Last night's Human Rights Watch dinner was inspiring. Particularly the focus on standing up at great personal risk to bear witness to what is happening, whether in Sudan, Iran, Uganda, or Fallujah. To bear witness and engage in truthtelling is sadly necessary in this world.
I was struck by Salih Mahmoud Osman's assertion that the situation in Darfur is in many ways worse now than it was during the "ethnic cleansing". Then people were being uprooted from their homes, but the events were on the front pages of the world media. Now people have no homes at all, no livelihood, and they have vanished from the news. Organizations like HRW, Amnesty International, etc, are essential to keep intolerable but static situations from disappearing from the world's conscience.
It was eerie to hear the intake of breath when Beatrice Were made it clear that the United States' abstinence-only policies were undoing much of the progress in fighting AIDS in Uganda. Particularly forceful was the argument that abstinence-only policies reestablish a negative moral association with the AIDS virus, directly counter to the morally neutral, transparent public conversation about causes and prevention (condoms) of the AIDS virus vectors. Who could believe that abstinence-only is a good idea, and that US foreign aid should be tied to this idea? Yes, we despised this policy when the Bush administration put it into effect, but it's awful to hear the reports now coming back from places like Uganda.
Not present, but discussed, was Captain Ian Fishback of the 82nd Airborne. He and two sergeants made public to HRW the widespread prisoner abuse in Fallujah. The report and their statements are powerful documents and a testimony to how important it is that individuals speak up.
An inspiring evening.
