However, learning to take a step
back and have the people one serves define, measure, and confront human rights
issues in their own way (as evidenced by the Report's motto "For Samoa, By
Samoa") is one of the strongest parts of the work I was able to do as a
Fulbright. So perhaps seeing where Samoa goes with it, even all the way from
Egypt, is as good a position as any. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">This week marks the beginning of my career as a UNV
with the World Health Organization. My first assignment is to help launch a
Regional Initiative, beginning in September. Luckily, I have a countrywide
project under my belt, so I think I can handle it. All that I hope is that the
work is meaningful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5_B5V5k-oADYnIXxnCEfoRwLfE5yfRef0sbVM-VRHVb4c_-9xKNCY3TjVQ6COkoxTFp20bmtKC3q5dLm6fsFeG1x5mlXsNsIkdKoipF69tIPTVTzyR73NxpoZkjEApULQWYCUxZ0s/s640/blogger-image--355815028.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5_B5V5k-oADYnIXxnCEfoRwLfE5yfRef0sbVM-VRHVb4c_-9xKNCY3TjVQ6COkoxTFp20bmtKC3q5dLm6fsFeG1x5mlXsNsIkdKoipF69tIPTVTzyR73NxpoZkjEApULQWYCUxZ0s/s640/blogger-image--355815028.jpg"></a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-81701176561856081742015-06-29T22:59:00.001-03:002015-06-29T23:07:00.333-03:00Fulbright Reflections...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigmyZxoDslwpxb4j0UmZ3Z_0f6ReXdvWUcI1thsJ-U4PdHLPMq_tKNwCro7lA5-cNTL9rb7mDR23xp63k3j0rUnHTL21Cb6Xjj6elb7bHukr6ISs50gmDV0I7PupRYvEQnsxBpIYbj/s1600/Blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigmyZxoDslwpxb4j0UmZ3Z_0f6ReXdvWUcI1thsJ-U4PdHLPMq_tKNwCro7lA5-cNTL9rb7mDR23xp63k3j0rUnHTL21Cb6Xjj6elb7bHukr6ISs50gmDV0I7PupRYvEQnsxBpIYbj/s320/Blog.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">With only a month left to my
Fulbright, I figured that it is about time to begin reflecting on the past 9 or
so months. Assisting a country in producing its very first status of human rights
report has been no easy feat, and it is no small miracle that this Report was
sent to Parliament by the deadline. Actually, making a deadline on island time
is an achievement of epic portions, particularly considering that the drafting
and editing process was limited to about two months. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">If I had to use one statement to
encapsulate my experience, I would barrow from the poetic Nike slogan: 'Just do
it.' At no point in time did I feel qualified or even capable of making the
decisions needed to push forward this historic document, but I had to just do
it. And I did it the best way I knew how: include the people most excluded in
decision making processes—that is the bread and butter of human rights law. In
Samoa, this meant having a special focus on women, children, persons with
disabilities, and prisoners.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Report has not been released
publically as of yet, but I can still highlight some of the major points it
makes—statements that will hopefully make a difference to the people most in
need of social change. These are the statements I fought hardest to have
included in the Report, no matter the political distress they may cause:</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
</div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-stretch: normal;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">(Women)</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"> <i>A government cannot claim to be
dedicated to ending violence against women if its police force does not take
seriously the collection of statistical data on domestic and sexual violence
disaggregated by sex, age, nationality and relationship between the victim and
perpetrator.</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><b style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">(Children)</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><i style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">The NHRI believes that forms of
discipline that readily employ violence harms children and should be considered
excessive and abusive, and in terms of national law, defined as unreasonable
punishment.</span></i></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt;"><i> </i><b>(Persons with Disabilities)</b></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"> <i>It should be
applauded that there has been a 54% increase in children with disabilities
accessing schools since 2009. However, it should also be acknowledged that
while these laws and policies are in line with relevant international human
rights law, Samoa has a long way to go before being able to implement them
properly. Recognising and addressing these shortcomings will help to give
proper support in the long run.</i></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt;"><i> </i><b>(Prisoners)</b></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;"> <i>The sub-standard condition of the
Tuasivi Police Custody Cells is a matter that needs urgent attention. The way
that suspected offenders are treated at Tuasivi Police Station is inhumane. The
Inspection Team found the living conditions appalling: custodies were required
to urinate in empty bottles that were kept outside the door, custodies went for
days without access to toilets or clean drinking water and weeks without access
to showers, food had to be provided by their families, ventilation was
extremely poor with almost no natural light, the cells were filthy and littered
with food and refuse from previous detainees, and they were extremely
malorderous.</i></span></li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This gives just a glimpse into the direct and hard-hitting nature of the Report (worry not, it does so diplomatically). Like I said, I did it the only way I knew how. It may not be the perfect way, and it certainly was not the easiest way, but it was the best way I knew how—via dedication to human rights and not backing down from the <i>real </i>issues, no matter how much people wish to ignore them. </span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-51022663667955212612015-03-15T17:48:00.001-03:002015-03-15T18:03:11.470-03:00Fulbright Update: Village Consultations...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">Perhaps the biggest perk to my job
is that I spend very little time behind a desk, and instead, spend it in front
of people. Better yet, the people I spend face time with are not necessarily bigwig
government officials; they are everyday people. This week that involved consulting
with villages on the outer islands—Manono, Apolima, and Savaii—in order to
better capture rural perspectives on human rights for inclusion in our State of
Human Rights Report.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1yXRtJ4kIuFqwfWxMOLoKArVWGk1Xp3eYjhsfS1eY9bhHWMsoh7V7vclxQh5377CJWqHybr4paP7jxPUi5vm8wuq5aZgL0uHCvw1OonL9gefC1JOOwiN-BkaQ2n5SqEfrvmy-T5aH/s640/blogger-image--837371061.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1yXRtJ4kIuFqwfWxMOLoKArVWGk1Xp3eYjhsfS1eY9bhHWMsoh7V7vclxQh5377CJWqHybr4paP7jxPUi5vm8wuq5aZgL0uHCvw1OonL9gefC1JOOwiN-BkaQ2n5SqEfrvmy-T5aH/s640/blogger-image--837371061.jpg"></a></div><br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">This week has been especially
important to me because, as an outsider to Samoan culture, I have been given an
unparalleled opportunity to gain context on issues villagers identify as
important for their government to address (or even acknowledge). As I assist
the Ombudsman's Office in drafting this Report, I cannot possibly consider my
service valuable without such context and without speaking with people
directly. And after doing so, I have learned that there is a gross
misconception of human rights on behalf of many here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">Human rights is often likened to
the 'devil's whim' and, speaking of context, taken completely out of it. Samoa
is quite a conservative culture with 99.4% of its population (according to the
2011 census) identifying as some form of Christian. What surprises me is that
there is always such controversy between ideals that should be complementary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">In order to combat this perceived
conflict, the Report and the subsequent implicated human rights will be framed in
terms that resonate with the Samoan people. Through this Fulbright experience I
have learned just how important language is in communicating and developing
ideas, particularly when it comes to articulating the rights inherent to every
human. Since the majority of the lexicon surrounding human rights was/is
developed in a Western context, it is no wonder that it is such a foreign concept
to other cultures, especially to remote places like Samoa. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim3dbnXf0xMQIYepUPzXnoJ2PgdkrJD96GMLRL3C4ao3eeuM0TvVjPKNwxy9laRQMcPKcfRrnVXXh6eMovO_RbH1euGS_TGXt34DoVkIc_IpjDM9cnJooWH6G7uny02OKgapa2uyRm/s640/blogger-image--937958601.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim3dbnXf0xMQIYepUPzXnoJ2PgdkrJD96GMLRL3C4ao3eeuM0TvVjPKNwxy9laRQMcPKcfRrnVXXh6eMovO_RbH1euGS_TGXt34DoVkIc_IpjDM9cnJooWH6G7uny02OKgapa2uyRm/s640/blogger-image--937958601.jpg"></a></div><br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">Take for example women's rights. 'Every
woman should have the right to decide the number and spacing of her children'
is an excellent articulation of reproductive autonomy, but it has essentially
no meaning to Samoan women, specifically rural women with little exposure to
English and formal education. In order to include this foundational tenant of
reproductive rights within the Report in a meaningful way, we must find the
language around this right that will have significance in Samoan culture.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">As such, phrases like, '<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Do unto others as you would have done unto
yourself'</b>, which is in fact the essence of human rights, will be used to
introduce many of the issues raised by our village consultations. This biblical
principle goes much farther in helping people understand human rights than the
current vocabulary ever can. If there is any hope of changing things, it must
be stated in a way that the population it serves can understand. Without this,
the Report will be like many of those preceding it: it will sit on shelves
unread (just to note, it still stands this risk, I am just doing my best to
minimize that). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-17312073856316511152015-02-25T22:52:00.001-03:002015-02-26T00:13:49.134-03:00Creating Dialogue around Injustice...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhomGiqy0F2UYEWoulBJWngYmPCfdGHBul0BbZpPLPY2cLkyLPSmAnMxtD0yy4m536LEO9EcDbQjHRE1n_eXcCck0K3aOLOka6Jh7VEUowXMRk_W4PF5cMj8ojXO9dzp01cnX-qCRDL/s1600/blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhomGiqy0F2UYEWoulBJWngYmPCfdGHBul0BbZpPLPY2cLkyLPSmAnMxtD0yy4m536LEO9EcDbQjHRE1n_eXcCck0K3aOLOka6Jh7VEUowXMRk_W4PF5cMj8ojXO9dzp01cnX-qCRDL/s1600/blog.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">The
