Human Rights Education

Article 26
December 2008

Voice from the field

Mia Kirshner, author, artist, activist and actor came to speak at Loyola Marymount University in "The Living Room," on Friday, November 6, 2008. As a result, I, Professor Judy Battaglia, will be teaching her book, I Live Here, in all three of my classes (two sections of Critical Thinking and one section of Interpersonal/Small Group Communication) next semester. All copies of the text sold out at the event. Our LMU bookstore had to order more!

Kirshner started off her speech by explaining to students that she has always been interested in telling stories of people whose stories typically have not been told. She began by discussing her own feelings of disconnection. Kirshner asked the students to stand up if they have ever felt isolated, disconnected, and/or apathetic. Almost the whole room stood up in unison. She then asked how many of them felt "plugged in" and very few students stood up. This attention getter invited the students to visually see their connections, and their complacency in their own domination and the domination of others. The danger is when we stop talking, and when we stop listening. It is when we stop questioning, and then the domination becomes hegemonic, insidious, hidden and seemingly innocuous. Kirshner made us question things that maybe we were uncomfortable questioning before, or maybe we never even thought to ask; perhaps because it was often easier not to question.

Kirshner was candid and honest with students while sharing her own story of abuse and her family's stories of Holocaust survival. Her speech functioned to shock the students out of their stupors. They know they exist in a "bubble on a bluff" at LMU-a midsized Catholic University in the heart Los Angeles. They were prompted to recognize their privilege, (not to feel guilty about it-but recognize it) and to look at exactly what is at stake. Who has to suffer so that they can have their expensive sweatshirts stuffed in plastic bins under their dorm room beds? They laughed and cried with Kirshner. Many students left with goose bumps. Almost all wanted to help and take action.

In my student responses, many students were stunned by Mia Kirshner's "realness." They said her speech/reading "felt more like a conversation among friends than a formal speaker?and I appreciated that." As in I Live Here, we ate olives, bourikas, drank coffee and had a conversation. As a Clinical Professor in Communication Studies, I can safely say I have never been a part of something so exciting, powerful and necessary.

Kirshner ended her speech by saying, "Look, this is not about us and them." She stressed the fact that we all need to help and work together; that these are human rights struggles and abuses. It is not as simple as the binaries of privilege and oppression, that it is more than the "haves and the have-nots." This is bigger than all of that. She reinforced the notion that the "personal is political and that the political is personal." She warned that the war is under our feet, that we can taste the blood and the rust in our mouths. She told my students, "If you do not know where to start, start with what moves you, start locally-start here. Start in L.A. There are so many stories here (as her voice trailed off)..."

We can not go anywhere without brining our history and our baggage with us, but we do not want that history to destroy us. If we can understand where we have been, perhaps it will help us light the path to see where we are going. Kirshner taught the students to question the status quo. Some told me it was the most successful and moving event they had ever been to at LMU. Dr. Philip Wander, Full Professor in Communication Studies at LMU, compared Kirshner to Susan Sontag and Hannah Arendt, heralding her as the next "public intellectual." It was a wonderful opportunity for faculty, staff and students alike.

Kirshner was able to shed light and give faces, places and names to people who exist in the margins of society-those who are systematically silenced, disenfranchised. She asked, "What happens to the women and children who exist in between the bombings?" It is those in the liminal spaces who are forgotten. Kirshner helped us to not only to not forget, but to remember and most importantly to listen.

Purchase a copy of I Live Here

NEW EDUCATOR RESOURCES

www.amnestyusa.org/education
Stolen Voices - Available Now!
• A companion curriculum guide for the book Stolen Voices: Young People's War Diaries from WWI to Iraq. The guide is geared towards grades 7-9 and is now available online in PDF format. To purchase a copy of the book, please shop amazon.com via the AIUSA website.

In Plain Sight - Coming Soon! Amnesty International and WITNESS have teamed up to create human rights-based educational materials for six WITNESS videos for high schools and educators around the U.S. DVDs with both the curriculum and videos will be available in late January. To pre-order your FREE copy, send an email with your complete mailing address to education@aiusa.org

The six videos and human rights issues they are address are:

° A Duty to Protect: Justice for Child Soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Running time: 14:10 minutes
Co-Producers: Association des Jeunes pour le Dévelopment Intégré à Kalundu/WITNESS

° System Failure: Violence, Abuse, and Neglect in the California Youth Authority
Running Time: 32 minutes
Co-Producers: Ella Baker Center for Human Rights' Books Not Bars project / WITNESS.

° Amazon Watch 2006 Compilation DVD
Chevron Texaco on Trial, 5 min
Peru's Camisea Project, 12 min.
Co-Producers: Amazon Watch / WITNESS

° Rise: Revolutionary Women Reenvisioning Afghanistan
Running Time: 13 minutes
Co-Producers: Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan / WITNESS

° Equal Access: Integrated Education for the Romani Children in Bulgaria
Running Time: 16 minutes
Co-Producers: DROM / WITNESS

° Outlawed: Extraordinary Rendition, Torture, and Disappearances in the "War on Terror"
Running Time: 27 minutes
Co-Producers: 14 U.S. and international human rights and civil rights organizations

TAKE ACTION

#1 - Support Amnesty International USA's 100 Days campaign. In the first 100 days, Amnesty International is calling on the new administration to:

announce a plan and date to close Guantanamo;
issue an executive order to ban torture and other ill-treatment, as defined under international law;
ensure that an independent commission to investigate abuses committed by the U.S. government in its "war on terror" is set up.

You can learn more and Take Action on our website

#2 - Join thousands of other across the globe to take action and stand up for the civilians of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Every day people die, are displaced or raped. This tragedy has gone on long enough. Please use your voice for the voice to help put a stop to the human rights and humanitarian catastrophe in the DRC.