Flight or Fight? The Dissidents' Struggle

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Panelists:

Irwin Cotler
Executive Director, InterAmicus; Professor of Law, McGill University; Lawyer, Nelson Mandela, Natan Sharansky, Wole Soyinka; Special Adviser, Palestinian Humans Rights Organization

Monique Mujawamariya
Rwandan Human Rights Activist, Human Rights Watch

Haider Al Nasri
Iraqi Engineering Student; Internee, Rafha Refugee Camp, Northern Saudi Arabia

Jamyang Norbu
Founding Director, Amnye Machen Institute for Advanced Tibetan Studies; Director, Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts, Dharamsala

Jian-Li Yang
Executive Director, Foundation for China in the 21st Century

Moderator:
Lauren Kadi
EPIIC Colloquium

James Baldwin's words poignantly conceptualize one aspect of the mentality of dissent and revolution that has marked history, particularly in the last century. When governments perceive a revolutionary threat, either reasonably or unreasonably, from the individuals and groups who are outspokenly opposed to the status quo, there are distinct personal and political consequences. In many cases, dissidents and the people close to them are the objects of harassment, threats, imprisonment, torture, and even death, as the result of a regime's desire to remove its opposition. These individuals, with their overwhelming commitment to their belief and purpose, must frequently make difficult decisions, including that of flight or fight.

Can they affect the change they seek most effectively from within the country, or must they do so in exile? In many cases, it is a choice that they are not even given. Dissidents are often expelled against their will from their homeland, imprisoned or tortured, and released on the condition that they flee into exile. Further, governments often view the forced expulsion of entire social classes or ethnicities as a way of transforming the country's social and political structure, thus creating an entire diaspora of people.

The names of some of the individuals who have faced these horrendous circumstances are instantly recognizable; Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Wei Jingsheng, Lech Walesa, and Daw Aung Sang Suu Kyi are familiar late twentieth century icons. Most of the names go unrecognized, however. They are activists in countries from Cuba to Burundi, from Kenya to China. They respond to their oppression with the response that Albert Hirschman calls the most dangerous: "voice". Some are prisoners; others are the thousands of political refugees who have chosen exit. They are people who have voted with their feet, those who have left in order to protect their lives or the lives of their loved ones.

The consequences of these decisions are significant, both for the individuals involved, and for the international community. To stay can mean increasing danger to the dissident and particularly to those with whom they associate. Flight, however, is a deceptive word. Flight means abandoning one's homeland and everything that is familiar and known. It puts distance between the dissident and his or her movement; many of the individuals forced into exile spend a great deal of time fighting to get back home. Flight, however, offers several distinct advantages, including a new ability to lobby host governments for foreign policy that favors their movement, as well as an escape from the censorship that often marks authoritarian regimes.

Significant ramifications of flight exist for international politics. Refugee flows that result from political persecution first add to the overall asylum dilemma involved in the current global migration crisis. They also create potentially volatile conflicts among nations, as evidenced by the United States' reluctance to grant asylum status to Chinese dissidents following the Tiananmen Square uprising. One nation's criminal, another nation's refugee.

The human and political consequences of revolution and dissent, and the persecution of revolutionaries and dissidents, make their exploration imperative.