Fight Genocide This Summer -- Internship Apps Due April 10!
| By ivan - Apr 3rd, 2006 at 3:15 pm EDT |
The Genocide Intervention Network is a small, non-profit organization located in Washington, D.C., that works to mobilize an anti-genocide constituency in the United States and Canada to raise the costs for inaction by politicians in the face of genocide. GI-Net empowers its members with the tools to support initiatives that prevent and stop genocidal violence, in particular by protecting civilians in Darfur, Sudan.
We are accepting applications for eight internship positions this summer -- deadline April 10
Last summer, GI-Net Representative Stephanie Nyombayire introduced President Bill Clinton at the Campus Progress National Student Conference (pictures).
Last spring, GI-Net organized more than 300 students in a national lobby day for Darfur as part of our 100 Days of Action -- commemorating the 100 days of the Rwandan genocide when the United States did nothing. At the end of this month, even more student activists will be coming to Washington for a three-day conference, Power to Protect, culminating in the Million Voices for Darfur rally on April 30.
In the past six months, GI-Net has sponsored a 21-day webcast from Darfur, mobilized members to successfully call for the firing of Sudan's lobbyist and facilitated in-person meetings with representatives in their home districts.
Want to be a part of stopping genocide in Darfur and around the world this summer? Apply for an internship by April 10!
We are accepting applications for eight internship positions this summer -- deadline April 10
Last summer, GI-Net Representative Stephanie Nyombayire introduced President Bill Clinton at the Campus Progress National Student Conference (pictures).
Last spring, GI-Net organized more than 300 students in a national lobby day for Darfur as part of our 100 Days of Action -- commemorating the 100 days of the Rwandan genocide when the United States did nothing. At the end of this month, even more student activists will be coming to Washington for a three-day conference, Power to Protect, culminating in the Million Voices for Darfur rally on April 30.
In the past six months, GI-Net has sponsored a 21-day webcast from Darfur, mobilized members to successfully call for the firing of Sudan's lobbyist and facilitated in-person meetings with representatives in their home districts.
Want to be a part of stopping genocide in Darfur and around the world this summer? Apply for an internship by April 10!
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You essentially have two options for really making an impact: Study to someday enter a position in government where you can have a say in the process, or go there with a gun yourself.
All this "awareness raising", feel-good work doesn't actually stop genocide.
While it is true that the odds are against them, that doesn’t mean that it is not worth trying (after all, they are trying to stop genocide here).
Besides, it seems your options are much less realistic. The 1st isn’t an option because it would take much too long to be in an official position to influence to outcome of this crisis. The 2nd is pretty difficult as well. This is not the Spanish Civil War, and there is, to my knowledge, no way to volunteer in a military capacity. Going there yourself with a gun is probably a sure way to get killed – that is, if you aren’t arrested before you even board the plane. Neither probable outcome is at all helpful.
Here are some of the things that they are doing:
1. Raising funds that will, in part, go directly toward the current under funded peacekeeping efforts
2. Trying to support legislative efforts to improve the response to the crisis by, for example, imposing economic and diplomatic penalties on Sudanese officials and militia members and increasing funding and NATO support for peacekeeping forces ( Link )
3. Pressuring the President so that he will provide needed leadership on this issue
4. Applying economic pressure on Sudanese leaders through helping with divestment campaigns
It’s not just awareness raising. However, educating the public on this issue is a vital component to any political/social campaign, especially when the media has done such a shoddy job of keeping it in the public mind.
What if trying comes with a cost to actually getting things done? For instance, perpetual activism is rarely the individual path to finding oneself in institutional power where one can actually make a difference.
Also, given that public activism on genocide bears much functional similarity to activism on any other issue, one could argue that it contributes to the normalization of genocide in the public mind.
Your argument that activism = keeping the issue in the public mind = good doesn't necessarily hold water - you've got to defend and flesh it out more.
They're helpful when thinking in the context of future genocides. I don't know why you've started out with the conclusion that there must be some great way to stop the current genocide.
And if demonstrating an active concerned constituency to those already in institutional power was a meaningless gesture, I'd agree with that sentiment. But you've dismissed the importance of showing institutional leaders that there is interest in this issue--lighting the proverbial fire under their asses, as it were.
Also, not for nothing, but a lot of us are not yet old enough to serve in Congress, so personal institutional influence is not likely going to happen anytime soon, and learning mass mobilization is a good skill for those seeking to enter or influence institutional politics.
I don't think that really works, in practice - I think there are enough activist groups out there pushing on enough different issues that unless there's a genuine widespread anger rising up from the populace (which would exist independently of any activist groups), they really tend not to give a damn.
Of course, they then find it easier to buy off activist groups with little "small victories" that the activists can take back to their mailing list for more donations but in reality don't change a thing - such as "Sudan's lobbyists quitting".
I don't think activist-pushed, issue-specific 'mobilization' is the way to win elections - instead, it leads to unstable, fractured coalitions of people each concerned with 'their' issue, as the dems are now finding out.
Except, in a case like this, there isn't a contrary activist group--there's nobody advocating FOR the genocide to continue. An activist base on the issue, one willing to work to make life more difficult for legislators that oppose them, and willing to lend an attaboy to those that offer help, actually does make an impact. Consider the example of "Flaggers" in Georiga--until one of their allies turned around and undercut them (with a pretty damn brilliant compromise, I must say), they were a fairly potent force led by a fairly small activist core.
Fractured coalitions are usually the fastest way to 50%+1. Such is the system in which we operate--homogeneity is the only fix I can think of, and tricks like "Max Black" redistricting, which eliminate the need for these mobilizations, hurt us more than they help.
Oh, sure there is. It's just a matter of defaults rather than an issue-oriented opposition. You'd be mistaken, though, to assume that just because it doesn't take the traditional 'activist push' form that it's any less formidable. Hell, when I met Romeo Dallaire, even he wasn't pushing for a straight-out Darfur intervention.
Never heard of 'em. Linkage? Also, were they working on an issue that would require national intervention in another nation?
The Flaggers, by the by, weren't advocating anything nearly so important. They were opposed to changing the state flag. They managed an impressive grassroots effort, and by all accounts contributed to the first Democratic gubernatorial defeat in Georgia since Reconstruction began. The Republican they helped elect, Sonny Perdue, found a compromise in using the old Confederate national flag, as opposed to the battle flag, on the state banner. The Flaggers were pissed, but fractured.