excuse of ‘that’s just the way things are’ can be maddening. For me, just
because things are a certain way does not mean they need to stay that way,
particularly if the way they are is bad. Imagine if that excuse was off the
table and people had to actually confront why, for example, women are socially
subordinated? If they had to justify why such conditions continue to exist? I
wonder how much room for change there could be. That is the thing about excuses—they
serve to remove us from actual confrontation of what should otherwise be affronting.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Naturally,
in the human rights realm, excuses are an almost daily part of the work. Governments
are reluctant to take blame for anything. Pursuing policymakers to explain
adverse outcomes can feel more like a game of hot potato than the respectable pursuit
of proper monitoring and evaluation. And even that process of being given the
run around is excused as ‘that’s just how things go.’ Makes me wonder how much
time could be saved if that were not the case. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">As
frustrating as it can be to waste time in the pursuit of worthwhile information,
it is at the meta level of this issue where I find the most cognitive
dissonance for which there is little relief. A fine line exists between having
the requisite patience to do my work and having the wherewithal to not feel
compromised as I do it. ‘That’s just the way things are’ must never be the
excuse for domestic violence, for torture within prisons, for inequality, for
poverty, and for the plethora of other seemingly unsolvable negative issues
that plague societies around the globe. Excusing these issues as ‘just’ how the
world is ordered is a tautology of epic proportions that I simply cannot stand
by.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Given
such strong principles in the matter, I have recently had to find a gentler
approach to continuing being who I am in the face of perceivably unjustifiable
injustice (stated in this way only because people so often justify injustice
whether overtly or covertly—myself included). Collecting, investigating, and analysing
certain human rights violations requires the ability to channel energies into a
sense of greater purpose and not just results, or more specifically, the lack
thereof. This process must be a dialogue, not a monologue as this burden is not
meant for a single person.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">If
more of us decided to share the burden, such frustrating excuses would be swept
off the table as the unreasonableness of the situation becomes glaringly
apparent. Instead, we could confront head on the affronting reasons for certain
injustices, and we would likely discover that relatively simple solutions to
these issues exist. Because if enough people shake (gently or not) the
foundations for the social conditions that breed injustice, impunity is bound to
fall, creating more equal grounding. All analogies aside, that is my hope for
the results of the Fulbright—creating dialogue around otherwise unspoken issues
so that people can discover ways in which to confront human rights violations
and actually grapple with requisite solutions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-29740083715781345412015-02-11T22:49:00.003-03:002015-02-11T22:54:43.570-03:00A Word on Prisoner's Rights...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZGF_D8al5xaVtdR10lOd3hpNi1oNGoN_J1hHUFWXioZzkrnO-tFtTGZH9K0KdJk09kf2Z4hfT9abe3llhF1yyHn2owXdMzjRr3nYQYAM1xcXDbiENK9SpwKk6JMdj_wZZFqzFQY9e/s1600/photo+(3).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZGF_D8al5xaVtdR10lOd3hpNi1oNGoN_J1hHUFWXioZzkrnO-tFtTGZH9K0KdJk09kf2Z4hfT9abe3llhF1yyHn2owXdMzjRr3nYQYAM1xcXDbiENK9SpwKk6JMdj_wZZFqzFQY9e/s1600/photo+(3).jpg" height="320" width="231" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">Throughout my experiences in dealing
with human rights violations, I have commonly, and often unwittingly, been
exposed to the plight of prisoners, whether arbitrarily detained or 'justly'
convicted. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">I would not venture so far as
to say that prisoner's rights is a specialization of mine, but I can most
certainly say that I have become more intimate with the subject than I have
ever wanted to be. This is not because I do not care about the rights of the
detained; it is because in dealing with their needs, my heart breaks in all
senses of the phrase.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">I have never sought out this work
because I know that my sentimentality is too feeble to make a career of it, but
to my own chagrin, the more experience I gain in human rights law, the more
exposure I have to this heartbreaking issue. This should come as no surprise to
me, but my optimism gets the better of me most days and I like to think that
the world is evolving away from the barbaric practices of our past to a more
civilized method of the rehabilitation of lawbreakers. And up until now, I have
been able to deal with this issue at a relatively comfortable
distance—protesting the death penalty and prosecution clinics, writing to
governments for the release of political prisoners in the name of democracy,
and interviewing immigration detainees and informing them of their rights.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">Before I discuss the rights of
prisoners with others, my first question is always whether or not that person
has physically visited a prison. In my mind, until someone has seen the
conditions prisoners live in, seen the reality of what it means to be locked
up, it is quite difficult to gauge the enormity of the situation. And most
people have never walked into a prison or even considered doing so. Despite
this, I find it interesting how polarizing the subject can be. There seems to
be no middle ground. For example, in our Human Rights Survey for the State of
Human Rights Report in Samoa, there are essentially two qualifying answers we
receive for "Should prisoners be treated humanely?" It is either
something along the lines of "Yes, they are not animals; they still
deserve to be treated like human beings" or "No, they must be made to
regret what they have done."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">Regardless of one's stance, the vast
majority of prisoners in the world today lack basic access to clean water and
sanitation as well as the rights to demand such necessities. According to Penal
Reform International, overcrowding is the single biggest problem facing prison
systems with numbers exceeding official prison capacity in at least 114
countries. Coming from the United States, a country that has a greater
percentage of its population locked up than any other country in the world, I
am especially concerned about the growing use and abuse of solitary confinement
as a form of punishment. Amnesty International estimates that there are
currently 80,000 prisoners in some form of isolated internment as I write this.
And while 'Orange is the New Black' is bringing some of these issues into popular
consciousness; we are still a far cry from actually changing the current penal
environment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">Unfortunately, I have come to learn
that Samoa is no outlier. 'Inspecting prisons' was not on my original list of
Fulbright responsibilities, but it has become the foremost thought on my mind in
the last few weeks, probably to an unhealthy degree. The thing about inspecting
prisons is that you cannot unsee what you see or unlearn what you learn, and
with my patent impatience for injustice, it has been challenging for me to push
for change in the face of vagrant abuses of power and corrupt practices. So
while I wrestle with finding creative solutions to difficult issues, I wanted
to start with the basics. If you have not done so, go visit a prison because
only then can you truly begin to be informed. Care about vulnerable populations
like that of detainees because it will put into perspective what it actually
means to be vulnerable. And finally, have compassion because it is something
that is so dearly lacking in the world, especially in the cells that house an
alarmingly growing number of people. Then, hopefully, when action meets compassion, lives change, and change for the better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-19599467302290729992015-01-19T19:04:00.000-03:002015-01-19T19:04:13.538-03:00Happy MLK Jr. Day...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>APRIL 10, 1965 ISSUE, THE NEWYORKER </b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Letter from Selma BY RENATA ADLER</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">MARCH 27 </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">The thirty thousand people who at one point or another took part in this week’s march from the Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Selma, Alabama, to the statehouse in Montgomery were giving highly dramatic expression to a principle that could be articulated only in the vaguest terms. They were a varied lot: local Negroes, Northern clergymen, members of labor unions, delegates from state and city governments, entertainers, mothers pushing baby carriages, members of civil- rights groups more or less at odds with one another, isolated, shaggy marchers with an air of simple vagrancy, doctors, lawyers, teachers, children, college students, and a preponderance of what one marcher described as “ordinary, garden- variety civilians from just about everywhere.” They were insulated in front by soldiers and television camera crews, overhead and underfoot by helicopters and Army demolition teams, at the sides and rear by more members of the press and military, and over all by agents of the F.B.I. Most of them were aware that protection along a route of more than fifty miles of hostile country could not be absolute (on the night before the march, a student who had come here from Boston University was slashed across the cheek with a razor blade), yet few of the thirty-two hundred marchers who set out on Sunday morning </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px;">seemed to have a strong consciousness of risk. They did not have a sharply defined sense of purpose, either. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px;">President Johnson’s speech about voting rights and Judge Johnson’s granting of permission for the march to take place had made the march itself ceremonial— almost redundant. The immediate aims of the abortive earlier marches had been realized: the national conscience had been aroused and federal intervention had been secured. In a sense, the government of Alabama was now in rebellion, and the marchers, with the sanction and protection of the federal government, were demonstrating against a rebellious state. It was unclear what such a demonstration could hope to achieve. Few segregationists could be converted by it, the national commitment to civil rights would hardly be increased by it, there was certainly an element of danger in it, and for the local citizenry it might have a long and ugly aftermath. The marchers, who had five days and four nights in which to talk, tended for the most part to avoid discussions of principle, apparently in the hope that their good will, their sense of solidarity, and the sheer pageantry of the occasion would resolve matters at some symbolic level and yield a clear statement of practical purpose before the march came to an end. From this point of view, the first few hours of Sunday morning in Selma were far from satisfying. Broad Street, the town’s main thoroughfare, was deserted and indifferent. