Recent events have caused me to reflect on things, one of those things is the death penalty. Those who’ve known me for a long time know that I’ve been a fairly active member of Amnesty International for a long time. Anyone who knows Amnesty’s work well will know that they are opposed to the death penalty. Does this mean that I am also opposed to the death penalty? As a matter of fact, I am, but it was by no means an automatic following of Amnesty stance that led me to oppose the death penalty.

In my younger days, I was considerably more conservative than I am now on certain things. I believed that if you were poor, it was probably because you were lazy, if you were in jail, you probably did something very bad, and if you were on death row, then you probably killed someone. Wait, that’s not quite true – go through that last sentence and take out all instances of the word “probably”.

In the bubble I grew up in, you had to be very lazy to be poor (and even then, poverty was not guaranteed). I didn’t even know anyone who went to jail, that was something that happened to other people. But those bubbles burst, and your horizons expand, and you realize that there’s a lot more to it than that. You eventually insert the word “probably” into those sentences, then you realize the implications of a world where not everything is clear-cut, black-and-white.

Consider the fallibility of the justice system. Nobody likes to admit that they’ve made a mistake, but that doesn’t mean we should pretend that it never happens. When I was in high school, I acted in a play called “Twelve Angry Men” which, you might have guessed, is about a jury deliberating on the innocence or guilt of a man accused of murder. Two films have been made of the play, but the superior of the two is the black-and-white 1957 version.¹ I encourage all of you to go watch it. The play begins with a vote of 11-1 in favour of “guilty”, and as the discussion develops, inconsistencies are found in the evidence, prejudices are found in the jurors, and slowly but surely reasonable doubt wins the day, and they vote for acquittal. This probably doesn’t happen every day, and I think part of the point of the play is to show how easy it is for a jury to make a wrong decision. The point is that it is not so hard to imagine that an innocent person might be convicted, even with the allowance of “reasonable doubt”.

these developments cast a dark shadow of doubt over the conviction which I believe goes a long way past “reasonable”

The recent example of Troy Anthony Davis (pictured) is a good one. He was convicted of murder mostly because of eyewitness testimony. There was nothing else to link him to the murder. No murder weapon was ever found. Since the trial, seven out of nine eyewitnesses have either changed or recanted their testimony. Now, I don’t think he’s guilty, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that these developments cast a dark shadow of doubt over the conviction which I believe goes a long way past “reasonable”. In a flawed system, there is always a chance of punishing an innocent man, and the death penalty is irreversible.

How many innocent people are wrongfully punished? One for every ten guilty? Maybe one for every hundred? There probably is some ratio that society would deem to be “acceptable”, and I should hope that it is very high. However, when it comes to final and irreversible punishments, we could simply avoid it ever happening by abolishing the death penalty.

But what about the guilty ones? On the same day that Troy Davis was executed, another man named Lawrence Brewer was also put to death. His crime was the murder of a black man by chaining him to the back of a truck and dragging him until the body was so disfigured, that it was mistaken for road kill. In this case, he was convicted using DNA evidence which matched blood found on him to the blood of the victim. Surely people like this deserve to die?

Maybe they do, but it is not for us to decide. It is not the role of a state to kill people. The whole point of the law is to protect people, to guarantee our equality and freedom. Killing someone achieves none of those aims. Removing a dangerous individual from society can be accomplished just as easily with imprisonment. I believe the real reason we seem so keen on killing people is that we feel a need to satiate our desire for revenge. It is dangerous, and quite barbaric for a society to give into those feelings.

“…this is the point where I would have to abandon my support for the death penalty – it simply doesn’t work”

Maybe the death penalty could act as a deterrent. If this was the case, we would see a significantly lower incidence of violent crime in places where the death penalty is practiced when compared to similar places where it is not. If I really wanted to believe in the death penalty, if I really wanted to ignore all the wishy-washy philosophical and moral arguments about why it is wrong for the state to kill people, and concentrate on the facts, then this is the point where I would have to abandon my support for the death penalty – it simply doesn’t work.

Curiously, and counterintuitively enough, places that still practice the death penalty have a significantly higher incidence of violent crime than places that don’t. I don’t know why, but I can hazard a guess. If the state thinks it’s ok to kill people, then that sends a message to the population. People probably don’t even realize it on a conscious level, but the message probably goes something like “it’s ok to solve problems by killing people”. It certainly doesn’t act as a deterrent.

So we have a form of punishment that is irreversible, brutal, and final. There is always the chance that you accidentally punish someone who is innocent. In terms of protecting the rest of the population, it can be easily substituted. And to top it all off, it doesn’t even work as a deterrent. I understand that it used to be very common during medieval times (as was torture, but that’s another article), and maybe it worked back then, though I doubt it. It’s about time we pulled ourselves out of the dark ages and abolished this barbaric practice worldwide, once and for all, because it doesn’t belong here. We’ve gone to the moon, and we’ve sent probes to take our curiosity beyond the farthest reaches of our own solar system, yet we still have capital punishment… wtf mate?

Footnotes

Jeff Widener/Associated Press

June 4th 1989 is a date that will forever be remembered in infamy in history. It was the day that the Chinese government cracked down violently on the pro-democracy movement began by students, but eventually growing to include a broad cross-section of the population of the world’s most populous people. That day, tanks rolled in to the capital to (quite literally) crush what was, in effect, a peaceful social movement with legitimate grievances and legitimate demands.

On the same day, unbeknown to most of the world, this date had a profound impact on the short history of one seven-year-old living in Hong Kong at the time. Seven years is not a long time to have lived for, but it was plenty a long enough time to die for, and in that context I was able to understand what was happening – that people were dying. It was a powerful lesson in political realism – two groups of people disagreed, the group with tanks kills the other group and wins by default. The brutality and injustice of this event so traumatized me that I remember crying. Twenty years on, the memory of it still traumatizes me.

Obviously nobody likes injustice. No reasonable person would dream of saying that they would prefer to see thousands of innocent people killed over such an event not happening. Yet many people are content to go about their daily lives without contributing the slightest effort towards alleviating the unimaginable suffering of others. This particular case of the brutal and unjust slaughter of innocent people was one of many, and I understood that at the time, but for some unfathomable reason, after June 4th 1989, I was a very different person, and was now destined to choose a very different path.

