let us debate

let us debate

A few days ago i wrote a post titled "in defence of freedom of expression" about a cyber protest by the organisation Reporters sans frotières (RSF) on NOv 7th. I had sent an email to all my friends to visit the site during the protest hours and offer their support to the cause if they believed in the fundamental right for freedom of expression.
This was my reaction from one of my friends, which he posted in his blog too.I reproduce it here for your convenience.
"A friend sent me a mail asking as many people as possible to sign in to a particular website (http://www.rsf.org) during certain time windows, to protest human rights abuses in countries with documented records of such abuses. The website in question supposedly belonged to a worldwide coalition of journalists. Their rationale for inviting visitors to click on at their site was to collect electronic signatures in a kind of virtual petition to the regimes of the offending countries.

Now, I know this is an utterly defeatist attitude, especially coming from someone who's going to build a career in public health, which by definition means working against hopeless odds.... but I have serious doubts about the efficacy of gestures like the kind of campaign these journos suggested.

Regimes who use torture as State policy, and execute their own citizens in football stadia, are unlikely to pay attention to a bunch of bleeding heart idiots clicking on internet buttons. And they sure as hell aren't going to feel any "moral pressure".

Shashi Tharoor, in one of his books, argued that Gandhian non-violence as a pressure tactic could work only against an establishment that was vulnerable to "moral" issues, and took international opinion into consideration. Hence, while by using satyagraha as a tool of resistance, Gandhi managed to drive the British Empire out of India, the same tactics wouldn't have done much for Jews in nazi Germany.

And lastly, when the West- the so-called paragon of human rights and democracy, refuses to take its citizens' feelings into consideration while making a profoundly immoral decision (Bush and Blair ignored the largest street protests in the history of mankind to go ahead and invade Iraq), does anyone actually expect banana republics to toe the line because a group of educated liberals spread out all over the world click on internet buttons from their comfortable living rooms?

I think not."

My response to his post was:

Yes I agree it is a defeatist attitude - particularlycoming from a young person. This is the same kind of attitude that drives the creme de la creme of our country pack up and settle down in the west - "oh the politicans, the bureaucracy, nothing works."

When Gandhi proposed the Satyagraha I am sure ithere were many who wondered if he was under the influence of some hallucinogens - "Make peace, Not War" kind of ideaological trip. But he was a far better strategist than that. Believe me if he was heading the Jews he might have found some peaceful way to unnerve Hitler and the nazis too.

All said and done today no country, however totalitarian, can ignore global sentiments today. So it is a good thing to voice protest over something bad happening in these pockets. There are a whole lot of people from these countries living in freer countries who could organise themselves against these atrocities in their countries. Who knows some of them could go back and organise people to bring about a change. This is to tell them that they can count on the support of people around the world.Second and more important is that it is a warning for those countries which may try something similar in their countries - so people in these countries protest this as a fundamental right violation.

The problem with cynics is they wont even try - they defeat the cause even before it has begun. Cynics are bad in any form but in the form of educated, young they are the worst!
Come get up from that warm bed and click that site on NOv 7th. it doesn't take much and who knows something might actually change!

This friend is a very well read person full of youthful passion against felt and perceived injustices in the world.I was slightly worried that if this is the reaction of such people, am I missing something?
Just throwing it open for a debate.