Rome, April 3rd, 2008.
In all the cases we have followed involving refugees and asylum seekers, we have received criticism from those who, in agreement with the immigration offices and authorities, ask us or even order us (using veiled threats) not to use the names of the people we are campaigning for.
It is now John Bosco Nyombi’s turn. It is no longer only government representatives who make this request, but also activists and people operating in the field of human rights. EveryOne was founded on the experience of important campaigns in favour of the fundamental rights of the individual and it is thanks to this experience that we are aware of how crucial this aspect is. That is why we always reply to those who send us these kinds of requests. Unfortunately, in many countries that are repressive towards immigrants, the people under the threat of deportation are often subjected to the same kind of pressure, either direct or indirect, and advised not to publicize their own names.
This is a big mistake, because in this way we don’t have faces and names of human beings to defend, but hundreds of Mr.Xs, anonymous and undifferentiated, people under the threat of deportation. They would become mere shadows, undefendable ghosts wrapped in the mists of indifference. This is how the lines of deportees are today. As they were in darker times.
If this line of thought and action were to spread, it would be the end of any true campaign for the human rights of refugees and asylum seekers. As the great activists of the past have taught us - from Oscar Schindler to Steve Biko, from Mordechai Anielewicz to Martin Luther King - when it comes to organising a human rights campaign, the victims’ will is not important, precisely because they lack the serenity to assess their own decisions. During the Holocaust, no Jew, Roma, or homosexual continued to use his or her own name once in the hands of the authorities.
By accepting anonymity the victims hoped to go unnoticed and survive much longer. Slavery, the Shoah, Apartheid, the persecution of the Roma, and the ethnic and racial purges are tragic phenomena that were made possible also thanks to this way of operating by some of the activists, a way of operating we recognise the good faith of, but cannot share. “Never fail to use the victims’ full names,” Tamara Deuel, a Holocaust survivor, told us a few years ago, “otherwise you will hand them over to their persecutors.
During the Holocaust we were even forced to forget our names. That’s how they were able to murder us, among general indifference”.
When faced with “advice” and pressure, John must have a lot of faith and courage, but he must not agree to being turned into a “Mister X”, another sacrificial lamb in an age when bleak xenophobic and racist ideals are resurfacing.
Gruppo EveryOne
Tel: (+ 39) 334-8429527 (+ 39) 331-3585406