When discussing complex events in world history, the lines of cause and effect are often blurred. After all, who is to say what the cause of any given event is? World War I is the oft-cited example as it illustrates the point very well. Simple-minded folk often point to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary as the cause for the war, but to see it this way is like saying that electricity causes computer viruses. Many different things contributed to the start of World War I, such as the unification of the German-speaking peoples into a single nation-state, the creation of the Von Schlieffen plan, even the formation of numerous alliances in balance-of-power politics can be cited as causes for the first world war.

The reason I bring this up is because I am often asked about how I got into Columbia. If I am at a party, I will often answer with “I don’t know”, or something similarly vague. (If I am being “hit-on” by someone in whom I have no interest, I will often reply with “I majored in mathematics” which will kill almost any conversation, but that is another story entirely). The truth of the matter is that my path to Columbia University was a meandering and complex one, and one that is difficult to explain in a short time. Until recently, I don’t even believe that I had a good answer to the question, but reflecting on my life, and in light of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, I now feel comfortable in finally giving the long form of the answer.

My path to Columbia was not a conventional one by any stretch of the imagination. I was not a distinguished student as an undergraduate. In fact, my academic record prior to graduation was very poor indeed. At the University of Melbourne, my alma mater, there is a body known as the “Unsatisfactory Progress Committee” or UPC for short. The role of this body is to interview and review underperforming students and determine a course of action which is in the best interest of everybody, supposedly. One’s first appearance before the UPC is ordinarily fairly tame, with a slap on the wrist and a “change your study habits or else” message of some kind. The second visit is far more serious, and it is not uncommon for enrolment to be suspended temporarily, altered in some way (full-time to part-time study), or in some cases terminated. A third appearance is a rare occurrence, and one which ordinarily results in expulsion from the university. I am one of the very rare students to have emerged from my third appearance with my enrolment intact. But to understand how I managed this magic trick, we must first reflect on my past.

Just prior to commencing my first year at university, I attended, somewhat reluctantly, a speaker’s night hosted by Amnesty International. Although fairly liberal in many aspects of thought, I would have considered myself a centrist at the time, and looking back, I had slightly conservative leanings in certain areas due to my schooling and upbringing. I didn’t pay much attention to what was said, thinking Amnesty as just another left-wing organization with good intentions but no real substance. If I joined, it would likely disqualify me from any kind of high-paying employment in the type of large corporation that left-wing organizations typically take issue with. One thing that was said, however, did stick in my mind – that Amnesty may be ineffective, but if it accomplishes even 10% of what it sets out to achieve, then doesn’t even that small amount of good amount to something significant. I toiled with this in my mind for weeks but could only ever answer it with “yes”.

This eventually spurred me to join the Amnesty club at Melbourne University, but that was not the only reason. New York Times writer James Traub was a guest speaker during my Contemporary Diplomacy class at Columbia and, when speaking of the role countries played in the United Nations system, articulated it well thus, “you should not always insist that people do the right things for the right reasons”, an invaluable lesson in international diplomacy. And so follows my confession of the second significant reason that I joined the Amnesty club – there were a lot more girls than there were guys. After many years of involvement with the Melboure University group, I should add another important life-lesson to be learned from my experiences – increasing your odds does not always guarantee success.

Fast forward to my second (or sophomore, for you American folk) year, and I am now a regular member of the club. The annual general meeting had come around and it was time to elect the new committee. A new president was found quickly in Alice Pung (yes, the author of the book “Unpolished Gem” which I highly recommend) and it was now time to elect a secretary. I had no real intention of running but I decided that it couldn’t possibly be very difficult and that the experience would be educational. I seriously thought that! So a quick glance at Alice, and I got the nod, and with it the nomination. After joining the club partly for the favourable male-female ratio, all I could think about was the potential for self-improvement as a committee member.

The next year, I was elected president of the group. The election was a very close one involving a tied vote. In the end, I probably won out because I was the more charismatic of the candidates, and possessed a greater skill at public speaking. At the time, and because I was good friends with the person whom I defeated, I felt that these attributes had contributed to an unfair advantage. In retrospect, they were advantages, but they were not at all unfair. As president of a group, especially a volunteer-driven movement such as amnesty, it is very important to have a charismatic leader who is also a good speaker.

My tenure as president was something of a watershed period for the group, and I would only realize this years later. More out of laziness than anything else, I began having regular board meetings so that I could delegate tasks to people. We would have brainstorming sessions where all manner of audacious ideas would be dreamt up and planned out. Our membership grew, as did the number of regular attendees. Our presence on campus also expanded and I organized and MC’ed the first in a series of trivia nights which would eventually become annual fund raisers for our group. At the time, none of this seemed out of the ordinary to me, and it was only brought home to me years after I left when the group went through a particularly low period.

Of all the crazy things I envisioned, there was one whose significance was immediately apparent to me – “Stand Up For Your Rights”. The process of conception to fruition of this defining event is something of a microcosm of my life. It was an unquestionably audacious plan – fill a theater with a thousand people and have some stand up comedians perform for free as an amnesty fund raiser. I had gotten the idea from the DVDs to the Secret Policemen’s Balls (which I got for my 21st birthday a few months before), a series of similar events held in the UK, also for Amnesty International, and my ideas for the process had come together over the course of some very random meetings and telephone calls with complete strangers. At the time that I began organizing this, I was just naive enough not to know how difficult it was going to be. I’m not going to lie, it was very difficult. To cut costs, we would try to have volunteers run everything. Of course, if the plan is so ambitious that nobody believes that it can be done, nobody is going to volunteer for it. I’ll give you one guess as to who ended up doing most of these jobs.

The process of such a large event necessarily brought me into contact with the state, and eventually, national governing bodies of Amnesty International Australia, supposedly one of the younger, more dynamic country sections of Amnesty International, the global organization. The initial reception was cold, to say the least. I was literally laughed off – ironic. I continued to badger them, along with those in the comedy and theatre management industries. I don’t know what gave me the energy to do this. In three weeks of Melbourne International Comedy festival, I saw over 50 hours of stand up comedy. I made it policy to personally ask all the comedians and their managers to be part of my comedy gala.

After many months, people finally started to come around. My relentless passion seemed to be rubbing off. During this time, I learned many important lessons about politics, such as the importance of controlling the flow of information, and the art of diplomacy. Curiously, despite being 21, I suffered from a severe lack of credibility. Everybody seemed to doubt the one thing that I was actually confident about – my numbers. Did they really think that, just because I was 21, that I had somehow made a mistake? There were many heated arguments over this, but I was shrewd enough to keep my opinions on others’ negative attitudes to myself.

