The concept of human rights has existed for a long time, but in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) established “universal human rights.” After the atrocities of WWII, the UDHR’s authors recognized the need to formally declare that all humans deserved basic rights like the right to life, the right to freedom from torture, and the right to freedom from discrimination. Other human rights treaties – both binding and non-binding – have since emerged. Documents haven’t put an end to human rights violations, however. Injustices still flourish and activist movements around the world still call for governments, companies, and individuals to be held accountable. What does human rights activism look like?
Types of activist activities
Human rights activism comes in many forms. Any action calling for change and/or accountability counts as “activism.” Here are some of the key examples:
Letter-writing and petitions
Human rights activism has a long history of letter-writing and petitions. Advocacy organization Amnesty International runs Write For Rights, a letter-writing campaign that’s been held for two decades. It began in Poland with a group of friends who marked Human Rights Day with a 24-hour letter-writing marathon. Every December, people write letters, emails, postcards, tweets, and Facebook posts in support of human rights defenders, prisoners, and others. According to Amnesty, Write for Rights has become the world’s largest human rights campaign.
Petitions have also played a role in activism. In 2004, 16-year old Cyntoia Brown fatally shot a man. Despite her defense of having been sex trafficked and in fear for her life, she was sentenced to life in prison. In 2018, after the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that Brown needed to serve at least 51 years in jail before being eligible for release, a petition on Change.org called for the governor to grant her clemency. Governor Haslam commuted her sentence and Brown was released.
Protests and marches
Protests involve more than marching, though pictures usually focus on groups walking with signs. Protests also include sit-ins, lie-ins, concerts, vigils, speeches, and other community events. They’re often organized around a theme. Because of their large size and often violent response from governments and police, protests and marches are some of the best-known forms of activism.
In China, peaceful protests began in 1989. They mostly involved students who wanted a more democratic political system in light of the government lifting some restrictions on the economy. In Tiananmen Square, which is at the heart of Beijing, around one million protesters gathered to chant slogans, wave banners, and sing. Armed forces arrived. The Tiananmen Square Massacre ended with thousands killed and over 10,000 people arrested. Not every protest ends so violently, but it can be dangerous for participants.
Strikes and boycotts
Boycotts and strikes often work in tandem. Workers will strike in a variety of situations, such as when they’re facing dangerous work environments or receiving low pay. Strikes are called when workers cannot come to a resolution with management. Striking workers will often ask consumers to boycott goods and services made by the company to pressure them to accept the workers’ terms. Other groups often call for boycotts if a company is discovered to have unethical practices, like the use of child labor, or a certain political stance that threatens human rights.
Strikes don’t always involve specific companies. In 1975, 90% of the women in Iceland went on strike to prove their importance to society. Factories, banks, stores, and schools had to close. Women also took the day off from domestic work, so men had to take care of children while women rallied in the streets. Five years later, Vigdis Finnbogadottir became Europe’s first female president and the first woman in the world to be democratically elected as a head of state.
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What is “everyday activism?”
Many people earn their living working at activist NGOs and organizations, but the vast majority don’t make money from their activism. You don’t need a specific degree or special qualifications before you’re allowed to take action in your everyday life. Things like speaking up when you see injustice in public, staying updated on human rights news, and examining how you might be participating in oppressive systems are all important. Many areas have local activist groups, as well, where inexperienced activists can learn from others and understand how collective movements work.
The role of social media in human rights activism
There’s a lot of debate surrounding the role – and impact – of social media on human rights. It clearly has its uses. First, it can connect groups of people who would normally never meet. It can also connect activists with a potential audience numbering in the billions. Before this kind of technology, activists would be more limited when it came to raising awareness. The accessibility of social media also makes it easier for more people to participate in human rights activism.
On the other hand, social media also has a track record of harming human rights. Take Facebook, for example. Facebook has millions of users in Myanmar and for many people, it’s their main news source. Ultra-nationalist Buddhists exploited this fact and used the platform to spread hatred against Muslims. This created a powder keg that ignited in 2017 when Myanmar’s army cracked down on Rohingya Muslims. Thousands died and more than 700,000 were forced to flee to Bangladesh. UN experts concluded that the hatred posted on Facebook enabled the genocide. Facebook admitted it hadn’t done enough to prevent hate speech. In 2021, dozens of Rohingya refugees in the US and UK sued Facebook. It’s clear that social media is a useful tool for human rights activism, but its threat to human rights must also be recognized.
What happens when human rights activism becomes trendy?
On the surface, the idea that everyone can be an activist isn’t bad. In fact, it empowers people to acknowledge a problem and recognize a responsibility to do something. Collective movements are made of individuals who have taken on the mantle of activism. However, can this “everyone is an activist” belief have a downside? What does it look like when human rights activism suddenly becomes trendy?
Blackout Tuesday and what defines performative activism
Blackout Tuesday began as #theshowmustbepaused, a 2020 campaign started by two Black women in the music industry. With an Instagram post of a black square, they asked the music industry to pause activities and consider how it disenfranchised Black employees. In response, a wave of people started posting black squares with hashtags like #blacklivesmatter. When people searched the hashtag #blacklivesmatter, a wall of black squares popped up, hiding educational content and frustrating seasoned activists. Why did so many people feel compelled to post squares despite their ineffectiveness?
For our purposes, performative activism is activism that fails to consider the effectiveness of an action and only or primarily serves to boost the ego of the would-be activist. It’s undertaken (often subconsciously) to gain social capital, including admiration from others and the internal satisfaction of “being a good person,” rather than affect real change. Once someone benefits from the social capital of, say, posting a black square, they often move on. Defining a “performative” act is complicated. While some people consider all forms of social media activism performative, there are many situations where a post about human rights can get a person arrested or killed. The belief that only certain acts (like protests or donations) are “legitimate” also assumes these can’t ever be performative, which isn’t accurate. We want to be clear that performative activism is less about specific actions and more about intent and impact.
“The Activist” and monetizing activism
The corporate world often engages in performative activism for good PR. With the show “The Activist,” CBS blatantly tried to capitalize off it. In September 2021, CBS announced a reality series featuring six activists working on causes related to health, education, and the environment. However, the show measured success through online engagement, social metrics, and the input of celebrity hosts. The show also pitted the activists against each other for a chance to raise funds for their cause. People were immediately outraged, leading CBS to scrap the show just days after announcing it. This was a clear example of a corporation seeing human rights activism as “trendy” and wanting to monetize it. The fiasco can’t be blamed only on CBS. Global Citizen, an advocacy group that’s faced criticisms for its tactics in the past, produced the show but later issued an apology.
Human rights activism: a long walk
Human rights activism is challenging. Planning and organization factor into an action’s effectiveness, but that doesn’t always lead to success, especially if the activist movement targets entrenched systems and powerful governments prone to authoritarian responses. Countless people have been harassed, tortured, and killed for their activism, including for tweets, like the one posted by Nabeel Rajab, a once-imprisoned human rights activist from Bahrain. This is why we firmly believe social media counts as real activism. Any form of activism that can lead to retaliation is real.
Many activist movements wait years to see progress. Often, so much time passes that the original activists have died. Combined with the life-threatening risks and society’s short attention span, human rights activism is far from glamorous. However, as Black social reformer and abolitionist Frederick Douglas said in 1857, “Power concedes nothing without a demand.”
