I have been involved with Amnesty International for seven years.
In that time, I have not only helped save the lives of numerous prisoners of conscience (those imprisoned solely because of their political or religious beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, etc., who have not used or advocated violence) but I also have gotten a better history lesson than one could ever hope for in a semester course.
What involvement in Amnesty did for me was foster awareness of the pressing issues of the day.
Often the concerns of the organization reflected the issues over and reactions to U.S. foreign policy.
This awareness has never been as crucial for me than in the past year. Though the mainstream media in the United States had only just picked up on the plight of Afghan women and the fact that the United States originally helped back the Taliban, I already had found an outlet in which I could become aware of and active on these issues for years.
This awareness immediately helped me link the Sept. 11 attacks to a broader context, as it does also for the impending war in Iraq.
This context includes not only the underhanded nature of the United States’ policies in the majority of the rest of the world, but also that of the seemingly ignorant and, in some sense, complicit mentality of many in this country.
I feel it is imperative that we, as citizens granted free speech, not only know what our government is doing, but voice our opposition to the actions we do not agree with.
To the question, “Why do they hate us?” my dismayed answer is, “Don’t you know? Why wouldn’t they hate us?”
It is frustrating to me to see the very same people who ask this question fail to get past it and understand that they have a voice and a responsibility to use that voice.
To a country that extols the merits of freedom, I must pose the question: At whose expense does that freedom come? The citizens of Afghanistan? The people of Iraq? Those in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11?
We have been too casual with our right to criticize our government. It is incumbent upon us, the well informed, opinionated citizens, to voice our opposition to the powers that be on actions that we take issue with.
Can we not now make our freedom a matter of responsibility to speak truth to power, instead of taking that freedom for granted and letting others pay for it?
If there is one lesson to take away from Sept. 11, it is that we need to make our collective voice stronger, to yell out, ” Not in my name” and to stand firm in conviction and knowledge.
If there is a way to hope for a more humane resolution to the situation in Iraq than bombs, it lies in us, the compassionate, intelligent citizens of the world, to compel our leaders to find an alternative.
Stephanie Margherio is an English junior and president of Loyola’s chapter of Amnesty.