I asked myself, “why am I doing this”? I realized that amnesty may have been one of the only organizations that I would have done this for. Early in my tenure as secretary of the Melbourne University group I invited Saskia Hunter, at the time a board member of the state branch and co-convenor of the Asia-Pacific campaign to speak. Instead of giving a boring, depressing, technical exposition of the human rights situation in the Asia-Pacific region, she gave a moving speech about the founder of Amnesty International – Peter Benenson. I’ll leave his story for the interested reader (and I encourage even the not-so-interested reader to look him up, the story is extraordinary), but the point she emphasized was never to lose the belief that one person could make a difference in the world, and the example of Peter Benenson founding Amnesty International was obviously a powerful one. The real answer was that I was doing this for me, because I had to convince myself that, even in this cynical world, one person can still make a difference.

The committees cancelled my comedy night over some cold feet. But I would not relent, and brought it back to life with some creative mathematics and an iron will. When the 25th of October came around, Stand Up For Your Rights became a reality, and a resounding success. I cried. It seemed so trivial, but it was also so significant in my mind. Wave after wave of applause punctuated by deafening roars of laughter filled the air while I briskly walked to and fro backstage. I could not believe it. I could not believe that it was happening, and I could not believe that I was almost solely responsible for making it happen. We ran substantially over time, but nobody seemed to mind. Right from the bump in, through my strange motivational poem for the volunteers, right to the final curtain, the air was electric because, for once, I wasn’t the only person who realized the significance of that night.

It was the single largest expenditure in the Australian section’s history. I have always felt that that said more about the Australian section’s spending habits than it did about the cost of my night. It made almost ten thousand dollars in profit, but more importantly it changed the organisation. It made people believe that it was worthwhile to dream big, and to be ambitious. An organization like amnesty should not be afraid of organizing big events. It deserves to and, if it has any plans to continue to be relevant and keep its reputation, it really has to. I organized two more occurrences of Stand Up For Your Rights, and it has since become an annual event. I also joined the state’s governance committee and enjoyed being active in policy formulation and in continually stirring the pot by challenging accepted norms and ways of thinking.

Halfway through 2005, during the 6th year of what is normally a 5 year degree, I got the call. I was required to appear before the unsatisfactory progress committee for the third time. Shit. As I sat outside the room, waiting, I thought about what I might say to justify my lack of progress. The girl who exited the room immediately before I went in was sobbing uncontrollably as she came out. I went in and sat in the now-familiar intimidation/interrogation room. There are four large desks set in a roughly semicircular fashion with a single chair with no arms in the middle. Behind these four large desks sit three senior academics and one student. I wanted to stay standing in the middle, but was instructed to sit.

What happened? I explained. Why has it happened? I explained further. They didn’t seem very sympathetic to my cause. They told me that they had good reason to terminate my enrollment. At this stage, I had already accumulated enough credit to obtain a Bachelor of Arts, so to quit would simply forfeit my Bachelor of Science degree which I was one semester away from obtaining. In my daydreaming, I briefly considered this option until something that one of the academics said caught my attention and jolted my back to reality in a very uncomfortable way. “We cannot allow you to continue as it would damage the reputation of this university”. This made me very angry and I made a point to ensure that those to whom I was speaking knew that this made me angry.

Are you out of your mind!? I am at this university, taking on some of the hardest subjects that it has to offer, and sure, I fail a few every now and that, but you have the audacity to tell me that I would be bringing this university into disrepute!? (at this stage, one of the academics tried to say something, but I cut him off) There are drop-kick idiots out there who come here and do bullshit degrees in commerce, leech off their friends in group project subjects, learn useless managerial double-speak, and then leave with very decent academic records but having not learned a thing, and you’re trying to tell me that I am bringing this institution into disrepute (I think I was shouting by this stage). Now listen to me (at this point, one of the academics made a very concerted effort to interrupt me, he may have even stood up, but I stared at him, and he was quiet again, so I could continue), I am going to finish my degrees. I am going to take these four subjects next semester and I’m going to pass all of them, then I’m going to do honours in mathematics (one of the academics chuckled at that one, but I stared at him, then he looked away sheepishly), after which I’m going to graduate school. You can worry all you want about the reputation of this university, but there are better things you can do with your time, than try to intimidate me in this room, and kick me out. (my memory is strangely vague on the details, but throughout this paragraph, I may have used stronger language than this)

I was allowed to stay and finish my degree, and I did. The next year I went on to do honours in mathematics.

In early 2006, the Law Society of Victoria (the state of Australia where I live) opened the “Human Rights Law Resrouce Center” with a fancy gala dinner to which amnesty’s National Executive Committee was invited. As the youngest member of the state committee at the time, and having gained notoriety within the national governance bodies of Amnesty Australia, when word of a few extra invites surfaced, quite to my surprise, I was one of those who was picked. Perhaps it was out of convenience because I was a student with a lot of free time, or perhaps someone thought it would be amusing to see how out-of-place I would look at a law society dinner, nevertheless, I accepted with enthusiasm having been to boarding school and having quite an overinflated appreciation for free meals.

The dinner itself was good, as one expects from the well-heeled law society. The guest speaker was even better. Tim Costello, a baptist minister, brother of the then-treasurer Peter Costello, lawyer (of course), and CEO of world vision in Australia, gave a stirring speech about the need and neglect for economic, social, and cultural rights in favour of civil and political rights. Ordinarily, I am a very shy and introverted person (can’t you tell?) but the experience of years of approaching comedians after stand up gigs emboldened me to approach the night’s keynote speaker for a chat. I told him a bit about my background and that I was in the business of saving the world, and asked him if there was anything I could do. He asked me what I studied. I replied that I was a mathematician completing my honours year. He seemed genuinely excited, and he told me about a book I should read called “The End of Poverty” by the whiz kid Jeffrey Sachs. I did.

Towards the end of 2006, I was in a bind – I was applying for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. The scholarship was started by Cecil Rhodes in order to educate future world leaders (at Oxford, of course) and required the recipients to be particularly well-rounded. Part of the application process involves composing a “personal statement” of about 1500 words detailing why you wish to pursue whatever it is you are studying. I couldn’t get my statement to click. I was applying for the D.Phill in mathematics and every time I tried to write a statement, I couldn’t make my area of study gel with my life goals (if you’re wondering about those, maybe you shouldn’t be reading this, or my website for that matter). Then I had an epiphany – I wasn’t very passionate about mathematics. I mean, I really like it and all, but as far as passion was concerned – real passion, the passion that you suffer for – it was for saving the world. So I, instead, applied for the scholarship in international relations.