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px;">At the Negro First Baptist Church, on the corner of Sylvan Street and Jefferson Davis Avenue, denim-clad veterans of earlier marches stood wearily aloof from recruits, who ate watery scrambled eggs, drank watery coffee, and simply milled about. On Sylvan Street itself, an unpaved red sand road dividing identical rows of brick houses known as the George Washington Carver Development, crowds were gathering, some facing the entrance to the Brown Chapel Church, others on the steps of the church facing out. Inside the church, more people were milling, while a few tried to sleep on benches or on the floor. For several hours, nothing happened. The church service that was to begin the march was scheduled to take place at ten o’clock, but veterans advised newcomers—in the first of several bitter, self-</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">mocking jokes that became current on the Selma-Montgomery road—that this was C.P.T., Colored People Time, and the service actually began more than an hour behind schedule. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">In a field behind the housing development, the Reverend Andrew Young, executive director of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (S.C.L.C., referred to by some of the marchers as Slick), which sponsored the march, was giving marshals and night security guards last-minute instructions in the tactics of non-violence. “Keep women and children in the middle,” he said. “If there’s a shot, stand up and make the others kneel down. Don’t be lagging around, or you’re going to get hurt. Don’t rely on the troopers, either. If you’re beaten on, crouch and put your hands over the back of your head. Don’t put up your arm to ward off a blow. If you fall, fall right down and look dead. Get to know the people in your unit, so you can tell if somebody’s missing or if there’s somebody there who shouldn’t be there. And listen! If you can’t be non-violent, let me know now.” A young man in the standard denim overalls of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (S.N.C.C., otherwise known as Snick) murmured, “Man, you’ve got it all so structured. There seems to be a certain anxiety here about structure.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">Everyone laughed, a bit nervously, and the marshals went to the front of the church. The crowd there was growing, still arrayed in two lines, one facing in, the other facing out. There were National Guardsmen and local policemen, on foot and in jeeps and cars, along the sides of Sylvan Street and around its corners, at Jefferson Davis and Alabama Avenues. The marchers themselves appeared to have dressed for all kinds of weather and occasions—in denims, cassocks, tweed coats, ponchos, boots, sneakers, Shetland sweaters, silk dresses, college sweatshirts, sports shirts, khaki slacks, fur-collared coats, pea jackets, and trenchcoats. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">As they waited, they sang innumerable, increasingly dispirited choruses of “We Shall Overcome,” “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ’Round,” and other songs of the movement. There was a moment of excitement when Dr. King and other speakers assembled on the steps, but a succession of long, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">rhetorical, and, to a certain extent (when press helicopters buzzed too low or when the microphone went dead), inaudible speeches put a damper on that. An enthusiastic lady, of a sort that often afflicts banquets and church suppers, sang several hymns of many stanzas, with little melody and much vibrato. Exhaust fumes from a television truck parked to the right of the steps began to choke some of the marchers, and they walked away, coughing. Speakers praised one another extravagantly in monotonous political- convention cadences (“the man who . . .”). An irreverent, irritated voice with a Bronx accent shouted, “Would you mind please talking a little louder!” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">Several members of the crowd sat down in the street, and the march assumed the first of its many moods—that of tedium. Then Dr. King began to speak, and suddenly, for no apparent reason, several Army jeeps drove straight through the center of the crowd. (“Didn’t realize we were interrupting,” said one of the drivers, smiling. He had a D.D., for Dixie Division, emblem on his uniform.) The startled crowd, divided in half for a moment, became aware of its size. Dr. King’s speech came to an end, and there was last, unified, and loud rendition of “We Shall Overcome.” Then the marshals quickly arranged the crowd in columns, six abreast— women and children in the middle—and the procession set out down Sylvan Street. It was about one o’clock. On Alabama Avenue, the marchers turned right, passing lines of silent white citizens on the sidewalks. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">On Broad Street, which is also U.S. Route 80 to Montgomery, they turned left, and as segregationist loudspeakers along the way blared “Bye, Bye, Blackbird” and the white onlookers began to jeer, the marchers approached and crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge. And the march entered another mood—jubilation. The day was sunny and cool. The flat road, an amalgam of asphalt and the local sand, looked pink. The people in the line linked arms, and the procession was long enough to permit the marchers to sing five different civil-rights songs simultaneously without confusion; the vanguard could not hear what the rear guard was singing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">Occasionally, various leaders of the movement broke out of the line to join interviewers from the television networks, which took turns using a camera truck that preceded the line of march. For the first few miles, the highway was flanked by billboards (“Keep Selma Beautiful, Cover It with Dodge”), smaller signs (Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions, Citizens Council), diners, and gas stations. Little clusters of white onlookers appeared at various points along the road, some shouting threats and insults, others silently waving Confederate flags, and still others taking pictures of the marchers, presumably as a warning that their faces would not be forgotten when the march was over. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">The procession filled the two left lanes of the four-lane highway, but in the two right lanes traffic was proceeding almost normally. A black Volkswagen passed the marchers several times; on its doors and fenders were signs, lettered in whitewash: “MARTIN LUTHER KINK,” “WALK, COON,” “COONESVILLE, U.S.A.,” and “RENT YOUR PRIEST SUIT HERE.” Several small children at the roadside waved toy rifles and popguns and chanted “Nigger lover!,” “White nigger!,” “Half-breed!,” and other epithets. A man in front of a roadside diner thumbed his nose for the entire twenty minutes it took the procession to pass him, and a well-dressed matron briefly stopped her Chrysler, got out, stuck out her tongue, climbed in again, slammed the door, and drove off. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">Several times, the march came to an abrupt halt, and in the middle ranks and the rear guard there were murmurs of alarm. Then it became clear that these were only rest stops, and the marchers relaxed and resumed their singing. Rented trucks, driven by ministers of the San Francisco Theological Seminary, carried portable toilets up and down the line. When press photographers attempted to take pictures of civil-right leaders entering the men’s rooms, the Reverend Mr. Young shouted, “Can’t a man even go to the john in peace?” The photographers moved away. Three tired marchers rode a short distance on the water truck, and James Forman, the executive secretary of S.N.C.C., who was being interviewed in French for Canadian television, broke off his interview to mutter as the truck passed, “Hey, man, you cats could </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">walk.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">The marchers got down from the truck at once. Forman resumed his interview. “I think he’s having trouble with his French,” said one of the marchers. ‘He just said that no Negro in America is allowed to vote.” “His French is all right,” said another. “But he may be less concerned with the immediate truth than with stirring up the kind of chaos that makes things change.” By sunset of the first day, the caravan was more than seven miles from Selma, and most of the marchers returned by a special train to town, where some of them left for their home communities and others were put up for the night in the Negro development on Sylvan Street. Two hundred and eighty Negroes, representing Alabama counties (a hundred and forty-eight from Dallas County, eighty-nine from Perry, twenty-three from Marengo, and twenty from Wilcox), and twenty whites, from all over the country, who had been chosen to make the entire journey to Montgomery (the court permitted no more than three hundred marchers on the twenty-mile stretch of Route 80 midway between Selma and Montgomery, where it is only a two-lane highway) turned off Route 80 onto a tarred road leading to the David Hall farm—their campsite for the night. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">Four large tents had already been pitched in a field. As the marchers lined up for supper (three tons of spaghetti), which was served to them on paper plates, from brand- new garbage pails, night fell. Groups of National Guardsmen who surrounded the farm lighted campfires. “It looks like Camelot,” said one of the younger whites. amelot soon became very cold and damp. By nine o’clock, most of the marchers had retired to the tents, but within an hour they had to be roused and sorted out. One tent was for men, another for women, the third for the marchers’ own night security patrol, and the fourth for the press. When everyone had been assigned to his or her proper tent, it developed that there was a shortage of blankets, winter clothes, and sleeping bags. A shivering group huddled around an incinerator, the campsite’s only source of heat. A few marchers made their way to the loft of a barn beside the </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">Hall farmhouse, to profit from the heat given off by the animals in the stalls below. Five guinea hens perched in a tree outside the barn. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">The march’s security patrol wandered about with walkie-talkies; they had labelled their outposts Abel, Baker, Charlie, and Dog, using the Army’s old system, to set them apart from Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta, the outposts of the National Guard along the perimeter of the field. The night grew colder, damper, and darker, and the group around the incinerator fire grew uneasy. There was talk of the march ahead through Lowndes County, where swamps and the woods behind them might easily shelter a sniper in a tree or a canoe. Several marchers claimed to have spotted members of the American Nazi Party along the line of march. Someone mentioned the Ku Klux Klan “counter-demonstration” that had taken place in Montgomery that afternoon. “And the snakes,” a man said. “What snakes?” said a Northern voice. “Copperheads and cottonmouth. It takes the heat to bring them out, but a trooper told me somebody’s caught five baskets full and is letting them go where we camp tomorrow night.” “How’d the trooper hear about it?” “Spies.” “Well, I suppose there might be spies right here in camp.” “There might. And bombs and mines. They cleared a few this afternoon. Man, this isn’t any Boy Scout jamboree. It’s something else.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">B</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">y the time dawn came, the campers were a thoroughly chilled and bleary-eyed group. The oatmeal served at breakfast gave rise to a certain amount of mirth (“Tastes like fermented library paste,” said one of the clergymen), and the news that the National </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">Guardsmen had burned thirteen fence posts, two shovel handles, and an outhouse belonging to a neighboring church in order to keep warm during the night cheered everyone considerably. At a press conference held by Jack Rosenthal, the young Director of Public Information of the Justice Department, the rumors about snakes, bombs, and mines were checked out, and it was learned that none of them were true. A reporter waved several racist leaflets that had been dropped from an airplane and asked whether anything was being done to prevent such planes from dropping bombs. “What do you want us to do?” Rosenthal replied. “Use anti-aircraft guns?” The procession set out promptly at 8 A.M. The distance to the next campsite—Rosa Steele’s farm—was seventeen miles. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">Again the day was sunny, and as the air grew warmer some of the more sunburned members of the group donned berets or Stetsons or tied scarves or handkerchiefs around their heads. To the white onlookers who clustered beside the road, the three hundred marchers must have seemed a faintly piratical band. At the head of the line were Dr. and Mrs. King, wearing green caps with earmuffs and reading newspapers as they walked. Not far behind them was a pale-green wagon (known to the marchers as the Green Dragon) with Mississippi license plates, in which rode doctors wearing armbands of the M.C.H.R. (the Medical Committee for Human Rights). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">Farther back were some of the younger civil-rights leaders: Hosea Williams, S.C.L.C. director of the march and veteran of the bitter struggle for public accommodations in Savannah, Georgia; the Reverend James Bevel, formerly of S.N.C.C., now S.C.L.C. project director for Alabama (Mr. Bevel was wearing the many-colored yarmulke that has become almost his trademark—“a link,” he says, “to our Old Testament heritage”); John Lewis, chairman of S.N.C.C.; and the Reverend Andrew Young. Behind the leaders, some of the main personae of the march had begun to emerge, among them Joe Young, a blind greenhouse worker from Atlanta, Georgia, and Jim Letherer, a one-legged settlement-house worker from Saginaw, Michigan. (“Left! Left! Left! “ the segregationist </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px;">onlookers chanted as Mr. Letherer moved along on crutches.) Chuck Fager, a young worker for S.C.L.C., wearing denims and a black yarmulke, was waving and shouting, “Come march with us! Why don’t you come along and march with us?” (“It sets up a dialogue,” he explained. “The last time I was in jail, a sheriff pulled me aside and asked me where the hell I was from. Any sort of talk like that sets up a dialogue.”) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">Sister Mary Leoline, a nun from Christ the King parish in Kansas City, Kansas, was talking to John Bart Gerald, a young novelist from New York. “This is a great time to be alive,” she said. A few members of the night security guard had somehow acquired cameras, and they were now photographing bystanders who were photographing marchers; it appeared that a sort of reciprocal Most Wanted list was being compiled. From time to time, the marchers were still singing (“Oh-h-h, Wallace, segregation’s bound to fall”), and the chief of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Assistant Attorney General John Doar, tall, tanned, and coatless, was striding back and forth along the line of march to see that all was going well. Around two o’clock, as the middle ranks of marchers passed an intersection just outside Lowndes County, a female bystander apparently could stand it no longer. “They’re carrying the flag upside down!” she screamed to the nearest trooper. “Isn’t there a law against that? Can’t you arrest them? Look at them so-called white men with church collars that they bought for fifty cents! And them devirginated nuns! I’m a Catholic myself, but it turns my stomach to see them. They said there was thousands yesterday, but there wasn’t near a thousand. Them niggers and them girls! I’ve watched the whole thing three times, and there isn’t a intelligent-looking one in the bunch. I feel sorry for the black folks. If they want to vote, why don’t they just go out and register? Oh, honey, look! There goes a big one. Go home, scum! Go home, scum!” The procession began to sing a not very hearty version of “A Great Camp Meeting in the Promised Land.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">Not all the bystanders along the road were white. At the boundary of Lowndes County (with a population of fifteen thousand, eighty per cent of them Negroes, not one of whom had been registered to vote by March 1, 1965), John Maxwell, a Negro worker in a Lowndes County cotton-gin mill (at a salary of six dollars for a twelve-hour day), appeared at an intersection. “Why don’t you register to vote?” a reporter from the Harvard Crimson asked Mr. Maxwell. “They’d put us off the place if I tried,” Mr. Maxwell said. In the town of Trickem, at the Nolan Elementary School—a small white shack on brick stilts, which had asbestos shingles, a corrugated-iron roof, six broken windows, and a broken wood floor patched with automobile license plates—a group of old people and barefoot children rushed out to embrace Dr. King. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">They had been waiting four hours. “Will you march with us?” Dr. King asked an old man with a cane. “I’ll walk one step, anyway,” said the man. “Because I know for every one step I’ll take you’ll take two.” The marchers broke into a chant. “What do you want?” they shouted encouragingly to the Negroes at the roadside. The Negroes smiled, but they did not give the expected response—“Freedom!” The marchers had to supply that themselves. Late in the afternoon, as Route 80 passed through the swamps of Lowndes County, the marchers looked anxiously at the woods, covered with Spanish moss, which began a few yards back from the road. They reached Rosa Steele’s farm at sunset. Many of them seemed dismayed to find that the campsite lay right beside the highway. Fresh rumors began to circulate: a man had been seen putting a bomb under a roadside bridge; twenty white men, with pistols and shotguns, had been seen prowling through a neighboring field; testing security, a representative of the Pentagon </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">had managed to penetrate the security lines without being asked to show his pass. Mr. Rosenthal again put these fears to rest. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">“The field has been combed by Army demolition teams,” he said. “If anyone from the Pentagon had made it through unchecked, you can bet there would have been one hell of a fuss. And as for the man under the bridge, it was a little boy who got off his bicycle to relieve himself. The troopers found out these things. It’s nice to know that they are this aware.” As darkness fell, Dr. King held a press conference. A Negro woman lifted up her three-year-old son so that he might catch a glimpse of Dr. King. She soon grew tired and had to put him down. “I’ll take him,” said a white man standing beside her, and he lifted the boy onto his shoulders. The boy did not glance at Dr. King; he was too busy gazing down at the white man’s blond hair. gain the night was cold and damp. At the entrance to the field, there was so much mud that boards and reeds had been scattered to provide traction for cars. Most of the marchers went to sleep in their four tents soon after supper, but at Steele’s Service Station, across the highway, a crowd of Negroes from the neighborhood had gathered. Some of them were dancing to music from a jukebox, and a few of the more energetic marchers, white and black, joined them. “This is getting to be too much like a holiday,” said a veteran of one if the earlier marches. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">“It doesn’t tell the truth of what happened.” At about ten o’clock, the last of the marchers crossed the highway back to camp. Shortly afterward, a fleet of cars drove up to the service station and a group of white boys got out. Two of the boys were from Georgia, two were from Texas, one was from Tennessee, one was from Oklahoma, one was from Monroeville, Alabama, and one was from Selma. The Reverend Arthur E. Matott, a white minister from Perth Amboy, New Jersey, who was a member of the night patrol, saw them and walked across the highway to where they were standing. “Can I help you fellows?” Mr. Matott asked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">“We’re just curious,” the boy from Monroeville said. “Came out to see what it was like.” “How long are you planning to stay?” said Mr. Matott. “Until we get ready to leave,” the boy said. A Negro member of the night patrol quietly joined Mr. Matott. “I cut classes,” said the boy from Tennessee. “Sort of impulsive. You hear all these stories. I wondered why you were marching.” “Well, you might say we’re marching to get to know each other and to ease a little of the hate around here,” Mr. Matott said. “You don’t need to march for that,” said one of the boys from Texas. “You’re making it worse. The hate was being lessened and lessened by itself throughout the years.” “Was it?” asked the Negro member of the guard. “It was,” the Texas boy said. “We never had much trouble in Nashville.” said the boy from Tennessee. “Where you have no conflict, it’s hard to conceive . . . ” “Why don’t you-all go and liberate the Indian reservations, or something?” said the boy from Monroeville. “The Negroes around here are happy.” “I don’t think they are,” said Mr. Matott. “I’ve lived in the South all my life, and I know that they are,” the boy from Georgia said. “I’m not happy,” said the Negro guard. “Well, just wait awhile,” said the boy from Monroeville.