A Wake-Up Call for NGOs

[Valin]

Foreign Policy:

On the margins of the Oslo Freedom Forum, Tunisian activist Amira Yahyaoui offers a sharp critique of the professional human rights community.

Ilya Lozovsky

June 5, 2015

 

I’ve just returned from a trip to the Oslo Freedom Forum. Described as a “Davos for revolutionaries,” the OFF is perhaps the world’s highest profile human rights conference. The Forum is particularly known for its high-profile speakers, and this year did not disappoint: Charlie Hebdo columnist Zineb el-Rhazoui gave a stirring tribute to her murdered colleagues, former Hizb ut-Tahrir member Shiraz Maher shed light on the appeal of extremism, and North Korean defector Ji Seong Ho recounted his impossible escape from North Korea in a presentation that, by the end, left even his interpreter in tears.

 

Yet my favorite moment was the opportunity to talk one-on-one with Tunisian activist Amira Yahyaoui, who fled to Paris in 2004, at the age of 20, after being pursued by secret police for her opposition to the regime of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. After the Arab Spring swept his dictatorship away in 2011, Yahyaoui returned to her country, where she has become one of its highest profile human rights activists. That certainly hasn’t stopped her from speaking her mind. Taking the stage in Oslo, she delivered a stinging rebuke to the international human rights community, warning about the dangers of complacency and disconnection. Sensing that Amira had plenty more in store, I chased her down during a break between events, and heard both a stirring acclamation of her country’s democratic revolution — and a sharp critique of the world of non-government organizations.

 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

 

 

FP: In your presentation, you talked about the lack of political participation among youth. Why did you decide to focus on that issue?

 

Yahyaoui: We’re very focused on human rights like freedom of expression, the right to believe, the right to attack sacred things — but not about normal people’s lives. In Tunisia, now that we have freedom of expression, it’s used by the tiny minority that has always fought for it. Of course it’s a very important right. But there are other issues that are not sexy enough for human rights defenders, like social justice, like political participation. We [activists] already have political participation; we took it, but for other people it’s not that easy.

 

I’ll give you a very simple example in Tunisia. We have a serious problem with rural women’s employment and social rights. And we spend half of our time talking about women’s rights — but for us women’s rights is the right to be in the parliament or to be president. But the basic rights — the rights of 99 percent of the population — are not at all discussed or even fought for. We do a revolution that began with social demands, and we change and reform everything but that. Can you imagine the people’s frustration? It’s a real hijacking.

 

But another thing I’m working on is creating a security and defense think tank. That’s a new thing that will be created in the next few weeks. And I’ll be working a lot with young people on radicalization.

 

FP: Is security a priority for you?

 

(Snip)

 

 

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FYI

 

Oslo Freedom Forum