Needless to say, I didn’t get it. I still maintain that it is their loss (no, really, that isn’t just something I tell myself to make myself feel better). As an afterthought, I thought about applying to a few institutions in the United States, but where? I checked the inside cover of Jeff Sachs’ book – Columbia University. Ok, I’ll apply there. Where else? Harvard and Yale sound nice, ok done. In a very strange way, I never expected to get into any of these places.

Taking advantage of the 9-month gap in academic years between the northern and southern hemisphere, me and a friend who had completed honours in the same year, Nick Sheridan, went on a 5-month odyssey through Latin America backpacker-style. Nick had also applied to several institutions in the US and, along with me, would be eagerly watching our inboxes for acceptance/rejection letters. Unsurprisingly, I was rejected from Columbia, Yale, and Harvard. What was I thinking? Three appearances before the unsatisfactory progress committee probably isn’t part of your typical ivy leaguer’s life experience. We eventually went through the US so that Nick could visit all the places he had gotten into (which further drove home the significance of what I had missed out on). Curiously, when I visited New York City for the first time, of all the items on my “list of things to see in New York”, the only one that I didn’t get around to seeing was Columbia University – it would have been too painful.

Then a very strange thing happened. Just as I was about to leave Boston for Quito, Ecuador, I received an email from someone at the Earth Institute at Columbia saying that they had seen my application, was sorry that I wasn’t accepted, but wanted to know if I wished to be considered for a similar masters degree program which was also run by the earth institute. Initially hesitant about going through the whole emotional roller coaster of waiting with hope, only to be rejected, I reluctanty informed them that I would like to be considered for the program.

By the time we were about to leave Peru, I had lost hope. It was past the date that they said they would inform me of a decision, and I had received no news. I even began discussing options with Nick’s dad (who is an academic) about possible courses of action, people I could talk to about other graduate schools etc. Nick and I split briefly because we wanted to do slightly different things while traveling, so I kept traveling through Bolivia and Paraguay, and it was in Paraguay where I heard the momentous news – I GOT IN. (the experience is described briefly here)

Those who know me very well, know that I suffer from low self-esteem, and have issues with self-worth. One of the reasons I believe this to be the case is because I routinely get rejected from things. It is a little-known fact that, on finishing high school, I applied to Cambridge University only to be rejected. Even my comedy night was rejected many, many times… that is, until it actually happened, and when it did, it gave a small part of me hope that perhaps I was worth something to the world. Rejection from Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, while devastating, wasn’t surprising at all, I had come to expect it. When I was finally accepted into Columbia, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Being rejected so many times made me truly appreciate how significant this was, and how fortunate I was.

So that is who I am… what I am. While it seems impossible that the admissions office at Columbia could have extrapolated that from my academic record (which I maintain went missing at some stage in the process), CV, and 500-word personal statement, I feel sure that the events I have described contributed significantly to my admission. I am the guy who’s out there trying to save the world. Willing to endure failure after failure after failure. If history teaches us anything about success, real success – the kind of success that is significant, it is that it comes not to the most talented, or well-connected, or anyone like that, but that it comes to the most persistent, and it comes to those who are willing to put it all on the line. Twenty years ago, in Tianenmen Square, thousands stood in front of tanks and were crushed, or shot. But one man stopped a column of tanks in front of Jeff Widener’s telephoto lens, and that image is the one that endures in the collective consciousness. That image reminds me to this day that it is still possible for one man to make a difference in the world. That image, and everything that surrounds it, changed my life.

Maybe someday I’ll change the world.

This speech was prepared for the first meeting of the Columbia University Amnesty group, where I served as webmaster for one year. It was intended as an introduction to the world of Amnesty International including some of the history behind the organization.

Hi everyone and welcome to the first meeting. First of all, can everyone understand what I’m saying ok, is my voice clear enough? As you may have surmised from the way I speak, I’m not from around here. I’m from further south… 86th street, as a matter of fact.

“Open your newspaper any day of the week and you will find a story from somewhere of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions are unacceptable to his government, The newspaper reader feels a sickening sense of impotence. Yet if these feelings of disgust could be united into common action, something effective could be done.” So said Peter Benenson in his article “The Forgotten Prisoners”, published May 28th 1961 after he was incensed days earlier reading in a newspaper of a pair of Portuguese students who had raised their glasses in a toast to freedom and been imprisoned for seven years without trial for their troubles.

His article called on readers to write letters to free, or at the very least demand prompt and fair trial for so-called “prisoners of conscience”, people imprisoned for their beliefs, be they religious or merely politically inconvenient, and who have not used or advocated violence. The campaign: “Appeal for Amnesty 1961” snowballed into a permanent, international movement with over a million card-carrying members (and many, many more supporters) in over 150 countries around the world which we now know as “Amnesty International”.  The mandate of the movement has also expanded beyond prisoners of conscience (which only address articles 18 and 19 of the UDHR) to include all human rights abuses as defined in the UDHR. In 1977, Amnesty International was awarded the Nobel Peace prize.

Our vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all the human rights enshrined in the UDHR and other human rights instruments. This may seem a lofty and impossible goal, but it is known that in about one third of our letter-writing cases alone, an improvement is reported. Good results notwithstanding, letters from Amnesty supporters are a source of inspiration and hope, and when you are stuck in a jail cell with no guarantee that anybody knows of your whereabouts, inspiration and hope are in desperately short supply. A prisoner of conscience who I spoke to once related the feeling to me thus: “getting a letter from Amnesty is like being a thirsty man wandering the desert for days and finally finding a drop of water”.

Yet, in spite of the success of this organization, our task is enormous, and good results aren’t always immediate or forthcoming. But why do nothing when we can do a little? I, for one, couldn’t imagine a world without Amnesty International, I don’t think I’d want to live in it.

So I leave you with this: I challenge you all to think about how you can make a lasting contribution, however small, to humanity as a whole for it is your responsibility, your duty, to use your voice, as I have just used mine, to speak up for those who, through no fault of their own, have no voice.

This poem was sent to the members of the cuai-board email listserv as a christmas card and may have been influenced by the alcohol that inevitably accompanies christmas gatherings.

