Because the CNN interview is 2 minutes long, I will forgive them for not pulling my best quotes and for making me seem like a giddy school girl. On the other hand, I did get to say, "democratizer" on TV... a five syllable word, though probably not a real one.
The "gotcha" moment at the end with the empty General Assembly, I think kind of misses the point. Not to sound too cynical, but OF COURSE it was empty. The whole UN Citizen Ambassador initiative is essentially a response to this kind of failure. Traditional methods of communication and power structures in the organization--just like in governments everywhere--don't work. They're old-fashioned, inefficient, they consolidate power and they don't move and inspire people.
The UN Citizen Ambassador initiative is important because they found a way to quietly circumvent the system. They make it look like "outreach," but actually, it's "reach-in." At one point during my nearly 3 hour (!) CNN interview, Richard Roth went on a negative tangent about the how the UN is a closed system... [and in a CORRECTION, he does point out that we talked for 14 minutes, they followed me for the afternoon]...
He said, "I've covered the UN for 13 years. This is a club. They don't care what ordinary people think. If the general public wants to share an opinion, they schedule the meeting for 6pm on a Friday in the basement. What makes you think an ordinary citizen can even be heard?"
"Well," I said, "You've worked here 13 years. You could be on the 38th floor right now talking to Ban ki Moon. But you're not. You're talking to me. And I'm nobody."
In reality, it's not CNN's job to send my message, nor is it the UN's. And, my apologies to the General Assembly, because I know my message was supposedly to "world leaders"... but sometimes world leaders are ordinary people in extraordinary jobs. And other times, they are extraordinary people in ordinary jobs. They are people, for example, who watch YouTube.
That's why, ultimately, I decided not to make a policy statement as my message. My goal was to help us all, me included, reconnect with what is leadership... what is change.
I believe real change only happens when I can take personal responsibility for my own actions, when I can acknowledge and act on truth, when I can connect with other people's experiences and find strength in admitting failure.
For example, I just went to dictionary.com and discovered that "democratizer" actually is a word... huh. I got lucky. But! I would like you to know that I was ready! I was ready to tell you I was wrong!
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The Baltimore Sun article, which famously highlights my cats and "sticks of furniture."The Catonsville Times article
A great interview from The Road to the Horizon
And an older interview in The Road to the Horizon, about my work in Congo.
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Catch up with me on the Marc Steiner show on Baltimore radio 88.9 FM WMAA, Tuesday, January 5, between 5 and 7pm. I'll be discussing the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
http://www.steinershow.org/
Listen Live: http://www.weaa.org/
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This is a fantastic mini-documentary of the entire project and our day becoming UN Citizen Ambassadors...
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1 comments:
Hi Emily!! I watched the CNN video... the GA was empty!! too bad :( Still, I think the most important was the message given to the people through YouTube...
I loved your phrase: "sometimes world leaders are ordinary people in extraordinary jobs. And other times, they are extraordinary people in ordinary jobs."
Wow. You´re so right. Maybe the GA didn´t got the message, but hundreds of people on YouTube did, and I think that, although they might have ordinary jobs, surely they are extraordinary for being interested on this campaign and because they will continue passing on the message.
Congratulations on the interviews :) and have very happy holidays, may you accomplish all your goals on 2010, and continue having a lot of success as this year :)
Lots of love from Mexico,
Maricarmen Ortega :)
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