Written by Tony Shawcross, Executive Director of the Open Media Foundation.
Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of working with the Cambodian Center for Independent Media in Phnom Penh. With a mission and vision similar to OMF, albeit in very different conditions, CCIM has emerged as the strongest voice in Cambodia against corruption- and in support of an engaged democracy. With two FM Radio stations, and a very popular website, they now have over 500,000 facebook followers and are expanding into more strategic use of social media and other new media efforts in partnership with local and international NGO’s, which is where OMF came in.
Our mission and vision are similar: fostering public awareness driven by the people, and not by government or commercial interests. However, it was quickly apparent that stakes are much higher for CCIM. Journalists criticizing public and private-sector corruption in Cambodia regularly face violence, arrest, and even murder, with impunity. The CCIM staff are so devoted to the ideal of free speech and open debate that they literally put their lives on the line to push for change and accountability. In the US, we’re fortunate that the risks are much lower, though upon reflection on both nations over the weeks I was gone, I couldn’t help but notice that in some ways we’re not as far apart as we’d like to think.
While in Cambodia, I regrettably missed Colorado’s Caucus, and was closely following the republican race, which I am finding to be the most engaging political drama of my lifetime. It’s not the outlandish statements made by the candidates that concern me the most: it’s their calls for the violent silencing of any dissent. Following from CCIM in Cambodia provided a unique backdrop from which to consider that it’s not just one crazy lone wolf with a big-money microphone, but a much more widespread shift. Trump’s crowds have demonstrated an eagerness to follow along, and it’s not just Conservatives or the religious right embracing insularism and censorship: college campuses, once thought to be bastions of progressive thinking, are ripe with recent stories of dissenting voices and members of the media being squashed in the name of “securing a safe space”.
Healthy discourse and dissent is uncomfortable, but organizations like OMF and CCIM exist to help people step-into that discomfort to find solutions that arise through a more diverse and inclusive process. Exercise of free speech, like many forms of exercise, is not an undertaking we follow because it is comfortable, but because the discomfort involved is a form of growth and a path towards a more healthy body- corporeal or electoral. In times like this, it can be especially exhausting to try to engage in discourse every time you hear and see messages that you feel push our society in a direction you don’t want us to go. However, having just seen the worst possible end result of a populace that didn’t step up against the oppressive forces of their society, OMF is here to remind you that we stand behind you, here to support you engaging through media and government. Together, we will respond, not by silencing dissenting voices, but by raising a chorus that truly represents all of us.
If our government can’t model that kind of healthy discourse for us, then we will model it for them.