To all my friends in amnesty
I write to you with festive cheer
for from semester, we are free
so closer still to your degree
but come with me, we’ll grab a beer

We’ll speak of great deeds done in aid
of human rights, the cause we follow
but let’s press on on this crusade
to make well sure we don’t evade
the truth, though it be hard to swallow

The world around us seems to fall
apart, it seems our cause is lost
but no, we must have hope I call
and bring ’bout change, however small
and worry not about the cost

For human rights is more than just
an out-there, leftie, social cause
you see, that isn’t quite the thrust
injustice, that is what we must
fight, so now we should take pause

To think about all that we do
and all those ones whom we assist
let their strong will inspire you
when next semester starts anew
we must go on, we must persist

For there is still much to be done
but don’t despair, there is still hope
we should not jest, but still have fun
to help just a little, is better than none
so keep up a smile, please don’t mope

But we shan’t forget the time of year
after all, it’s festive season
what better time, what better reason
to purge from mind, all of your fear
and raise your glass and toast to freedom!

We register for Day 1, wich for me was the Youth Summitt, which occurred on Thursday 29th June. I drove 8 hours from Melbourne to Adelaide because I don’t like flying.

The “cool” table – where I sat, right up near the lectern

this is me giving my welcome address… which was lame lame lame

The plenary session finds something amusing

I was particularly pround of this photo. I took it just as Amy’s camera’s flash went off

These are the “youth” of Victoria, surprsing really as victoria’s total population is about 5 million…

These are the youth delegates from… (help me here…)

These delegates are from Western Australia

I believe that this is the delegation from the ACT and certain bits of NSW

This is the New South Wales delegation (and someone from Iceland)

The delegates from sunny Queensland

The delegates from South Australia

A common sight throughout the NAGM and YS, queueing up for lunch. It wasn’t all bad, as it gave us all time to catch up with each other

YS veterans Amy, Andrea and Jules interrogate Duncan Wilson from the International Secretariat

This is where most of the real discussion took place.

Andrea wrestles with the Rubik’s cube

We give the idea of “open space” a go, with some success

It allowed us to take our discussions to more comfortable areas of the hotel in which the conference was being held

One of the flight attendants from “Air Torture”, our little act to bring the concept of rendition closer to home

Luckily, our sessions were punctuated with many breaks for coffee and various other bits of whatnot. Notice the Air Torture posters on the near pillar

Some folks from The Change Agency explain to us the subtleties of Strategy and Tactics

…while I doodle my own interpretation of the subtleties of strategy and tactics…

Sittin’ around, discussing grass roots leadership in one of the many informative workshops

the Haigh’s chocolate shop was located on a nearby corner to where we were staying, and was a constant distraction…

as it happened, we were staying right across from the South Australian parliament house, where there was a protest about Guantanamo Bay in which we were major players

Notice the very fetching orange jump-suits

One of our trust Air Torture flight attendants hands out a boarding pass which further explains the practice of rendition

There was plenty of media attention and lots of chanting of “ho ho ho, hey hey hey, lets shut down Guantanamo Bay!”

This was a very interesting plenary session with Brian Dooley, also from the International Secretariat, who gave us an eye-opening low-down on activism around the world

A distorted picture of the session… comes from taking a photo through a glass. Supposed to represent how we were feeling after 3 long days of workshops and plenary sessions AND the world cup!

Dodgy as this looks…. this is actually a rehearsal for the Air Torture street theatre play which we performed at the NAGM dinner

Speaking of the Air Torture play… I was the captain (can you tell?). Notice that my hair is dyed to match the uniform, now THAT’S method acting!

The NAGM dinner was a sumptuous buffet. We were seated at the table closest to the food… which meant that we were last

We made up for this by having both (count them) of the International Secretariat big-wigs sitting at our table. This was probably before they found out that I was actually on this table. (they were too distracted by the pilots uniform and all the gagging of the flight attendants)

Another photo included more on artistic merit than actual content (i mean, it IS Jules). We went for a walk after the dinner and visited the various sights of Adelaide (it didn’t take long) and it being a cold night, we had foggy breath…

The final day of NAGM saw the official business of voting on resolutions and the executive committee… each blue card represents a vote

This is the victorian delegation (minus Nicki, who had to leave for an early flight)

Us four were among the very small number who were at the first youth summit… Jules, Andrea, Amy and I

Thank you Jules. I too would like to take this opportunity to welcome you all to what is sure to be a very exciting and productive youth summit. For those who don’t know me, I’m not really worth getting to know and I thought I should just say so now so as to save you considerable grief in the future.

We are in trouble!

Who are we going to call? The ghost busters can’t help us now. Our enemy, unlike the slimy foe of our fictional would-be heroes, is very, very real. Our enemy is indifference.

What do we do? I wasn’t sure, so, being the good private-schooled spoilt snot that I am, I did what all good private-schooled spoilt snots do, I asked my dad. His reply – ask Mr. Costello, the treasurer of the Commonwealth of Australia, he knows one or two things about the economy, perhaps he knows something of economic rights. “Fair enough”, I said, and off I went.

Now I don’t know about you people, but I am pretty terrible when it comes to names. At least that’s what John here [point to Jules] tells me. I couldn’t, for the life of me, tell which one of the Costello’s it was who was the treasurer. Was it Tim or was it Peter? I decided that I would seek out both.

Tim I found speaking at a dinner held for the newly-opened Human Rights Law Resource centre to which a number of my amnesty brethren (and sisteren…) were also invited. Tim spoke of the importance of human rights and the importance of economic, social and cultural rights and how they were often overlooked in favour of our old friend civil and political rights. He stirred and inspired us all and reminded us of the importance of the work that human rights organisations do. I wondered to myself, is this the treasurer? This is certainly a man I would like to be the treasurer.

Peter I found speaking at a dinner held for the old-boys club of an exclusive Melbourne private boys school, the Old Scotch Collegians Association. He drank lots, made a few racial slurs and some jokes about boys in kilts. He spoke of Australia’s vibrant economy, its position of influence in the region and, of course, joked of his aspirations to be Prime Minister of Australia. By this stage, I was pretty sure that I had my man in the treasurer. I was also surprised at how much I didn’t mind him as a person – no small miracle considering my attitude towards the upper echelons of the Australian Liberal Party.

What really surprised me was how much the two brothers agreed with each other. Their approach was notably different. However, I did not see a huge discrepancy in their desired end result. I was truly inspired by both of them to the same end, and that end is to inspire you here today.

