By Karen Kelly
Grade 10 student Patrick Leong stood up in front of an expert panel—and hundreds of high school students who had gathered to see them at Carleton University—with a question:
“How can we educate and help people in countries with dictatorships when the government has total control over the media?”
His question was not just a rhetorical one. His mother took part in the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 before immigrating to Canada. Leong says they still return to the country, and he’s been struck by the lack of critical conversation.
“My friends think China is the best system in the world. I’ve found it hard to challenge the messaging they receive. It controls the people,” said Leong. “I believe that kind of misinformation can cause people to commit these crimes.”
Leong was one of some 500 students who attended the “National Day of Remembrance and Action on Mass Atrocities” conference on Thursday, April 23 in Residence Commons. The event was organized by teachers and students at Sir Wilfrid Laurier High School and Colonel By Secondary School in Ottawa and hosted at Carleton University in partnership with the Faculty of Public Affairs.
“We have students in Ottawa from all over the world and we need to acknowledge that in our classrooms,” said organizer Tricia Leduc, who teaches history, law and conflict and crises at Colonel By. “Hearing from experts in the field really enriches their education.”
The conference began with a keynote address from James Orbinski, former president of Doctors Without Borders, followed by remarks by MP Paul Dewar; Sasha Hart, legal counsel for “the equality effect;” and Kyle Matthews of the Montréal Institute For Genocide Studies. The panel discussion was moderated by Norm King, a local activist on genocide issues.
Hart’s comments particularly resonated with students, as she described the failure of Kenyan police to enforce existing rape laws and to protect women from rape. Her group is lobbying Kenya’s High Court to address the issue.
In addition, Kyle Matthews spoke about a new campaign called #NO2DigitalExtremism to take back the internet from extremist groups. He believes that we need citizen engagement to make change and he called on tech-savvy individuals in the room to help.
Following the panel discussion, students broke up into discussion groups to talk about the liberation of concentration camps and the crisis in Syria. Jack MacLennan, a doctoral candidate in Carleton’s Department of Political Science, led the session entitled: “The Crises in Syria: Who is (Not) Helping in Syria Anyway?”
“I wanted to provoke them by saying that Syria is an abject failure: we’ve accomplished next to nothing,” said MacLennan, who is also a Junior Fellow at the Canadian Centre for the Responsibility to Protect at the University of Toronto. “But I wanted to show the ways that social media are helping normal Syrians stay in touch and track the crisis. Networks of information are springing up on their own and they need our attention, because through them we can find other means to act when the political will is lacking.”
As for next year, teacher Tricia Leduc is already making plans to open up the event to university students. “It would be a great experience for our kids to have the chance to mingle with the university community.”