Time to shun Amnesty International
13th December 2011
Last October, when Bush traveled to British Columbia, the group demanded that Canada arrest him as well. At the time, Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney blasted Amnesty, declaring, “This kind of stunt helps explain why so many respected human rights advocates have abandoned Amnesty International.”
One of the chief problems with advocacy groups is that they are obsessed with ‘raising consciousness’, even when it works against their nominal ‘mission’. Couple this with the degree of self-righteousness needed to devote considerable amounts of one’s time to hectoring others about how they ought to behave, plus a noticeable degree of narcissism reflected in their constant need for public attention, and one has a very disgusting conjunction of some of the ugliest aspects of the human personality. One might forgive them their sins if they were effective, but chiefly they aren’t — I know of no case where Amnesty International (or any similar group) has had any positive effect on human rights in the countries where it is most at risk; a moment’s though is sufficient to figure out why. Pretty sad, really.