We are all all too familiar with civil and political rights. Yes, they are very important, nobody is denying that. Perhaps one of the most important achievements of an organisation such as Amnesty International was the thrusting of these rights into the mainstream. Ask anyone on the street these days about human rights and, chances are, the answer will involve civil and political rights.

But to me, these human rights problems are simply the symptom of a much bigger problem. The cause of that problem begins with economic, social and cultural rights. These rights include the right to work, the right to education, certain standards of living, and health both physical and mental. All too often, the denial of these rights is right at the root of some of the biggest problems which we face in the world today.

We must, as in all human rights issues, raise awareness, interact with and educate the community around us. It is said that Satan’s greatest victory was to convince mankind that he didn’t exist. Whether you subscribe to religion or not, it doesn’t take a genius to recognise the cunning in an enemy of whose existence we are unaware. We must let the community know that these are not wishy-washy ghosts, but are very real and are the cause of some very real problems. We musn’t be indifferent and we must encourage others to do the same.

I am often asked by friends why I devote so much time and energy to such a difficult cause as human rights. I often respond with why not, and I’d like you to keep this thought in mind whenever you are considering difficult work in this area, or indeed any other area for that matter.

Thank you, please enjoy the summit… I’m here ‘till Sunday [wink]

Melbourne

This entry shold be titled “Murphy’s Law Case Study: Stand Up For Your Rights”. As I said many times to the crew during the course of the day, the alignment of the planets just wasn’t quite right this year. Many many many things went horribly wrong. I suppose the challenge of event management is to plan and run things in such a way that, in the event that everything should go wrong, the event still “works”. I think the night worked. Arj Barker, Wil Anderson, Hung Le, Dave O’Neil, Sue-Ann Post, Greg Fleet, GUD, Sista She, Damian Callinan, Lawrence Leung, Andrew McClelland, Charlie Pickering, Justin Hamilton, Rachel Berger, Cal Wilson, Gerard McCulloch, Joanne Brookfield, The Pinch and Michael Connell were great, which I suppose is all that really matters.

One of the stuff-ups was that four pages of the program didn’t get printed, which included my welcome note. So for all those who are interested, here it is in all its glory:

Organiser’s Welcome

Welcome for coming, and thank you to the third Stand Up For Your Rights comedy night for Amnesty International Australia. On behalf of the SUFYR executive committee, I wish to extend a very warm hug to all of you as a token of my extreme gratitude of your decision to come along tonight to have a laugh and defend human rights. Many long hours have been invested in this night by volunteers and professionals alike proving, once again, that one can never misunderestimate the power of a group of passionate people devoted to a worthy cause.

They say that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. In light of the events of the past weeks, months and years, the echo of that old Chinese proverb has resounded loudly in the darkness that is the world of grave human rights abuses (because that’s what echoes do). We so often take our freedom for granted while many others around the world suffer in the silent, lonely darkness of impunity and indifference. Yes, we must certainly all stand up for our rights, but we must also use our freedom to stand up for the rights of others.

Have a fun night. I insist. I realise that there are many wonderful things that one can be doing on a Saturday night in October in Melbourne , but I hope that of all those things, this is the most wonderfullest of those things. It is good to know that in a world like ours, there are organisations like Amnesty International and it is good to know that we’ve not got no better friends and allies as you folks out there in the audience. I honestly hope that you enjoy yourselves while you are here.

Sincerely

Daniel Yeow

on behalf of the Stand Up For Your Rights Executive Committee

Hello everyone. First I would like to thank whoever it was who suggested that I speak here today for giving me this opportunity. Those here that know me know well that I love the sound of my own voice and if there is one thing that I like more than volunteering to hear it, it is being volunteered to do so by somebody else.

I’ve been told to keep this speech to under ten minutes. To that end, I have written it out so that I may better control its duration, so I apologise in advance for reading this off a page – it is not something that I normally do. Do also keep in mind that I, as with most of my university exams, did the greater part of preparing for this speech in the early hours of this morning. I also apologise for the abysmally boring, and uninformative content of this speech and if I don’t make eye contact with you, please don’t take it personally. If you, like me, haven’t benefited from a good night’s sleep, I will not hold it against you should you decide to catch up over the next ten minutes or so.

(wait for silence)

Well, this is a rather awkward silence. Not unlike the awkward silence that I encountered once a while back in my later years in primary school, when I silenced a playground by yelling out a poorly thought-out abbreviation of the name of my friend Nicole. I shall leave that one to your imaginations.

But on the subject of silences and imagination, I would now like to lead into what I was actually asked to come and talk about. A product of my imagination which was borne out of such a moment of silence almost three years ago.

The famous French poet Victor Hugo once said that there is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come. He also believed that the poet’s purpose should be two-fold – firstly to echo universal sentiment by revealing his own feelings, uniting the voices of mankind, nature and history, and secondly to guide the reader, in other words, to lead the way.

And that is precisely what I chose to do.

To lead will always be more difficult than to follow, just ask any sheep. To find out just how absurd my idea was one need only go back in time two and a half years, ask anyone who often dwelt in the victorian amnesty office and they would tell you. They told me. But I would not be perturbed. For me, amnesty represents many things but above all else, I feel that the “spirit” (if you could call it that) of amnesty international is championing the indomitability of the human spirit.

So it began, a comedy night featuring Australia ‘s leading comedians for the benefit of amnesty international. Similar things had been done before, but in Australia nothing of this scale had ever been attempted, even the Oxfam Gala relied heavily on being the first event of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. I would be lying if I said that organising “Stand Up For Your Rights” was easy, so I wont. It was very difficult.

I had had some experience organising small events as president of the Melbourne University amnesty group, but in all seriousness, I had no idea what I was doing. I received some invaluable help from some of the most unusual places – comedians, managers and even some venue people. The sense of goodwill and peoples willingness to help was heartening and at times, that alone kept me going, all the time remembering that famous line from Victor Hugo, firm in the belief that the idea was all that was important, and that I had a good one.

I learned alot from this experience. I learned that there isn’t much trust between people these days, that everything must be “in writing” to be taken seriously. But despite all the cynicism, despite all the people who told me that it couldn’t be done, despite all the people who told me I was crazy, I persisted – stubborn almost to the point of pugnacity. I was out to organise a comedy night, but I was also out to change the world. I had a vision and I was going to stop at nothing to see it through.

