Justice for all

This summer, I’ll be writing for Jolkona Foundation. Jolkona is a nonprofit organization aiming to build awareness and mobilize young people to support successful community development projects around the world. Jolkona provides an online platform where it lists the projects it supports, and allows individuals to donate small amounts of money to these high-impact projects. The most unique thing, perhaps, about Jolkona is that they show you tangible results for each gift and explain exactly where your money is going. They have projects around the world in empowerment, public health, education, cultural identity, and the environment. And one aspect that resonates with me is that they hope to target young donors - ages 15 to 35 - by helping them control exactly how their contributions are spent.

This summer, Jolkona has invited several young people to blog about their experiences, the issue areas Jolkona focuses on, and the specific projects Jolkona supports. This is an attempt to raise awareness of Jolkona’s work as well as to Jolkona reach out to more young people. I’ve become a blogger there and will be writing every so often about human rights and women’s empowerment issues, hoping to use my words to propel people to take action on the site. Here is an excerpt from my introductory post:

But I’m here to tell you that writing coupled with action does and can make a difference. I’ve been writing this year at my personal blog, Justice for all, where I blog about political and human rights issues, hoping to better articulate the vital role that young people can play in the movement. As a 20 year old, I clearly don’t know as much about human rights as seasoned experts, but what I have realized is that I can contribute something through my writing: a youthful perspective. Through my blog, I have reached out to so many members of “Gen Y,” and have been able to discuss with them the importance of human rights, and the importance of caring. My words cannot do everything, but through contributing my voice - at least I am joining the movement for change and helping it grow.

I’d encourage you to read the entire post here to learn more about my passion for writing and how I hope to translate that into action. If you liked the post, please follow Jolkona’s blog to continue reading about the experiences and opinions of not only me, but also other young people doing some very cool things. And, if you’re interested in blogging for them, please let me know and I can put you in touch!

For those of you who actually read my blog, you might notice that I haven’t written in a while. Quite a long while, considering I used to write at least twice a week, if not more. But the reason is - I’ve finished my exams at LSE and spent a week traveling around the UK and moving into my room in Geneva, Switzerland! My mother came to visit me, and I showed her around London, while inside I was saying goodbye to a city I had grown to deeply love throughout the past year. I felt not yet ready to be uprooted yet again, to embark on yet another whirlwind adventure, to build a temporary life again in yet another new city. But life doesn’t stop according to our wishes, and so I moved on to another new experience.

When I arrived in Switzerland, I had the opportunity to take a long, winding train ride through the picturesque countryside, replete with verdant farmland and the Alps, chilly and ominous in the distant horizon. We reached Zermatt, a town nestled at the foot of some of the most majestic snow-capped mountains of the country. From there, we took a rickety cable car ride to a frighteningly high point of 13,000 feet - Europe’s highest mountain lift. As we stepped out onto a platform and into the fresh, chilly air, I found myself blinded by the dazzling white mountain peaks we were surrounded by, the most magnificent being the Matterhorn peak. This was true grandeur, and the moment remains fresh in my mind.

So why do I tell you this story? Because on the way back home, as I watched the mountains recede into the distance and basked in the sun on the peaceful train ride, I couldn’t stop thinking about how freaking lucky I was. How many people have the chance to travel the world and to see some of the most amazing sights in the world by the age of 20? This year, I took in the regal air of London, the lovely coastlines of Greece, the cheeriness of Dublin, the literary atmosphere of Scotland, and the international legal experience of the Hague. How many students have such amazing opportunities?

Stepping out into the dazzling view of the Alps - like every other exciting opportunity I’ve had recently - has made me more aware of my status in the world. I’ve enjoyed every moment, but I’ve never stopped appreciating how incredibly lucky I am to have these experiences. I’m well aware that I’m insanely privileged, and that the majority of the world doesn’t have these opportunities - or even anything close. And, I feel that it’s completely unfair for me to be this lucky, while so many others suffer from human rights violations, poverty, or conflict.

What’s ironic is that having the world’s beauty and grandeur thrust in my face gives me a great desire to work towards ensuring that others have these opportunities too. But seeing extreme poverty, somehow, hasn’t given me this drive in the past. I was born in India and have visited several times. I’ve unquestionably seen poverty and underdevelopment - in the rickshaw drivers, the domestic servants and their poor families, the sad state of government education, the utter lack of sanitation and the mounds of trash at every street corner, the pervasive corruption. I’ve seen it, but to be completely honest - seeing poverty and social problems firsthand scared me. It didn’t motivate me to act, but rather made me want to escape. It didn’t inspire me, but made me feel dejected, and powerless. Strangely, having some of the best opportunities to travel, to enjoy, and to experience life - have motivated me more, making me even more aware of my privilege, and the unfairness of it all.

