Frustrations

I’m the president of a human rights group on campus. I usually really enjoy my role in the organization, but over the past three weeks, I’ve had to do two things that I feel bad about.

I had to reprimand two of my officers. About four weeks ago, our group decided to screen the movie Blood Diamond, and use the screening as an opportunity to educate attendees about, what else, blood diamonds. Well, about one day before the screening date, two of my officers announced that they hadn’t put up the advertising fliers, and would not be making it to the screening. That was ok, because the room we’d reserved wasn’t so great for a movie anyway, so I agreed to reschedule it to this Saturday.

I sent out an officer-wide e-mail, assigning everybody various tasks. These same two officers not only didn’t do what they were told, they didn’t check in with me, and only revealed that they hadn’t done their job when I pressed them. I frantically called up my treasurer, who ended up filliing out some crucial paperwork so that the screening could go on as planned (a job that one of the irresponsible officers was supposed to do). They apologized with the excuse that they were too busy to do their job. Everyone is busy, and the least they could have done was tell me that they weren’t going to complete their responsiblities so that I could have assigned them to someone else.

And so, I threatened to fire them. This really sucks for our group, because it’s small and struggling, and needs all the help it can get. However, I have to have committed officers, or else how can we expect to get anything done.

My second problem has to do with Falun Gong. About two weeks ago, I was contacted by a grad student who told me he was a Chinese human rights activist. I was really interested and asked him to stop by our weekly meeting so that he could tell everyone about the types of things he does. Well, I should have asked if he was a Falun Gong member, but it didn’t cross my mind until it was too late.

I understand that horrible things have happened to the Falun Gong in China. Horrible, horrible things. However, it’s almost impossible to figure out the truth when dealing with them, because they (and the CCP) exaggerate and lie about facts and figures.

The grad student gave a propaganda rich presentation, and, despite the human rights abuses that Falun Gong had suffered, as well as the revolting images in his Powerpoint presentation, I had to frequently hold in my laughter at some of the ridiculous things he was saying.

I see striking similarities between the Li Hongzhi’s personality cult and Mao’s.

Anyway, this grad student wanted me and my group to sponsor a human rights lecture by some Falun Gong officials on campus. This presented me with a dilemma. On one hand, I should help them in my capacity as president of a human rights organization. On the other, doing so could get me banned in China. The grad student was getting Falun Gong and local press to cover the event, and I had no desire to have my name associated with it.

I haven’t spent all this time studying China and Chinese to get banned from China.

Is this selfish on my part? I don’t think so. For one, I don’t see what good this lecture could do. Moreover, I feel that I’ll be in a better capacity to help the people of China if I’m not banned.

Still, I can’t help but feel annoyed and disappointed every time I feel the effect of the Anaconda in the Chandelier.