Being young also had its advantages. Youth… that’s what we’re meant to be right? Well, while today’s youth is commonly associated with inexperience, naivety and arrogance. While some would count these as weaknesses, I prefer to see them as strengths. You see, I was just naive enough to have a clear idea of where I wanted to go while simultaneously having no idea of how difficult it would be to get there.

Well, c’mon, how hard could it possibly be? Get some comedians, set a date, get a venue, organise sound and lighting, sell some tickets… it couldn’t be easier, right? Well, as with all fairly complex tasks, there are “complications” and a fair degree of lateral thinking and sheer persistence was required to get things done. It was at this point that I drew inspiration from another hero of mine, this time Winston Churchill, who once said “never never never give up”. (and my academic record also reflects this)

At one particularly low point, the event was pretty much officially cancelled. It is here that I took a page out of the history books for advice. History teaches us that the greatest victories and achievements in civilisation almost always occur at times immediately following periods in which defeat seems inevitable. At this point, the writing seemed to be on the wall, so to speak. But as Omar Shariff said so well in the movie Lawrence of Arabia “truly for some men, nothing is written unless they write it”. If you think you are defeated, then you are.

I was not going to take no for an answer. I was not going to let others pluck my arrow from mid-air before it had a chance at the bull’s eye.

So, six weeks out from the proposed date, I pretty much re-organised the entire event around a different venue (the size of the venue was the problem, it was too big apparently). I went to the next branch committee meeting and made it clear, on no uncertain terms that I was not willing to take no for an answer, and luckily for them, they took the plunge and took a chance on an unproven 21-year-old to run the single biggest stand-alone event in amnesty international australia’s history (in terms of once-off expenditure anyway).

Needless to say, the nights were successful, which is probably why I’m standing here talking to you and not sitting there making cheap wisecrack comments. In 2003, we raised about $8,000 and had about 750 people in the audience, in 2004, we raised about $20,000 and there were almost 1600 people in the audience. In terms of activism, it invigorated many young activists, hand-picked by myself from various uni groups. The goodwill that it built up with comedians was also considerable, to the point that some of the comedians who have been involved occasionally mention the night in their gigs.

Amnesty international is about human rights, sure. But at the heart of it, it is about so much more. Its about the indomitability of the human spirit, its about people standing up for their rights, in the face of almost impossible odds and it is also about empowering people to do that, to give them hope that not all their effort is in vain. I have sacrificed greatly for this event, some of you may be surprised to learn that I recently came within a hair’s breadth of being expelled from uni for failing too many subjects. But when I put things in perspective, when I think about the people whom we write letters about, I can’t help but think that my sacrifices pale in comparison to theirs. They inspire me.

Amnesty is about an idea whose time has come. Never forget who the candle burns for, as the late amnesty founder Peter Benenson said “ The candle burns not for us, but for all those whom we failed to rescue from prison, who were shot on the way to prison, who were tortured, who were kidnapped, who “disappeared”. That is what the candle is for”. Remember them, let their struggle inspire you. Whenever you think “oh this is too hard”, “I have no idea what I’m doing” (something that I often think) or “what could one person possibly amount to”, think of them. You would also do well to go to your dictionaries, look up the word “impossible” and cross it out. Impossible is nothing. Finally, I’d like to leave you with a quote from one of my favourite poets, Robert Frost – “Do not follow where the path may lead… go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”. Thank you.

At about 3pm I arrived in Canberra, the nation’s capital. Along with Brazil and the United States of America, Australia is one of the few countries whose capital, but for its political purposes, is a fairly insignificant place to be. It shows. The drive had been a pleasant six and a half hours of nibbling on chips and singing very badly to tunes on my iPod. I immediately stopped off at a tourist information centre to obtain a map of the city and get my bearings. As I soon learned, there isn’t an awful lot of city and thus, a minimum amount of fuss was required for me to get my bearings. On checking in to my hotel, I quickly arranged to meet with a couple I had known from my time in the Melbourne Uni Amnesty Group. They were a stereotypical Canberra couple, that is, one of them worked in the public service and the other attended ANU. The meeting took place in the lobby of University House, the venue for the youth summit, and as our meeting carried on, more and more people arriving for the summit began to congregate to go out for tea as a group.

We moved on to a small cafeteria of sorts on the ANU campus to “hang around” while the rest of the arrivals got organised. It was with this small, but interesting group of people that we played our first “ice breaker”. Going around the circle, there was Jeremy from WA who witnessed police brutality at a police station in China, Amy from Townsville whose (supposed) favourite bollywood actor is Amir Kahn, Andrea from Queensland who, if put on the spot to nominate the household appliance she would most like to be, would be a blender for the express purpose of producing vanilla milkshakes, Emma from Launceston who wants to teach English to school children in Tibet, Lauren who was photographed holding a very large fish in the parade at the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Dave, a local, who introduced himself as Frank who has or hasn’t walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge (I can’t remember), Bec who studys at UC but was quick to add that she was actually from Sydney (residing in John Howard’s electorate of Bennelong I was later to learn), next a person whose name escapes me for the moment but carried the nickname “monkey” because of her ability to scale ships masts on the “Young Endeavour”, Myself from Melbourne whose interesting fact was my sub-minute ability with a Rubik’s cube, Don from Melbourne (who is, incidentally, AIA’s youth coordinator) who got involved through the anti-apartheid campaigns many moons ago, Mark from Canberra whose interesting fact I cannot recall for the life of me, Krista, also from Canberra who has a good memory and, finally, Lawrrie another Canberrarian (is that a word?) whose interesting fact eludes me for the moment.

Well, with such an interesting spectrum of people, even in this small sample, how could we possibly miss the mark with this youth summit? With great difficulty it seemed. We all arrived at the venue bright and early on Friday morning raring to go. A few ice breakers later and we were into the full swing of things. Starting the day off was a panel and discussion setup which included the NSW community campaigner Lousie Ashford who gave a riveting talk about exciting new ideas in activism, Andrea McLeod (blender girl) who recounted her experience at the 2003 Amnesty International International Council Meeting in Mexico where she was a youth delegate, and there was myself who gave a thin-on-content thick-on-motivational-quotes speech about my experiences with the”Stand Up For Your Rights” comedy nights. All in all, these were received rather well, and the questions which followed were of a high quality and were indicative of not only an enthusiastic youth membership, but also of a smart one. What followed was a brief run down of campaigns given by Kate Lappin the project coordinator of the Stop Violence against women campaign and Desley Mather, the director of campaigning in AIA. The fact that we got these two speakers, the former being the coordinator of the current priority one campaign and the latter being director of campaigning nationally was heartening because it told me that AIA truly valued youth involvement. (which begs the questions, “why was I asked to speak?”)