Perhaps it’s because I didn’t work directly with or alongside the underprivileged in India, or perhaps it’s because I was younger and hadn’t reflected on what I saw around me. Perhaps being so close to poverty is just so frightening that I retreated rather than became inspired. Either way, it’s ironic; students and Peace Corps volunteers often cite fieldwork experience in developing countries as the most formative experiences of their life which truly caused them to become dedicated to this work. Maybe for me it’ll be the opposite - and maybe I’ll cite my experiences with the world’s grandeur and beauty as my inspiration to contribute to the incredible change happening around us, so necessary and yet so exciting.

A few days ago, amidst my crazy studying for final exams (which I have finally finished!), I ran across this simple, yet immensely poignant “Letter to a Law Student Interested in Social Justice,” by Professor Bill Quigley. Now, I’m not a law student, but I hope to be sometime in the next few years. And, the letter truly touched me. If I could, I’d rewrite every portion of the letter here - because it was just that inspiring and enlightening. But I can’t, and so I’ll focus on a few portions that really spoke to me. In the letter, Quigley says:

Advocates who do not create time for regular reflection can easily become angry and overwhelmed and bitter at the injustices around and ultimately at anyone who does not share their particular view about the best way to respond.

This is so true. When you start thinking about critical issues and social change, and when you get consumed in all the grand ideas of how messed up the world is and what you can do to help - everything else starts to seem a bit more trivial. You start to get really angry when you see people constantly striving to become millionaires, or just trying to climb the corporate ladder. It starts to become extremely frustrating to witness people obsessed with acquiring material possessions and fame.

This is happening to me. For the past week or so, this feeling has been intensifying, as I keep wondering: Why don’t people care more? There are so many ongoing atrocities around the world: conflict, torture, poverty. When there is so much to be done, how can people sit idle? It’s started to make me angry, because I just don’t think it’s right.

True, society is changing, and it’s changing for the better. Every day more people are dedicating time and effort to public service, and the nonprofit industry is becoming mainstream. Social enterprises are pulling talent in with fresh, innovative ideas and business models. But at the end of the day, it’s frustrating to still see so much greed everywhere.

Let’s face it - society’s priorities are completely screwed up. Who said it was okay to have prestige defined by the number of zeroes in your salary, the brand names in your closet, or the cars in your driveway? Why is it considered “cool” to live extravagantly, to have all the latest gadgets? Why does society define people by what they own, and not who they are? We all have our priorities wrong when money and possessions and fame become more important than integrity, humility, passion, and dedication. Prestige needs to be defined by what’s in a person’s heart, by compassion and goodness, and by dedication to a mission larger than yourself - passion for what you do, and passion for changing the world.

This is one of the problems with law school. In his letter, Quigley describes how students enter law school with the desire to help others. Bright eyed and imbued with idealism, they hope to use their legal skills to defend those who need it most. But 2/3 of those who enter law school with interest in government or public sector jobs do not end up in that line of work. Quigley quotes a student who said: “The first thing I lost in law school was the reason that I came.” Why? Because law - and thus, law schools - ultimately isn’t about justice, or upholding some noble ideal. When it comes down to it, much of the legal profession is about making money. He writes:

Unfortunately, the experience of law school and the legal profession often dilute the commitment to social justice lawyering. The repeated emphasis in law school on the subtleties of substantive law and many layers of procedure, usually discussed in the context of examples from business and traditional litigation, can grind down the idealism with which students first arrived. It pains me to say it, but justice is a counter-cultural value in our legal profession. Because of that, you cannot be afraid to be different than others in law school or the profession – for unless you are, you cannot be a social justice lawyer.

There’s the key point - in order to care about others, and want to make a difference in others’ lives - you’re automatically different. This is true for law school, but it’s also true in business school, and for society as a whole. Why is it that if you actually care, you have to be different? An anomaly? Shouldn’t the desire to better the world be something normal? Something admirable, something to aspire to?

But it’s not. I don’t blame individuals for chasing success or money. When society values something, it’s natural for people to gravitate towards that. Not everyone knows what their true passion is, but it’s often because they haven’t been exposed to all the career paths out there, and so turn to society’s conceptions of what to do as a rough guideline. Well, that guideline is skewed, and it needs to be changed.

That’s why before we can help “change the world,” we have to change ourselves. As you, and I, and others one by one decide to go against the grain and work to improve the world we live in, society will undergo a shift. Someday, it’ll become more normal for law schools to emphasize human rights law or public defense. Someday, I’ll have to hope that working on criminal justice reform or microfinance will be as prestigious as being an investment banker or corporate lawyer. We’re not there yet, but I hope someday we will be.