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">An attractive blond girl in a black turtleneck sweater, denim pants, and boots now crossed the highway from the camp. “Do you know where I can get a ride to Jackson?” she asked the Negro guard. “This is Casey Hayden, from S.N.C.C. She’s the granddaughter of a Texas sheriff,” said the minister, introducing her to the group. A battered car drove up, and three more white boys emerged. “I don’t mean to bug you,” the Negro whispered to the girl, “but did you realize we’re surrounded?” “You fellows from Selma?” Miss Hayden asked, turning to the three most recent arrivals. “Yeah,” said one, who was wearing a green zippered jacket, a black shirt, and black pants, and had a crew cut. “What do you want?” Miss Hayden asked. “I don’t know,” the boy answered. “That’s an honest answer,” Miss Hayden said. “It is,” the boy said. “What do you do?” Miss Hayden asked. “Well, Miss, I actually work for a living, and I can tell you it’s going to be hard on all of them when this is over,” the boy said. “A lot of people in town are letting their maids go.” “Well, I don’t suppose I’d want to have a maid anyway,” Miss Hayden said amiably. “I guess I can do most things myself.” “That’s not all, though,” said another boy. “It’s awfully bad down the road. Nothing’s happened so far, but you can’t ever tell. Selma’s a peace-loving place, but that Lowndes County is something else,”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">“I guess some of these people feel they haven’t got that much to lose,” Miss Hayden said. “I know,” said the boy. “Do you understand what they’re marching about?” Miss Hayden asked. “Yeah—fighting for freedom, something like that. That’s the idea, along that line. It don’t mean nothing,” the boy said. “And to make money,” the third young man said. “The men are getting fifteen dollars a day for marching, and the girls are really making it big.” “Is that so?” said Miss Hayden. “Yeah. Girl came into the Selma hospital this morning, fifteen hundred dollars in her wallet. She’d slept with forty-one.” “Forty-one what?” Miss Hayden asked. “Niggers,” the young man said. “And what did she go to the hospital for?” Miss Hayden asked. “Well, actually, Ma’am, she bled to death,” the young man said. “Where did you hear that?” Miss Hayden asked. “In town,” the young man said. ‘There’s not much you can do, more than keep track of everything. It’s a big mess.” “Well,” Miss Hayden said, “I think it’s going to get better.” “Hard to say,” said one of the boys as they drifted back to their cars. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">At midnight in the camp, Charles Mauldin, aged seventeen, the head of the Dallas County Student Union and a student at Selma’s Hudson High School, which is Negro, was awakened in the </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px;">security tent by several guards, who ushered in a rather frightened- looking Negro boy. “What’s going on?” asked Charles. The boy replied that he was trying to found a Negro student movement in Lowndes County. “That’s fine,” said Charles. “The principal’s dead set against it,” the boy said. “Then stay underground until you’ve got everybody organized,” Charles said. “Then if he throws one out he’ll have to throw you all out.” “You with Snick or S.C.L.C., or what?” the boy asked. “I’m not with anything,” Charles said. “I’m with them all. I used to just go to dances in Selma on Saturday nights and not belong to anything. Then I met John Love, who was Snick project director down here, and I felt how he just sees himself in every Negro. Then I joined the movement.” “What about your folk?” the boy asked. “My father’s a truck driver, and at first they were against it, but now they don’t push me and they don’t hold me back,” Charles said. “Who’ve you had personal run-ins with?” the boy asked. “I haven’t had personal run-ins with anybody,” Charles said. “I’ve been in jail three times, but never more than a few hours. They needed room to put other people in. Last week, I got let out, so I just had to march and get beaten on. In January, we had a march of little kids—we called it the Tots March—but we were afraid they might get frightened, so we joined them, and some of us got put in jail Nothing personal about it.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">“Some of us think that for the march we might be better off staying in school,” the boy wid. “Well, I think if you stay in school you’re saying that you’re satisfied,” Charles said. “We had a hundred of our teachers marching partway with us. At first, I was against the march, but then I realized that although we’re probably going to get the voting bill, we still don’t have a lot of other things. It’s dramatic, and it’s an experience, so I came. I thought of a lot of terrible things that could happen, because we’re committed to non-violence, and I’m responsible for the kids from the Selma school. But then I thought, If they killed everyone on this march, it would be nothing compared to the number of people they’ve killed in the last three hundred years.” “You really believe in non-violence?” the boy asked Charles. “I do,” Charles said. “I used to think of it as just a tactic, but now I believe in it all the way. Now I’d just like to be tested.” “Weren’t you tested enough when you were beaten on?” the boy asked. “No, I mean an individual test, by myself,” Charles said. “It’s easy to talk about non-violence, but in a lot of cases you’ve got to be tested, and re-inspire yourself.’ </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">By 2 A.M., hardly anyone in the camp was awake except the late- shift night security patrol and a group of radio operators in a trader truck, which served as a base for the walkie-talkies around the campsite and in the church back in Selma. The operators kept in constant touch with Selma, where prospective marchers were still arriving by the busload. Inside the trailer were Norman Talbot, a middle-aged Negro from Selma who had borrowed the trailer from his uncle and was serving as its driver (“I used to work in a junk yard, until they fired me for joining the movement. I’ve got a five- year-old daughter, but after that I made it my business to come out </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">in a big way’); Pete Muilenberg, a nineteen-year-old white student on leave of absence from Dartmouth to work for C.O.F.O., the Congress of Federated Organizations, in Mississippi; and Mike Kenny, a twenty-nine-year-old white student who had quit graduate school at Iowa State to work for S.N.C.C. “Snick isn’t officially involved in this march,” Mr. Kenny said to a marcher who visited him in the trailer early that morning. “Although individual Snick workers can take part if they like. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">They say Martin Luther King and Snick struck a bargain: Snick wouldn’t boycott this march if S.C.L.C. would take part in a demonstration in Washington to challenge the Mississippi members of Congress. We didn’t want to bring in all these outsiders, and we wanted to keep marching on that Tuesday when King turned back. Man, there are cats in Selma now from up North saying, ‘Which demonstration are you going to? Which one is the best? As though it were a college prom, or something. I tell them they ought to have sense enough to be scared. ‘What do you think you’re down here for? For publicity, to show how many of you there are, and to get a few heads bashed in. Nobody needs you to lead them. S.C.L.C. has got plenty of leaders.’ People need Snick, though, for the technicians. Some of us took a two-day course in short-wave-radio repair from one of our guys, Marty Schiff, so we could set up their radios for them. Then, a lot of Snick cats have come over here from Mississippi, where the romance has worn off a bit and it’s time for our experts to take over—running schools, pairing off communities with communities up North, filing legal depositions against the Mississippi congressmen and against the worst of the police. We’re called agitators from out of state. Well, take away the connotations and agitation is what we do, but we’re not outsiders. Nobody who crosses a state line is an outsider. It’s the same with racial lines. I don’t give a damn about the Negro race, but I don’t give a damn about the white race, either. I’m interested in breaking the fetters of thought. What this march is going to do is help the Alabama Negro to break his patterns of thought. It’s also going to change the marchers when they go hack home.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">The students who went back </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">from the Mississippi project became dynamos. It’s easier to join the movement than to get out. You have this commitment. There will be Snick workers staying behind to keep things going in Selma. We were here, working, a year and a half before S.C.L.C, came in. Man, there’s a cartoon in our Jackson office showing the Snick power structure, and it’s just one big snarl. Some of us are in favor of more central organization, but most of us believe in the mystique of the local people. We’re not running the C.O.F.O. project in Mississippi next summer, because of the black-white tensions in Snick. Some of the white cats feel they’re being forced out, because of the racism. But I can understand it. The white invasion put the Negro cats in a predicament. Not even their movement was their own anymore. I’m staying with it, though. Every Snick meeting is a traumatic experience for all of us, but even the turmoil is too real, too important, for me to get out now. It’s what you might call the dramatic-results mentality. Some of the leaders may be evolving some pretty far-out political philosophy, but it’s the workers who get things done—black-white tensions, left-right tensions, and all.” ater that morning, Tuesday, it began to rain, and the rain continued through most of the day. When the first drops fell, whites at the roadside cheered (a Southern adage states that “a nigger won’t stay out in the rain”), but it soon became apparent that, even over hilly country, the procession was going at a more spirited pace than ever. Jim Letherer, on his crutches, appeared to be flagging. John Doar walked beside him for a while, joking and imperceptibly slowing his pace. Then Mr. Doar said, “Jim, come to the car a minute. I want to show you something back down the road.” Jim disappeared from the march. In twenty minutes, he was walking again. ack in Selma, thousands of out-of-towners had arrived and had been quietly absorbed into the Negro ghetto. On the outskirts of town, a sign had appeared showing a photograph of Martin Luther King at the Highlander Folk School and captioned “Martin Luther King at Communist School.” Lying soggily upon the </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">sidewalks were leaflets reading “An unemployed agitator ceases to