Yesterday Human Rights Watch released their annual World Report for 2010, detailing the state of human rights affairs around the world for the previous year. Many of the stories they focused on were also covered and editorialized here throughout 2009, from government abuses in Eritrea and Sri Lanka to increased civilian casualties in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the brutal tactics of Robert Mugabe’s army in Zimbabwe’s diamond fields. Likewise, similar to many of the observations we made in our 2009 Year in Review, the overall theme of this year’s report was the increasing crackdown on human rights activists and others, such as journalists and bloggers, who attempt to shine light on human rights abuses wherever they may occur.
I make this comparison not to boast about how smart we are here at the Foreign Policy Blogs, but because it demonstrates a clear trend that impacts the effectiveness of the human rights movement. When many of the giants in human rights advocacy first started out, it was to highlight situations that few people were aware of and make people pay attention. But through awareness campaigns and technology, the examples above show that people are paying attention. What is still missing is that last piece of the puzzle, where words are followed with action.
The last two weeks has seen the world put together a monumental relief campaign for Haiti. From troops and medical teams being deployed to fundraising campaigns on Facebook and in local communities, and even countries offering to donate land to Haitian victims who want a new life, the fact that we are able to do so much in such a small timeframe shows that people do care about the wellbeing of people they have never met. But while we are good at reacting to major disaster, we often fail when it comes to the smaller disasters that are far more common in the world. Until we decide to put a fraction of the effort we have put into the Haiti relief efforts towards improving the quality of everyday life for millions who face human rights abuses, it is unlikely that any real change will come.