This week, I’m really excited to feature SAWA Global, because I’m convinced their work is extremely important and yet not recognized enough.

I strongly believe that we have to empower grassroots leaders and allow them to tell their stories. Most of the biggest names of organizations, nonprofits and social entrepreneurs we hear of are Western-based: Amnesty International, Acumen Fund and Jacqueline Novogratz, the Save Darfur Coalition - to name a few. But although many Western-based organizations and people are doing great work, the truth is they also have the internet access and marketing skills to get the word out there about their work. But for every Western entrepreneur, there are hundreds of innovators in developing countries that are working hard to cause grassroots social change — but they are not being recognized. Though they may be some of the most bright, passionate, and hardworking change agents out there, many of these people just don’t have the connections and network that we in the Western world do when it comes to marketing themselves. This saddens me.

This is where SAWA Global comes in. Sawa connects local heroes to the world, quite simply:

Sawa empowers unsung grassroots leaders (Sawa Heroes) in the world’s poorest countries that have found innovative solutions to global challenges by documenting their projects with media tools and connecting them to a global community (Sawa Mentors).

SAWA’s local heroes have focused on critical social issues like poverty, neglected children and youth, public health, and the environment. In order to bring attention to the ways in which these heroes are transforming their communities, SAWA Global recruits and trains local videographers in the world’s 50 poorest countries. SAWA Video Journalists then identify local heroes and document these projects and initiatives via video - which are then profiled on the organization’s website. The SAWA Mentor program then allows anyone who is interested to work with the SAWA Hero, learn from their success and share their own skills and ideas to help the project succeed - thus connecting the local heroes with a truly global community.

So while you’re enjoying a relaxing weekend, spend a few minutes watching some of the amazing videos SAWA Global has created, and learn about the great work being done by grassroots entrepreneurs in the developing world. Here’s a great video to start off with:

Recently I featured The Enough Project and the work they are doing to raise awareness of the war in Congo. Enough says that sexual violence in Eastern Congo is often intensified by wars over access to “conflict minerals,” - metals which end up being used in our cell phones and other electronic devices. The good thing about Enough is that they are putting Congo on the radar, highlighting a horrible conflict which is potentially worse than Darfur but simply doesn’t gain the level of attention it deserves from the media and international community. Most people do not know about Congo’s “invisible” war. They should.

However, is Enough oversimplifying the issues? The way they phrase it, your cell phones are driving a war in the Congo. Thus, by reducing your use of electronic goods containing these metals, you can help end the demand for “conflict metals” and thus cut off some of the armed forces’ income. You can help end the war! An easy action to take and to encourage others to take - right?

But wait - maybe it’s not that simple. Recently I read an excellent article by Texas in Africa (amazing blog, by the way) which claims otherwise: there’s a lot more to this conflict, and framing it as a resource war is actually simply sensationalizing the issue to make it more attractive to the general public. Texas in Africa sums it up:

“Violence over access to resources is one dimension of the fighting there, but the roots of the conflict are much more about land tenure and citizenship questions than they are about who gets access to minerals like tin, caseterite, coltan, and gold. The fight over the minerals is an effect of these underlying crises; not the primary, or even tertiary cause of most of the fighting.”

So even if these campaigns successfully helped end or reduce the mineral trade, there is no guarantee that the war would end. Because it is fueled by other underlying factors, not just the fight over mineral resources. Fighting will likely continue, because there would still be widespread poverty and the complete lack of rule of law. The government in Congo is simply not capable of providing security for its citizens, and the failure of governance continues to be a problem. There is immense corruption. Rape and violence has become a way of life for some of these militia groups - all this is not going to end so easily.

Moreover, the campaign to end the mineral trade could actually have negative effects on the population in Congo. For example, suddenly closing the mines could end up laying off many families who are dependent on the income from working in the mining industry. Are there alternate programs available to provide employment for these workers? If not, this could actually be a harmful move despite the attempt to help.

The sad truth is this: people are more willing to do something about an issue if they feel like they are connected to the conflict in some way. This is similar to the push for divestment from Sudan - when the public feels responsible for or connected to a faraway war, they feel much more compelled to act. And if you try to present a complex situation as it is, the fact is the general public is just not going to listen. People won’t get involved unless they think they understand the issue and understand what they can do about it. And it has to be somewhat simple to understand. If you describe all the factors leading to the war in Congo, it’s just not “sexy” advocacy anymore. Talking about land rights and citizenship and corruption may not be as sexy as talking about your cell phones fueling a war, and so advocacy campaigns don’t discuss these issues. At the end of the day, oversimplification of the reality is all too common in human rights advocacy campaigns and through misinformation, can perhaps cause more harm than good.