agitate. Operation Ban. Selective hiring, firing, buying, selling.” The Selma Avenue Church of Christ, whose congregation is white, displayed a sign reading “When You Pray, Be Not As Hypocrites Are, Standing in the Street. Matt: 6:5,” and the Brown Chapel Church displayed a sign reading “Forward Ever, Backward Never. Visitors Welcome.” Inside the church and its parsonage, things were bustling. There were notes tacked everywhere: “If you don’t have official business here, please leave,” “All those who wish to take hot baths, contact Mrs. Lilly,” “Don’t sleep here anymore. This is an office,” “Please, the person who is trying to find me to return my suit coat and trenchcoat, not having left it in my Rambler . . . ” “Everyone here in town is getting antsy,” Melody Heap, a white girl who had come in from Chicago, said to a reporter. “We’re not allowed to march until Thursday, and there’s nothing to do. On the other hand, we’re giving the Selma Negroes a chance to take it easy. They know what they’re doing, and we don’t, so they can order us around a little.” “You know what just happened?” aid a white clergyman from Ontario. “Some of those white segs splashed mud all over us. It was so funny and childish we just howled.” A little later, two clergymen picked their luggage and left the church for the home of Mrs. Georgia Roberts, where, they had been told, they were to spend the night. “I guess I can put you up,” Mrs. Roberts said when they arrived. “Last night, I put up fourteen. I worked as a cook at the Selma Country Club for thirteen years, before they fired me for joining the movement. I’ve been friendly to all the other guests, so I guess you’ll find me friendly, too. I never thought I’d see the day when we’d dare to march against the white government in the Black Belt of Alabama.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px;">In the early evening, a clergyman became violently ill, and doctors blamed the marchers’ water supply. The marchers had all along complained that the water tasted of kerosene, and upon investigation, it turned out that the water was in fact polluted, having come from a truck that was ordinarily used for draining septic tanks. (Fortunately, no other marchers seemed to suffer from the contamination.) Later, the singer Odetta appeared at the campsite, and found all the marchers, including another singer, Pete Seeger, fast asleep. ednesday, the fourth and last full day of marching, was sunny again, and the marchers set out in good spirits. In the morning, a minister who had rashly dropped out at a gas station to make a telephone call was punched by the owner, and a freelance newspaper photographer was struck on the ear by a passerby. (Although he required three stitches, he was heartened by the fact </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">that a Montgomery policeman had come, with a flying tackle, to his rescue.) </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">There seemed, however, to be fewer segregationists by the side of the road than usual—perhaps because the Montgomery Advertiser had been running a two-page advertisement, prepared by the City Commissioner’s Committee on Community Affairs. imploring citizens to be moderate and ignore the march. The coverage of the march in the Southern press had consistently amused the marchers. “Civil Righters Led by Communists” had been the headline in the Birmingham weekly Independent; the Selma Times-Journal, whose coverage of the march was relatively accurate, had editorialized about President Johnson, under the heading “A Modern Mussolini Speaks, ‘We Shall Overcome,’ ” “No man in any generation . . . has ever held so much power in the palm of his hand, and that includes Caesar, Alexander, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, and Franklin D. Roosevelt”; and the Wednesday Advertiser’s sole front-page item concerning the march was a one- column, twenty-one-line account, lower right, of the Alabama legislature’s resolution condemning the demonstrators for being “sexually promiscuous.” (“It is well known that the white Southern segregationist is obsessed with fornication,” said John Lewis, chairman of S.N.C.C. “And that is why there are so many shades of Negro.”) </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">At 9 A.M., Ray Robin announced over radio station WHHY, in Montgomery, that “there is now evidence that women are returning to their homes from the march as expectant unwed mothers.” Several marchers commented, ironically, on the advanced state of medical science in Alabama. By noon, most of the marchers were sunburned or just plain weatherburned. Two Negroes scrawled the word “Vote” in sunburn cream on their foreheads and were photographed planting an American flag, Iwo Jima fashion, by the side of the road. Flags of all sorts, including state flags and church flags, had materialized in the hands of marchers. One of the few segregationists watching the procession stopped his jeering for a moment when he saw the American flag, and raised his hand in a salute. The singing had abated somewhat, and the marchers had become conversational.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">“This area’s a study in social psychopathology,” said Henry Schwarzschild, executive secretary of L.C.D.C. (the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee). “In a way, they’re asking for a show of force like this, to make them face reality.” “And there’s the ignorance,” said another civil-rights lawyer. “A relatively friendly sheriff in Sunflower County, Mississippi, warned me, confidentially, that my client was a ‘blue-gum nigger.’ ‘Their mouths are filled with poison,’ he said. ‘Don’t let him bite you.’ ” “And what did you say?” asked a college student marching beside him. “What could I say?” the lawyer replied. “I said I’d try to be careful.” “The way I see this march,” said a young man from S.N.C.C., “is as a march from the religious to the secular—from the chapel to the statehouse. For too long now, the Southern Negro’s only refuge has been the church. That’s why he prefers these S.C.L.C. ministers to the Snick cats. But we’re going to change all that.” “I’m worried, though, about the Maoists,” said the student. “What do you mean by that, exactly?” asked another marcher, “A Maoist. You know. From the Mau Mau.” In the early afternoon, Dr. King and his wife, who had dropped out for a day in order for him to go to Cleveland to receive an award, rejoined the procession. The singing began again. Marching behind Dr. King was his friend the Reverend Morris H. Tynes, of Chicago, who teased Dr. King continuously. “Moses, can you let your people rest for a minute?” Mr. Tynes said. “Can you just let the homiletic smoke from your cigarette drift out of your mouth and engulf the multitude and let them rest?” Dr. King smiled. Some of the other marchers, who had tended to speak of Dr. King half in joking and half in reverent tones (most of them referred to him conversationally as “De Lawd”) laughed out loud.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">A Volkswagen bus full of marchers from Chicago ran out of gas just short of the procession. “Now, we all believe in non-violence,” one of the passengers said to the driver, “but if you don’t get this thing moving pretty soon . . .” “Are you members of some sort of group?” asked a reporter, looking inside the bus. “No,” said the driver. “We’re just individuals.” At last, on the outskirts of Montgomery, the marchers reached their fourth campsite—the Catholic City of St. Jude, consisting of a church, a hospital, and a school built in a style that might be called Contemporary Romanesque. The four tents were pitched by the time they arrived, and they marched onto the grounds singing “We Have Overcome.” They also added two new verses to the song —“All the way from Selma” and “Our feet are soaked.” Inside the gates of St. Jude’s, they were greeted by a crowd of Montgomery Negroes singing the national anthem. “What do you want?” the marchers chanted. This time, the response from the onlookers was immediate and loud: “Freedom!” “When do you want it? “ “Now!” “How much of it?” “All of it!” n its fourth night, the march began to look first like a football rally, then like a carnival and a hootenanny, and finally like something dangerously close to a hysterical mob. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">Perhaps because of a new feeling of confidence, the security check at the main gate had been practically abandoned. Thousands of marchers poured in from Selma and Montgomery, some of them carrying luggage, and n</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px;">o one had time to examine its contents. The campsite was cold and almost completely dark, and a bomb or a rifle shot would have left everyone helpless. Word got out that the doctors on the march had treated several cases of strep throat, two of pneumonia, one of advanced pulmonary tuberculosis, and one of epilepsy, and because of the number and variety of sick and handicapped who had made the march a macabre new joke began to go the rounds: “What has five hundred and ninety-nine legs, five hundred and ninety-eight eyes, an indeterminate number of germs, and walks singing? The march from Selma.” An entertainment had been scheduled for nine o’clock that night, but it was several hours late started, and in the meantime the crowd of thousands churned about in the mud and chanted. A number of people climbed into trees near the platform where the entertainment was to take place. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px;">On the outskirts of St. Jude’s, in a section normally set aside as a playground, a few children spun the hand-powered carousel, or climbed over the jungle gym in the dark. In the wires of the telephone poles around the field, the skeletons of old kites were just visible in the dim lights from the windows of St. Jude’s Hospital. A minister, who had been seeking for several hours to clear the platform, wept with chagrin. “Betcha old Sheriff Clark and his troopers could clear it!” someone shouted. In the darkness, there were repeated cries for doctors, and a soldier stood on top of the radio trailer and beamed a flashlight into the crowd, trying to find the sources of the cries. Thousands crowded around the platform, and several of them were pressed against it and fell. Several others, mostly members of the special group of three hundred marchers, fainted from exhaustion. A number of entertainers, each of whom had been given a dime to use for a phone call in case of an emergency, and all of whom had been instructed to stand in groups of not fewer than six, appeared on the platform. Among them were Shelley Winters, Sammy Davis, Jr., Tony Perkins, Tony Bennett, and Nina Simone. A number of girls in the crowd collapsed and, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">because there was no other lighted space, had to be carried onstage, where Miss Winters did her best to minister to them. Before long, twenty people, none of them seriously ill or seriously injured, were carried off to the hospital on stretchers. A large group started an agitated march within the campsite. “I’m tired,” said a white college student. “If only I could walk someplace and get a cab! “ “Man, that’s not cool,” said a Negro. “There are a lot of hostile people outside that gate.” “Inside it, too, for all I know,” said the student. “See any white sheets?” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">Finally, the entertainment got under way, and the situation improved. Tony Perkins and a few others spoke with well- considered brevity. The crowd clapped along with the singers as they sang folk songs and songs of the movement, and it laughed at the comedians, including Dick Gregory, Nipsey Russell, Mike Nichols, and Elaine May. (“I can’t afford to call up the National Guard,” said Mike Nichols, impersonating Governor Wallace. “Why not?” said Elaine May, impersonating a telegraph operator. “It only costs a dime,”) At 2 A.M., the entertainment and speeches were over, and the performers left for a Montgomery hotel, which was surrounded for the remainder of the night by shouting segregationists. Most of the crowd drifted off the field and headed for Montgomery, and the tents were left at last to the marchers. Suddenly security tightened up. At one point, the Reverend Andrew Young himself was asked for his credentials. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">The hours before dawn passed without incident. n Thursday morning, the march expanded, pulled itself together, and turned at once serious and gay. It finally seemed that the whole nation was marching to Montgomery. Signs from every conceivable place and representing every conceivable religious </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">denomination, philosophical viewpoint, labor union, and walk of life assembled at St. Jude’s and lined up in orderly fashion. A Magic Marker pen passed from hand to hand, and new signs went up: “The Peace Corps Knows Integration Works,” “So Does Canada,” “American Indians” (carried by Fran Poafpybitty, a Comanche from Indiahoma, Oklahoma), “Freedom” in Greek letters (carried by a Negro girl), “Out of Vietnam into Selma” in Korean (carried by a white girl), “The Awe and Wonder of Human Dignity We Want to Maintain” (on a sandwich board worn by a succession of people), and, on two sticks tied together, with a blue silk scarf above it, a sign reading simply “Boston.” A young white man in a gray flannel suit hurried back and forth among the platoons of marchers; on his attaché case was written “D. J. Bittner, Night Security.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">Near the tents, Ivanhoe Donaldson and Frank Surocco (the first a Negro project director for S.N.C.C. in Atlanta, the second a white boy, also from S.N.C.C.) were distributing orange plastic jackets to the original three hundred marchers. The jackets, of the sort worn by construction workers, had been bought for eighty-nine cents apiece in Atlanta, and jackets just like them had been worn throughout the march by the marshals, but for the marchers the orange jacket had become a singular status symbol. There was some dispute about who was entitled to wear one. There was also a dispute about the order of march. Some thought that the entertainers should go first, some that the leaders should. Roy Wilkins, of the N.A.A.C.P.,: demurred on behalf of the leaders. Odetta said, “Man, don’t let the morale crumble. The original three hundred deserve to be first.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">The Reverend Andrew Young was served with a summons in an action by the City of Selma and the Selma Bus Lines protesting the operation of buses in competition with the Selma company. Finally, after another session of virtually inaudible speeches, the parade was ready to go. “Make way for the originals!” the marshals shouted, forming a cordon to hold back the other marchers and the press. Behind the three hundred came Martin Luther King, Ralph Bunche, A. Philip Randolph, the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, the Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">Charles G. Gomillion, the Reverend F. D. Reese, and other civil- rights leaders; behind them came the grandfather of Jimmie Lee Jackson, the Negro boy who had been shot in nearby Perry County, and the Reverend Orloff Miller, a friend of the Reverend James Reeb’s, who had been beaten with Reeb on the night of Reeb’s murder; and behind them came a crowd of what turned out to be more than thirty thousand people. “We’re not just down here for show,” said Mr. Miller. “A lot of our people are staying here to help. But the show itself is important. When civil rights drops out of the headlines, the country forgets.” Stationed, like an advance man, hundreds of yards out in front of the procession as it made its way through the Negro section of Montgomery and, ultimately, past a hundred and four intersections was Charles Mauldin, dressed in his Hudson High sweatshirt and blue jeans and an orange jacket, and waving a little American flag and a megaphone. One pocket of his denims was split, and the fatigue in his gentle, intelligent face made him seem considerably younger than his seventeen years. “Come and march with us!” he shouted to Negro bystanders. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">“You can’t make your witness standing on the corner. Come and march with us. We’re going downtown. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Come and march with us! “ “Tell ’em, baby,” said Frank Surocco, who was a few yards back of Charles. “Is everything safe up ahead?” asked the voice of Ivanhoe Donaldson through a walkie-talkie. “We watching ’em, baby,” said Surocco. “Come and march with us!” said Charles Mauldin, to black and white bystanders alike. In midtown Montgomery, at the Jefferson Davis Hotel, colored maids were looking out of the windows and the white clientele was standing on the hotel marquee. Farther along, at the Whitley Hotel, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">colored porters were looking out of windows on one side of the building and white customers were looking out of windows on the other. Troopers watched from the roof of the Brown Printing Company. The windows of the Montgomery Citizens Council were empty. Outside the Citizens Council building, a man stood waving a Confederate flag. “What’s your name?” a reporter asked. “None of your goddam business,” said the man. At the intersection of Montgomery Street and Dexter Avenue (the avenue leading to the capitol), Charles Mauldin turned and looked around. “They’re still coming out of St. Jude’s,” a reporter told him. And when the vanguard of the march reached the capitol steps, they were still coming out of St. Jude’s. “You’re only likely to see three great parades in a lifetime,” said John Doar to a student who walked beside him, “and this is one of them.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">A brown dog had joined the crowd for the march up Dexter Avenue. On the sidewalk in front of the capitol, reporters stood on the press tables to look back. Charles and the rest of the orange-jacketed three hundred stood below. Behind them, the procession was gradually drawing together and to a halt. Ahead, a few green-clad, helmeted officers of the Alabama Game and Fish Service and some state officials blocked the capitol steps, at the top of which, covering the bronze star that marks the spot where Jefferson Davis was inaugurated President of the Confederacy, was a plywood shield constructed at the order of Governor Wallace—“to keep that s.o.b. King from desecrating the Cradle of the Confederacy,” according to a spokesman for the Governor. Martin Luther King had managed to draw a larger crowd than the leader of the Confederacy a hundred years before. Onto a raised platform—erected by the marchers for the occasion —in a plaza between the crowd and the steps climbed a group of entertainers that included, at one point or another, Joan Baez; the Chad Mitchell Trio; Peter, Paul, and Mary; and Harry Belafonte.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">As Alabamians peered from the statehouse windows, Negro and white performers put their arms around each other’s shoulders and began to sing. Although the songs were familiar and the front rank of the three hundred mouthed a few of the words, none of the crowd really sang along. Everybody simply cheered and applauded at the end of each number. Then Len Chandler, a young Negro folk singer who had marched most of the way, appeared on the platform. He was dressed peculiarly, as he had been on the road—in a yellow helmet, a flaglike blue cape with white stars on it, and denims—and the crowd at once joined him in singing: “You’ve got to move when the spirit say move, Move when the spirit say move. When the spirit say move, you’ve got to move, oh, Lord, You got to move when the spirit say move.’</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">In the subsequent verses, Mr. Chandler changed “move” to “walk,” march,” “vote,” “picket,” “cool it,” and “love,” and the crowd kept singing. Joan Baez, wearing a purple velvet dress and a large bronze crucifix, even broke into a rather reverent Frug. After an invocation by a rabbi and speeches by the Reverend Andrew Young and the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, the crowd turned away from the Confederate and Alabama State flags flying from the capitol, faced its own American flags, and sang the national anthem. At its close, the Reverend Theodore Gill, president of the San Francisco Theological Seminary, looked before and behind him and said a simple prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses.” One marcher applauded, and was immediately hushed. Then there was the succession of speeches, most of them eloquent, some of them pacific (“Friends of freedom,” said Whitney Young, of the Urban League), others militant (“Fellow Freedom Fighters,” said John Lewis, of S.N.C.C.), and nearly all of them filled with taunts of Governor Wallace as the list of grievances, intimidations, and brutalities committed by the state piled up.