Joey Cheek Ranks Among the Last of the Activist Athletes – washingtonpost.com

“You can’t do everything you think is right, but I think everyone should fight for something,”

via Joey Cheek Ranks Among the Last of the Activist Athletes – washingtonpost.com. [Update: the headline as published in the post is "As an activist athlete, Cheek is a rarity".]

Team Darfur athletes are profiled in the Washington Post!

It’s an interesting article.  I constantly wonder what the Beijing Olympics did to the tradition of athlete activism, and what the future of that dual role is.

Of course, the Iranian soccer team’s recent action shows that athlete activism, while perhaps quiet in the US, is definitely not dead.

Tweeting the Holocaust Museum

Originally posted at Change.org.

On Tuesday I had the opportunity to go on a “live tweet” architectural tour of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (@holocaustmuseum).  For those unfamiliar with the “live-tweet” genre, this means that a group of us showed up at the museum, blackberries, iPhones and cell phones in hand, ready to send brief messages out about what we were seeing, learning and feeling as we went along.

We used the “hashtag” #ushmm so that people who couldn’t be there in person could follow along.  For the virtual sense of the tour, check out the feed of tweets from participants.

Sudanese Demonstration at the White House

Coverage from the Enough Project blog.

Saving Lives – Sudanese demonstrate at the White House

On Friday, Sudanese from across the US came together to demonstrate in front of the White House.  Check out a slideshow of photos from the event.

ABC news covered the event:

On Friday, a small group of Sudanese immigrants gathered in front of the White House to express their disappointment in Obama for not being active enough on Darfur from the outset of his presidency.

“I voted for him,” said protestor William Deng, of the Southern Sudan Project. “And I did it because I knew he was going to do something about Darfur. But now he’s silent, he’s never done anything. And I feel, I regret that he doesn’t do anything about our issues.”

Photos from CBC press conference

Check out a slideshow of my photos from the Congressional Black Caucus press conference on Darfur (May 19, 2009)

Omer Ismail, Representative John Lewis, Niemat Ahmadi, Mohamed Yahya

Sienna Miller, Cell Phones and the DRC

Originally posted at Stop Genocide.

Sienna Miller is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with International Medical Corps, TakePart.com, and Children Mending Hearts to raise awareness of the long-running conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and its devastating impact on women and children.

Read more about her experiences on Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3, during which she visited Panzi Hospital:

…visiting this hospital today felt as though there is a glimmering the light at the end of a long and dark tunnel. There are women everywhere who have suffered innumerable traumas and they are finally being given the treatment and care they deserve. This place is set up like a full on sisterhood. And the strength of women in numbers was powerful and inspiring.

Miller isn’t the first a-list Hollywood actress to visit Eastern Congo.  Angelina Jolie went in 2003, and reported back with this travel-log for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Although DRC frequently slips from the headlines when actresses aren’t there, the situation for civilians – especially women and children – is frightening. World Vision’s communications director reported from the region at the end of April:

Questions & Interventions

There’s an interesting and robust debate going on in the blog-o-sphere on the questions surrounding international interventions.

Amanda at Wronging Rights started off the debate with the following questions, about which she says: “As far as I’m concerned, no intervention can be appropriate unless all of those questions have been answered in the affirmative. Unfortunately, arguments for (or, in fairness, against) interventions almost never consider all of them.”

1. Is it ever appropriate for foreign citizens, governments, or international institutions to intervene in crises overseas?
2. If the answer to #1 is “yes,” then when is it appropriate?
3. Do we know to do it? That is, do we understand the technological means that will allow us to accomplish our stated goals?
4. If so, are those means available to us?
5. If they are, are we willing to expend the resources necessary to use those means?

Amanda makes an interesting argument about advocacy for intervention:

…we prefer to believe that the United States (or NATO, or the U.N. Security Council, or the E.U.) is callous than to believe that it is weak. The callousness theory is comforting, in a way, because we get to preserve our own personal sense of superiority. (Sure, those hard-hearts up in DC won’t intervene, but if it was up to me, then I sure as hell would.) Even more importantly, it means that we can preserve the comforting narrative of our own omnipotence, and therefore our own safety. Weakness is altogether scarier.

Michelle at Stop Genocide poses her own questions:

1. What is the context in which the questions must be asked and answered?
2. What is our definition of “success,” and our reasonable expectations of what a particular intervention can achieve in a specific situation?
3. What are the pros and cons of looking at international interventions through the lens of Iraq?

Her most thought-provoking question relates to #1.  After answering that the Genocide Convention, the Responsibility to Protect doctrine and other international principles provide a basis for intervention, she says Ultimately, we do not know the limits of possible interventions until we push against them, nor do will know the unintended consequences until they slap us in the face.”  So we must ask ourselves…