What followed were the first round of workshops. Following the example of NAGM (well, not technically because the summit chronologically preceded NAGM), simultaneous workshops were run with the aim of managing our most limited resource – time, more effectively. The workshop I went to dealt with “Planning an enticing year of Amnesty events”, not that I had any real knowledge of planning events or running a uni group, I just thought it would be interesting. The report-backs were informative and succinct although we were behind time. The after-lunch workshops were similarly interesting. Again I attended one which was very personally relevant – “Effective Activism” which was spectacularly well-attended. One point came up time and time again and would feature throughout the rest of NAGM and that was the theme of web-activism and the challenges and opportunities that it presented. I was particularly proud of myself for being the first to suggest having a “wiki”-based online encycolpedic resource which could be collectively accessed and edited by anyone in amnesty much in the same way the wikipedia works. When we returned to plenary to report back and discuss the day, there was also a strong feeling for the formation of a national youth network of sorts based around an online community. Later that night, many of us gathered for pizza at the “Woodstock Steak and Pizza House” where much merriment (and pizza, phwoar) was had.

Having recovered (sort of) from Friday night’s gluttony, NAGM-proper began. In a moving and very appropriate way, our national president Russell Thirgood opened NAGM firstly with a welcome from the indigenous people of the land and then with a tribute to the late Amnesty founder Peter Benenson. The first day of NAGM was a training day, full of fun workshops for all the “Amnesty Family” as Russell so aptly put it. My first workshop was strategic activism and involved many fun activities involving paper plates being used as stepping stones. Strangely enough, I gravitated, in my choice of group, towards people who had been at the youth summit. This theme continued throughout the weekend with myself often sitting with and speaking to prdominantly youth activists during the tea breaks and meals. In addition, word had spread about my involvment in the aforementioned comedy nights and I was subjected to a lengthy interrogation by a Queenslander to the end of helping to get their own comedy night off the groud. To be fair, I quite enjoyed the interrogation, even if it was by a Queenslander. Other workshops and sessions included discussion about refugees and a preview of the snazzy new AIA website which will be online sometime in August.

Later that night, we had the much-anticipated NAGM dinner, our chance to tart-up. The food was of a buffet style, which suited me just fine, given my reputation for having an insatiable appetite. I sat with a table populated by people one could only describe as youth (still young, remember). Not wanting to be caught waiting in a queue, Jules the victorian youth delegate and myself sat back, relaxed as everyone else fell over each other to get at the food. When we later approached the food tables, we were just in time for the tables to be restocked with food, so we filled our plates up with a non-trivial amount of food and went back to our seats. Jon Stanhope, the chief minister for the ACT was the first speaker. He spoke about many things including the introduction of a bill of rights in the ACT, the first state/territory in Australia to do so. He was followed by Michelle Grattan, the senior political reporter at “The Age” a Melbourne broadsheet newspaper. She spoke for quite some time about Australia’s political climate and the importance of Amnesty’s work in the bigger picture. She also fielded a great many questions from the floor which were very interesting, but in my mind (and I was a little ashamed to think this) was holding up dessert. The day’s activism had really tired us out and, despite having planned to the contrary, we decided to have a quiet night in. We sat about and played cards and watched Australia lose to South Africa in the Rugby before retiring early at about midnight.

The next day was meant to start at the absurd time of 8:30am. I got to breakfast at about 8:30am, I wasn’t late for the start. There were various reports given from the NEC some of which were quite interesting (some of which were the opposite of interesting). Among the many things that happened in this more “official” part of NAGM was a slideshow presentation by the national treasurer (ex Victorian prez) Anna Skarbek, the giving of the “June Fassina” award for long-standing meritorious service and a short note from Ian Gibson, Australia’s very own International Executive Committee member (of Amnesty International). For some reason, what Ian said really spoke to me, he made the point that Australia is in a strong position, in every sense of the word – financially, members-wise, leadership-wise, and he felt that we were in the unique position where we can afford to take risks, to “trailblaze”, as he put it. He was absolutely right, we had a great leadership and we also had the benefit of a wide age-spread at NAGM. The youth are often referred to as the future of the organisation, but I like to think that we are an integral part of the present as well. Later in the day, the resolutions generated some very interesting discussion and debate although the nature of resolutions themselves seems very ad hoc. My attitude towards resolutions in general, while I appreciate that they serve a very important role in the running of an organisation such as Amnesty, can be summed up thus in my joke resolution (disclaimer: to those whom I inadvertently attack personally, please don’t take it personally, it IS intended as a joke).

After lunch on Sunday, the participants who were in attendance at the youth summit were asked to take part in a short filming session with the intention of providing footage for a short video aimed at other like-minded youth. Interestingly, the male members of our group were strongly encouraged to do a spiel for the video and were also “stategically placed” in photos to make it look like there are more guys – this was done with the purpose of attracting more males to Amnesty International (which currently is about 2/3 female). I would’ve thought that making it look like there are less guys and more girls would do the trick… but hey, what do I know, I’m just another male ballet dancer. Due to technical difficulties, this task spilled way over time and we unfortunately missed the first round of workshops after lunch. We did however manage to catch the last round of workshops and a nifty video about Economic, Cultural and Social rights, a very new and exciting area for Amnesty International to get into. My workshop was a presentation on Amnesty’s views regarding the use of force, a very touchy area especially recently considering the polar-opposite cases of Rwanda and Iraq. After going through that whole thing in a somewhat rushed manner, NAGM was finally officially over. Phew.

Afterwards, I sat around at the bar and chilled with some of my cool new friends Mark, Krista and Darrel from the ACT, Jeremy from WA (police brutality at a police station etc…) and Jules from Vic (alright, they weren’t all technically new friends). I drove the six and a half hour trip back to Melbourne a little sad for having left such a concentrated environment of energetic activists and also a little anxious about starting what should be my last semester of uni… maybe ever. However, I look forward to the challenges that lie ahead, most notably “Stand Up For Your Rights” – the comedy night, and I feel that I not only learned a great deal from NAGM but that I also contributed a little bit to the movement and that NAGM was just a little bit better for my having attended. In a world so full of uncertainty, I am glad to be in a position where I can say that I am “still young” and be able to count that as a strength. Uncertanties aside, one thing is certain, I am very much looking forward to NAGM in 2006.