MuseumDESCRIPTION:
Across the country and around the world, students with STAND, an anti-genocide coalition, are making their voices heard. Learn what they've been doing this Spring and how the organization remains strong from current student director, Nick Gaw.
TRANSCRIPT:
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Welcome to this week’s episode of Voices on Genocide Prevention. This is Bridget Conley-Zilkic. With me today is the STAND student director, Nick Gaw. He’s a senior at Swarthmore College. Nick, thank you for joining me.
NICK GAW: Thank you.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: I wanted to speak with you about where STAND is today. For people who don’t know what STAND is, let’s start with the basics. What is STAND?
NICK GAW: Sure. We are a student-led division of the Genocide Intervention Network. We are a chapter based organization of about 800 chapters domestically and about 200 international chapters. Together, we’re all very concerned about the situation in Darfur and that’s really where STAND was born. But we’re also recognizing the systematicity of genocide. So we’re also very concerned about conflicts like those in Eastern Burma and the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And STAND, in case people don’t know, it was started by students in response directly, as you said, in response to the situation in Darfur. When did STAND become a part of Genocide Intervention Network?
NICK GAW: We started in 2004 at Georgetown. It was started by a group of students who, as you said, were sort of enraged by the lack of response to the genocide in Darfur. At the same time, a group of students at Swarthmore College were feeling the same thing. So the group at Swarthmore founded the Genocide Intervention Network and STAND, out of the Georgetown folks, was incorporated into GI-NET in 2006. So now we’re the student division and we focus more specifically on the needs of student activists. We try to resource our chapters with everything that they’ll need to be effective advocates on Darfur and on other conflicts as well.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Internationally, where are the active chapters?
NICK GAW: All over the place. We have a bunch of chapters on the continent of Africa itself, some in Ghana. There are a couple of very cool active chapters there. There’s a great contingent of a couple of chapters in France and throughout Europe there are several more. I guess most notably there’s a couple of chapters that are just getting going in Rwanda. There are a lot of individuals who have been, obviously, directly affected by genocide and they see STAND as a way to express their activism there.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: What kind of things have student activists been doing?
NICK GAW: This past semester we’ve been doing a lot of stuff through our advocacy campaign that’s called Darfur From Day One. So beginning in January we conceived of this campaign to make sure that President Obama sticks to his promise of unstinting resolve for the first 100 days that he’s in office. Obviously, we’re excited as a permanent organization to work through with him, through his entire presidency, but we wanted to make sure things got off to the right start.
On day one of his administration, we sent in a whole bunch of faxes, over 1,000 faxes, to President Obama telling him these are the priorities that we’d like to see for Darfur addressed by your administration in these first 100 days. Then on day 25, we singled out really one of the most important priorities, which was then appointing a special envoy for Sudan. That means that there’s somebody in the administration who has an eye specifically on Sudan and that they’re high level enough to have the ear of the president and to make it an administration priority. We were rewarded on March 18th, I believe, when General Gration was appointed special envoy to Sudan. We’re all very excited about that development.
Then on day 50 of President Obama’s administration we launched another report card faxing campaign. Students from across the country and fellow activists joined in and we sent a couple thousand faxes to the White House that detailed where we were and where we needed to go. Then on day 75, we switched gears a little bit and focused on Congress this time, working with the relationships that many of our chapters have with their elected officials in the House of Representatives and the Senate to make sure that every elected official had Darfur on their mind. Students wrote letters and did lobby meetings and all that kind of stuff. It was very exciting, because many students from across the country hand wrote letters and asked their friends to do the same and then they mailed them to us in D.C. Then the George Washington STAND chapter just hand delivered them to each office going around. So it was a cool thing to do.
Coming up, tomorrow actually or the 29th, we have day 100 of President Obama’s administration. On day 100 we’re going all out. We’re going to contact President Obama by all means possible. We’re going to write letters. We’re going to make videos and post them on YouTube and post them to Obama’s account there. We’re going to contact our representatives. We’re going to make calls. It’s going to be a big day of action to make sure that President Obama knows that we have a lot more to do. In these first 100 days we’ve seen deteriorating Sudan. So now, more than ever, is really a time for action.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: What were some of the other asks you’re making? You said the special envoy was one priority. What were some of the other things?
