Arriving in Acedemia

They want me to regurgitate in my own words the academic babble we have been listening to and reading back at them in the form of essays, critical annotated bibliographies, comments in class and in analyzing human rights violations within United Nations guidelines.  I can do that I have been part of grass roots human rights movements since 1971.  But let me tell you the anarchist in me will never surrender to the structured maze of human rights protection bureaucracy which in the long run may help in academia but everyday I look at this stuff wanting someone from the ivory tower to go out and do something from the heart an action, an act of generosity anything besides go around spouting intellectual concepts that take up time instead of taking action. 

My class mates are the inspiring part of this program.  It's the personal stories that are making the difference.

At a glance, we will be reading thousands and thousands of pages on academic works, writing more than 10,000 words just during this term.  I’m lucky English is my first language I can’t imagine doing this with English as my second or third language.

 

I am the oldest person by at least a decade maybe more.  Just not one of the gang.  Luckily we all have so much work we don’t have time for any socializing.  I have organized a gay film social event.  LBGT rights are mentioned almost every day country by country, community by community, human rights violation by human rights violation followed by what is being done or suppressed, it’s daunting.

Before I came I didn’t know why I wanted to be in this program, for more than two years I thought of coming here setting the stage exploring what human rights looks like in my home town by doing internships but I didn’t have a clear reason.  After on one week here I can tell you that at home I was bursting at the seams about the situation in my country but knew that problems were worst in other parts of the world.  Back home I did some writing for speeches for  Toastmasters not all on politics but enough so that my fellow toastmasters knew I had leftist politics and probably more left than they have but here in the master’s program so far I have written three thousand words worth of papers on different human rights issues, I get to research and explore situations like the LBGT human rights violations in Jamaica, the war crimes during the Bosnian war when after the war for the first time in history men were convicted of sexual violence during armed conflict, I get to read about how some in the international human rights community are proposing bringing cultural, gender and national diversity to the language and culture of the United Nations.  This is just the beginning of this amazing journey.