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">“This march has become a rescue operation,” Charles Mauldin said quietly to a friend as the speeches continued. “Most of those Negroes along the way have joined us, and although this Wallace- baiting sounds like a little boy whose big brother has come home and who is standing outside a bully’s window just to jeer, these Negroes are never going to be quite so afraid of the bully again. When the bill goes through, they’re going to vote, and the white men down here are going to think twice before they try to stop them. Big brothers have come down from the North and everywhere, and they’ve shown that they’re ready and willing to come down again. I don’t think they’re going to have to.” “It’s good that even a few of the civil-rights talkers have joined us,” said another marcher. “When those people feel they have to climb on the bandwagon, you know you’re on the way to victory.” As one speaker followed another, as Ralph Bunche, who had marched for two full days, and A. Philip Randolph spoke, the civil- rights leaders saluted one another and gave signs of patching up their differences. (Mr. Abernathy, second-in-command of S.C.L.C., slipped once and said, “Now here’s James Peck, for James Farmer, to tell us whether CORE is with us.” Peck ignored the implications of the “whether” and spoke as eloquently as the rest.) </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">Throughout, the crowd applauded politely but gave no sign of real enthusiasm. S.C.L.C. and S.N.C.C. leaders seemed to be equally popular, but the N.A.A.C.P. and the Urban League, more active in other states than in Alabama, seemed to require a little help from Mr. Abernathy (“Now let’s give a big hand to . . . ”) to get their applause. Some of the marchers crawled forward under the press tables and went to sleep. A Japanese reporter, who had been taking notes in his own language, seized one of the marchers as he crawled under a table. “What do you think of all this?” the reporter asked. “I think it’s good,” the marcher said. Some fell asleep in their places on Dexter Avenue. (Perhaps remembering the mob scenes of the night before, the crowd left its members ample breathing space in front of the capitol.) A scuffle broke out between marchers and white </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px;">bystanders in front of Klein’s Jewelry Store, but no one was hurt seriously. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px;">It rained a little, and Charles Mauldin said, “Wallace is seeding the clouds.” Albert Turner, of Marion, where Jimmie Lee Jackson was murdered, said from the platform, “I look worse than anybody else on this stage. That’s because I marched fifty miles.” Then he read the Negro voting statistics from Perry County. When he said, “We are not satisfied,” the crowd gave him a rousing cheer. He looked down at his orange jacket and smiled. Mrs. Amelia Boynton spoke; during the previous demonstrations, she had been kicked and beaten, and jailed, for what some members of the press have come to call “resisting assault.” She read the petition, mentioning the “psychotic climate” of the State of Alabama, that a delegation of marchers was seeking to’ present to Governor Wallace, and she was roundly applauded. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px;">Near the end of the ceremony, Rosa Parks, the “Mother of the Movement,” who had set off Dr. King’s first demonstration when she was jailed for refusing to yield her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, received the most enthusiastic cheers of all. “Tell it! Tell! Tell!” some of the marchers shouted. “Speak! Speak!” Finally, after an extravagant introduction by Mr. Abernathy, who referred to Dr. King as “conceived by God” (“This personality cult is getting out of hand,” said a college student, and, to judge by the apathetic reception of Mr. Abernathy’s words, the crowd agreed), Dr. King himself spoke. There were some enthusiastic yells of “Speak! Speak!” and “Yessir! Yessir!” from the older members of the audience when Dr. King’s speech began, but at first the younger members were subdued. Gradually, the whole crowd began to be stirred. By the time he reached his refrains—“Let us march on the ballot boxes. . . . We’re on the move now. . . . How long? Not long”—and the final, ringing “Glory, glory, hallelujah!,” the crowd was with him all the way. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px;">The director of the march, Hosea Williams, of S.C.L.C., said some concluding words, remarking that there should be no lingering in Montgomery that night and exhorting the crowd to leave quietly </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">and with dignity. There was a last rendition of “We Shall Overcome.” Within ten minutes. Dexter Avenue was cleared of all but the press and the troopers. few hours later, the delegation and its petition were turned away by Governor Wallace. At the airport, where there had been some difficulty during the preceding days (an uncanny number of suitcases belonging to marchers were mislaid by the airlines), new flights had been scheduled to get the marchers out of Montgomery. Still, many marchers had to wait at the airport all night long. They rested on the floor, and on the lawn outside, and as often as the police cleared then away they reappeared and fell asleep again. Word came that Mrs. Viola Liuzzo had been shot. Some of the marchers went back to Selma at once. Others boarded planes for home. At the Montgomery airport exit was a permanent official sign reading “Glad You Could Come. Hurry Back.” ♦</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228488159710492714.post-48397454023638149402015-01-14T01:56:00.000-03:002015-01-14T16:04:24.656-03:00In Response to 'The Case Against Human Rights'<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Samoan Observer
recently reprinted Eric Posner's <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/dec/04/-sp-case-against-human-rights">'The
Case Against Human Rights'</a>, an article originally published in The Guardian.
As a Fulbright Scholar brought to Samoa in a human rights capacity, I could not
in good conscience leave this article without response. While certain points in
the article are well-taken, namely that the enforcement of human rights
treaties remains weak, its overall message that international human rights law
is ineffective must be rebutted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Posner points
out that the central problem with human rights law is that it is ambiguous with
poorly defined obligations. By this measure, essentially all constitutions in the
world could be labeled ineffective, yet few legal scholars would posit such an
absurd argument. It is important not to forget that human rights are aspirational
in nature (that is why it is always posed in terms of 'the progressive
realization of human rights'), so simply because states fail to live up to the
ideal of human rights does not mean that the entire framework is inherently flawed.
I caution those who agree with Posner to not throw the proverbial baby out with
the bathwater. And, even if you wish to do so, I ask: what is a better
alternative?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As a human
rights lawyer, I understand acutely the complaints about how international law
and the institutions that uphold it function. But that is only one side of the
coin; there is still much to be said about the efficacy of human rights
treaties—an achievement for which the author does not give due credence. First
and foremost, human rights law has put vulnerable groups onto the international
agenda, providing a platform for advocacy.
If you were to ask women's groups, child advocates, disability rights organizations,
and the like whether they thought human rights law is a failure, you would get
a very different picture than the one painted by Posner. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">These previously
widely neglected issues have become top priorities for national and
international policymaking, budget allocations, and the targeting of
development assistance. To this end, the seemingly 'aloof' international
framework has had a direct and concrete impact on people's lives, health, and
well-being because to some degree, governments have had to put their money
where their mouths are. Prior to the nearly 70-year evolution of the human
rights regime, few governments in the world focused on these groups and none
were held accountable for not doing so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The human
rights principles of equality, nondiscrimination, participation,
accountability, etc. are relevant for any country in the world, irrespective of
government differences. This is because patterns of marginalization, exclusion,
and discrimination are consistent across the world and inequality exists in
every country across the globe. With this in mind, the principles enshrined in
the universal declaration do have universal appeal and they can capture the
imagination. The human rights framework has encouraged advocates to think, not
only in strictly legal terms, but also about strategically using the underlying
principles to inform and shape policymaking and, most importantly, action. The
elevation of civil society as a measure of accountability on governments, both
foreign and domestic, has become a force to be reckoned with. To this end, the
impact of human rights is undeniable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The central strength,
therefore, in human rights law can be found in its local and community-based
capacity to prioritize the most vulnerable and marginalized members of society
within a specific country context. Samoa is a prime example of this,
particularly as it prepares for its first ever State of Human Rights Report due
to Parliament this June.Using the fundamental rights enshrined in Samoa's
constitution—which also happen to be human rights in and of themselves (<i>inter alia,</i> right to life, freedom from
inhuman treatment, freedom of religion, and so on and so forth)—and complementing
them with basic human rights principles, the Report will capture the Samoan
context of the status of human rights.Working closely with community groups and
other stakeholders, this Report aims to give a voice to the vulnerable and
speak on their behalf. Contrary to Posner's arguments, Samoa is using the human
rights framework for incremental improvements without the hubris. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Furthermore,
Fa'a Samoa—an inherently beautiful and democratic way of life—also plays a
large role in this process, exemplifying how culture can complement human
rights law and vice versa. When society functions equally, as human rights
principles provide for, it can lead to a stronger application of cultural
values, especially respect and dignity. The challenge is to collectively
encourage and convince government leaders to revisit laws and policies in order
to ensure better protection of those rights, paying special attention to those
most adversely affected by existing conditions. In this manner, Samoa is
working to progressively realize human rights, which must be applauded, not
ridiculed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Finally, Posner's
argument is not new. Politics continues to soil the original aim and intent of
human rights, but this is less a failure of the ideal of human rights as it is
a failure of governments and abuses of power in general. This would exist with
or without human rights law. However, I prefer an aspirational system
instead of its predecessor, 'gunboat' diplomacy. Of course this system isn't
perfect; no system is. But the fact that human rights are not confined—that they
embrace a wide range of socioeconomic factors—and that they create the
conditions upon which people can lead their lives with dignity is something to
be praised, not disparaged. Establishing the ideal of human rights is a feat in
and of itself because it enables us to perceive what immense tasks are tied to
such an assertion. This is not<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a> failure; this is progress.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15522354486519524638noreply@blogger.com0