NICK GAW: Right now what’s the most important thing to do, I guess, is first of all complete the Sudan policy review. When President Obama took office he began reviewing a number of ongoing policies of the United States government. This policy review has taken quite a long time to finish. At this point, if further action is going to be taken by the United States government, we first need to finish the review. An expedited review is definitely one thing that we’re asking for. The other thing that we’re asking for is in relation to the expulsion of aid groups that happened shortly after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president, President Omar al-Bashir. So in response to that arrest warrant, the Sudanese government expelled 13 aid organizations who were providing very necessary lifesaving humanitarian aid to the people of Sudan. It’s time that we use every diplomatic tool in the toolkit to bring those aid groups back to Sudan.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: How have students been reacting? The most concerted and systematic assaults in Darfur happened earlier in the conflict, 2003-2005. The situation has changed. Obviously, civilians are still severely at risk and particularly without that aid lifeline getting to them. How have the challenges of organizing students changed over time? Do you find that students are still really interested and ready to speak up? What challenges do you find in speaking out and getting new voices to the effort?
NICK GAW: I find that students are more than ever excited to engage on this issue. Darfur was in the media in a way that it’s not now in 2003-2004. I think it had this sort of buzz of being a hot new issue. Though that has changed in some ways, it’s been replaced by a lot of students who are really dedicated to the long haul. As I mentioned, we’re not here as an organization for just the conflict in Darfur. We’re here as a permanent response to genocide. When we see ethnic cleansing and when we see crimes against humanity that looks like genocide, we have a permanent network of students who are excited to get involved and to help out. It’s been very exciting as we’ve been switching to a more multi-conflict agenda in this past year, year and a half. We’ve been seeing students really getting incredibly excited about addressing the systematic problems for the United States’ failure to react to genocide.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: I’ll just say with the sirens, I’m speaking with Nick live from Swarthmore’s campus. That’s some of the background noise. What kind of students are coming to the movement? Do you find that there’s a lot of people who are interested in pursuing international relations or human rights in some general way as careers? Do you have students who this is part of their collegiate years? What kind of range of people are coming to you?
NICK GAW: I’d say it’s just the absolute widest range. We have high schoolers who are just 14 years old and just learned about the conflict. We have folks who are 22-23 years old and have been active on this issue and interested in IR for six or seven years. It’s an incredible wide range of experience, but also, as you’re pointing out, there’s just a great diversity in the intellectual pursuits that folks pursue in their schooling. We have people who do business, people who do marketing, and other folks who are interested in history or IR or the sciences. I think this movement is really inspiring because it’s so wide reaching. We’ve been able to capitalize on what every student is interested in. It’s incredible to watch all of these students with diverse interests and coming from very different backgrounds, all mobilized, all raising their voices as one.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: For yourself, how did you start getting involved?
NICK GAW: I got involved, I suppose, in 2004. I was a high schooler at the time and I did policy debate. That year the policy debate resolution was something to the effect of the United Nations should do more on a specific conflict and you gave the specific conflict and you talked about how the United States could encourage the UN to do more. I wrote an affirmative case on Darfur, basically assuming that it would be something of an intellectual exercise, but it became a whole lot more. I became very invested in the situation and soon after I came to Swarthmore College and in the legacy of the folks who started the Genocide Intervention Network, I started lobbying and doing some legislative work. I then found myself working with STAND and just really excited by all of the people I was able to meet and all of the students that I was able to network with and work with to end genocide. It’s definitely the kind of movement that you get hooked in and started with, with all of the atrocities that you’re learning about. That draws you in. Then, for me, what’s kept me here is all of the wonderful students that I’ve been able to work with over the past couple of years.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: It’s amazing. As you said, there was an initial generation of students who started this movement, many of whom have graduated and moved on. You’re part of the second wave of students. Now you yourself are a senior. How has the organization managed to survive through all these transitions and how do you transfer the leadership roles?
NICK GAW: It’s far more than even just a second transition. STAND transitions itself completely every year. This is actually one of the things that I like most about STAND. I think it’s very cool to watch a new generation of folks come in year after year, because each position that’s given to a student is only given for one year. The student director, regional outreach coordinator, state outreach coordinators, members of STAND’s managing committee are only there for that one year. Watching a new team bond and develop is something that’s very exciting. We’re in the process of watching that happen right now. A new student director will be taking over on May 15th and a whole new managing committee and new outreach teams will begin then as well. It is a very daunting task. There’s a lot to impart on a new team, but it’s also really exciting and really great for the organization, because it gives everyone a fresh start and brings in a whole lot of new ideas to the table and really brings in some folks who are connected very directly with what chapters have been doing, with what other students have been doing on their campuses.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: As you said, you are a senior, so you will be graduating and facing the job market as well.
NICK GAW: Yes.
BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: It’s on to your own new tasks. For anyone interested in learning more about STAND, about some of their programs that they’ve been running throughout this spring, as well as becoming a part, you can go to their website. It’s www.standnow.org. Nick, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me.
NICK GAW: Thank you. I appreciate it.
NARRATOR: You have been listening to Voices on Genocide Prevention, from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. To learn more about preventing genocide, join us online at www.ushmm.org/conscience. There you’ll also find the Voices on Genocide Prevention weblog.
