Human Rights

Spreading the word

Maia Leave a comment

Inspired by this article on Vegan.com, I have been working on becoming more active in supporting animal rights, human rights, veganism and the environment on as many sites as possible. After I read the article, I have also joined new social networks, just so I can spread my opinions wider.

In the past, I have to confess that I haven’t really felt at home on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. For instance, I think this is the third or fourth time I’ve joined MySpace, then deleted my account.

I have my favorite places on the web, where I feel I belong, where I enjoy hanging out, keeping in touch with my friends and so on. To some extent, I think I’ve become better at using my old favorites better, to get the word out.

After reading the article above, and this one, I have realized that I don’t have to “like” Facebook and Twitter or any of the other social networks, but I can still use them to get my message out.

If you are passionate about animals, veganism or any other cause, or for that matter anything else (in my case, for instance writing, books, languages, history) you can start too. You can use social networks to get your message out, whatever it is. That’s what those social networks are good for, in my opinion.

I won’t try to put the arguments in favor of this way of spreading the word, when others have done it so much better. If you’re interested, read the two articles I mention above.

Then, if you want to do what I have, start sharing URL:s to petitions, free donation sites and more. The more you share, the more people can get informed about important issues and causes.

And while you’re advocating your cause, you might find links to other interesting sites, funny images, food porn, quizzes etc. So I guess I don’t have as much against Twitter and so on, as I thought I did. Or maybe they’ve just grown on me.

There are heroes

Maia Leave a comment

There are heroes, and I don’t mean grown men chasing balls around a field, but real heroes who take risks to get their message out or to save someone. People who dare to go against the majority and speak up, while others lower their gazes in tacit agreement. One of these brave men is mr –  first name not mentioned in the article – Kambaskesh, 24 years old, from Afghanistan. He is accused of blasphemy for questioning the position of women in their country.

Originally, he was given the death penalty, but that was later changed to 20 years in prison. Among other things, he was accused of downloading an article from the internet and distributing that (with some additions he had written). One of them began as follows: This is the real islam. I’m sure there’s a completely different image of islam than the one we’re used to from the media. This is another, the one about this young man who dares to stand up against public opinion in Afghanistan – a country weighed down by traditions.