The End of Forrest Gump, or: Why Amnesty International Exists

The evening of 20.06. looked like this for me: I arranged to meet Karla and Julius, whom I knew both more or less through a shared seminar at the university, for the first time for a joint in-person beer (see in contrast to this: Zoom beer). We had a nice time, walked through the streets and talked about the world, which with three political science students is probably inevitably always a political one. At a certain point we arrived at the question of whether the course of events on this planet (and throughout the entire universe) were long since predetermined or whether we had the power to help steer them as humans. We talked about Forrest Gump and how at the end of the film he said that perhaps both could be possible at the same time. We discussed and of course came to no conclusion. But we saw the danger that arises when one takes the former position, because: if everything really is predetermined, there is no reason whatsoever to do anything, to move anything, to stand up for anything one believes in. However, if that is not the case, a worldview like this quickly turns into a lazy excuse not to have to participate in the processes of the world, even if one feels the pressure to act. And herein lay the crux of our conversation: Julius is involved with the university group of Amnesty International in Würzburg, he feels the pressure to act; and because Amnesty does not believe that one can sit back in a world in which there is so much pain – caused by humans, experienced by humans, solvable by humans – Julius does not believe it either, nor do Karla and I.

Ok, I am aware that those were now many big words: humanity, the universe, the course of world events, pain or the pressure to act. I therefore want to become more concrete; when do we feel the pressure to act? We feel it when we really look: mass arrests in Turkey, immigration decrees in the USA, torture in Egyptian prisons and countless human rights violations in Syria. Made by humans, solvable by humans. The pressure to act.

Human rights defenders around the world also felt it four years ago when human rights defender Germain Rukuki was imprisoned because of his work in Burundi and was eventually sentenced to 32 years in prison; the members of Amnesty felt it. They campaigned for Rukuki with an Urgent Action, a letter-writing marathon and a "Letter Against Forgetting". In 2021 his prison sentence was reduced to one year. Rukuki would sit 31 more years separated from his family in prison if the activists in question had relied on a predetermined fate and put their feet up.

If they had put their feet up, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara would still be sitting in prison in Cuba, just as activists would still be arrested in Poland. If they had put their feet up, Shagufta Kausar and Shafqat Emmanuel, an Indian couple, would now be executed.

But when suffering is alleviated by humans, it can unfortunately also be caused by humans again. Providing help is therefore never something one-off, never something crystalline, it is not a status quo on which one can rest one's conscience. Standing up for what one believes in is something continuously active. Principles can be attacked anew each time, which is why they must equally be defended anew each time. Amnesty's principles are those of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And the members of Amnesty are continuously active, continuously defending what makes up our society. Even today, in this very second. They are doing so by carrying out human rights awareness-raising work all over the world. But they are also doing so with petitions against the charges of #ElHiblu3 or for the freedom of Nasrin Sotoudeh, an Iranian human rights lawyer who was sentenced to 38 years in prison. They are doing so with Urgent Actions, such as currently in Indonesia, Cambodia or Egypt (to name the most recent ones). And they will – regrettably – continue to be continuously active, continuously defending…

The evening of 23.06. looked like this for me: I sat together with Karla for the first time at a meeting of the university group of Amnesty, Julius had asked us on Sunday whether we wanted to stop by. We listened together to a presentation on escape routes across the Mediterranean, which was given by three fellow students. I presumed, at least that's what I thought, that they gave the lecture because they too could feel the pressure to act. I looked it up later that evening: more than 10 million supporters of Amnesty in over 150 countries probably feel it. And they act, in big ways and in small ways.

During the meeting I suddenly thought again about the end of Forrest Gump and about the question of whether we could determine the course of events or whether we were at their mercy. I have no idea, but I am firmly convinced that it is the wrong way to withdraw and let the world be the world whilst this question remains forever unanswerable. Karla and I now go to the Amnesty university group meeting every Wednesday, we no longer want to sit back. We no longer want to look away, but rather learn to understand things: escape routes, as on 23.06., for example. And that is why our 30.06., our 07.07. and every Wednesday thereafter will look like us participating in Amnesty meetings. Perhaps we'll see each other…

Jonas Grill